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

[Michael Wechner]

Dom Ramsey wrote:

>
> 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.


I don't think the users should see FOAF actually

>
> 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).


I don't think that's the problem of FOAF itself, but rather how it is 
being used

>
>
> 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.


if FOAF is catching up and various webapp providers (as Sören is 
pointing out) are using FOAF in the background to exchange information 
(of course on the user's permission), then the user will profit a lot 
(without actually knowing that FOAF is being used)

Cheers

Michael

>
>
> Dom
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foaf-dev mailing list
> foaf-dev at lists.foaf-project.org
> http://lists.foaf-project.org/mailman/listinfo/foaf-de
> v



-- 
Michael Wechner
Wyona      -   Open Source Content Management - Yanel, Yulup
http://www.wyona.com
michael.wechner at wyona.com, michi at apache.org
+41 44 272 91 61