[foaf-dev] Re: Social Networks that use FOAF

[Dom Ramsey]

On 24 Mar 2008, at 12:13, Sören Auer wrote:

> > Guess what. Tribe.net turned off FOAF completely.
>
> To me it is pretty obvious why (larger) social networks are not very  
> interested in FOAF - they are evaluated, gain users and  
> (advertising) revenues by page views and consequently are not eager  
> to give out the data e.g. as FOAF.

I've yet to see any truly useful application of FOAF, and there's  
little point in social networks maintaining a feature that users don't  
care about.

In fact, in my experience, most users who understand the implications  
of FOAF would rather *not* have it. There are simply too many privacy  
concerns and it's way too easy for a site to make false assertions  
about its users (just because I added you to my "favorites" doesn't  
mean I consider you a friend or even "know" you).

The only other people really benefiting from FOAF are the likes of  
Google and ad networks who will use the data to target ads at users.

For social networks - and more importantly, for users, there is little  
or no benefit to implementing FOAF.


Dom