Porting the social functionality of FB provides a powerful connectivity layer which YouTube has so far lacked. The Fan base can be grown through the personal newsfeed, while privacy can be controlled and propagates through to YouTube or any other platform.

The thing I find really interesting is the idea of using your social connections and behaviour to validate who you really are.

Google recently introduced a feature which enables users who are logged into a Google account to leave comments. This looks very much like a move towards at least the possibility of social search. By analysing the search and browsing behaviour as well as your email/talk network, it shouldn’t be too difficult to identify a real user from a auto-generated fake account.

The SEO community have argued that social search (i.e. taking social signals to influence organic search results) is unlikely to happen until you can trust those signals.

I’m looking forward to seeing how Coke’s Green Eyed World benefits from the authenticity provided by FB connect.

If you want to understand a bit more about traditional login based identity compared to what it may look like in a network, I’d recommend reading Adriana’s post ‘Bringing identity home a VRM view.

I’ve been convinced for some time that all financial services will be transformed to some degree by the network.

I’m not convinced by Jeff’s argument that insurance is somehow immune to the network because of the inherent fraud and mistrust in this industry. Yes it exists when both sides stand to gain so much, but in a co-operative system only one side can gain. And that person is up against a network of highly connected individuals who collectively has something to lose. Getting caught cheating the community is a much worse than losing to a corporation.

Regulations governing financial products are considered another nail in the coffin to a co-operative utopia. But, much of the regulations governing Financial Services have evolved to protect both customer and profits. How will things change in a non profit scenario where regulation are there to protect the one entity?

Even if the insurance industry will not benefit from the network inputs driving MyStarbucks, I can see Vendor Relationship Management (VRM) principals embedding into the insurance industry very easily. OK it’s not going to be ani-insurance or necessarily replace insurance companies as we know em. But enabling the customer to control their data and allowing multiple quotes from a single data feed has obvious advantages. Insurance aggregators currently fill this space, but they take their cut which doesn’t particularly help providers compete on price – one of the biggest drivers in motor insurance.

This should be a regular monthly, so look out for the dates on the project wiki. see you next time…