Open Connections (OConn) is a way of connecting profiles in an open and secure fashion. The goals of the project are to develop a REST protocol that will be submitted to a standards body and to develop an open source implementation of that protocol. OConn itself is built around open standards such as OAuth and OpenID.
The evolution of social networks during the last decade has followed that of content in the 1990s. Service providers such as America Online™, CompuServe™, and Prodigy™ built online communities around content and attempted to keep their communities inside so-called walled gardens. The big social networks of the past decade have followed the same path.
Initially, the walled garden has a strong appeal. Rich content and new features keep people coming back. Over time, the enthusiasm fades and people begin to notice cracks in the masonry.
Some problems with the current social networks are data privacy and the related sharing or selling of profile data to 3rd parties. These problems stem from a root cause: all your data belongs to a single company. We have a situation today in which nearly 6% of the world’s population keep their private profile information stored with one corporation. A corporation with a poor track record of being entrusted with it.
In the same way that HTTP and HTML allowed people to connect their pages together with hyperlinks, OConn will allow people to connect their profiles by relationships. The Web’s basic protocol and data format allowed an infinite variety of content, applications, and services to be developed. In the same way OConn will provide a solid and secure foundation for a new class of content and services.
It is time for people to take control of their own profiles and data. It’s time to move beyond the walled gardens.
