Robert Scoble is a geek who grew up in Silicon Valley and is the chief troublemaker at http://building43.com/ and blogs at http://scobleizer.com/
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Rackspace Building43
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Pinehurst Lane
Half Moon Bay, CA, 94019
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425-205-1921
Birthday:
January 18, 1965
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Robert Scoble

Robert Scoble Who will win the great identity war of 2010? Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, Google, PayPal, or someone else?

December 23, 2009 at 4:46pm · Comment ·
  • Parthasarathi Varatharajan, Martin Koose, Anne Dominique Mayor and 21 others like this.
    • Robert Scoble Jennifer: the reason this thread has so many people on it is because of Twitter. So much for it drooling.
      December 23, 2009 at 5:39pm · Report
    • Brian Hendrickson ActivityStrea.ms are made of people!
      December 23, 2009 at 5:40pm · Report
    • Mark Nielsen Actually I caught your FB stream before I saw the tweet about the discussion.
      December 23, 2009 at 5:42pm · Report
    • Jeff Sandquist prediction: the users will lose.
      December 23, 2009 at 5:48pm · Report
    • Brian Hendrickson Robert remember your blog post "brand-building mistakes French entrepreneurs make"? one of the French commenters: "The centralized aspects of the “new means of communications” you speak of make them feel very old to me" http://bh.ly/20
      December 23, 2009 at 5:50pm · Report
    • Mark Nielsen ‎@Jeff - I disagree. If they can understand you better and offer you more relevant content as an individual then I don't consider that a loss, it's a win-win relationship!
      December 23, 2009 at 5:50pm · Report
    • Robert Scoble Jeff: we always seem to get squeezed, don't we?
      December 23, 2009 at 5:51pm · Report
    • Robert Scoble Mark Cooper: like I said, FriendFeed is not where the action is anymore. Bums me out!
      December 23, 2009 at 5:51pm · Report
    • Thomas Cook I think in 2010 people will want to filter out the noise and zero in on what interests them most. Sites like Politics4All.com where they can easily engage around a subject that's interests them the most will be where they want to focus their efforts.
      December 23, 2009 at 5:52pm · Report
    • Jeff Sandquist ‎@Mark -- still waiting to benefit from an identity. right now the identity services do benefit disproprotionally over the users.
      December 23, 2009 at 5:54pm · Report
    • Mark Nielsen ‎@Jeff I won't disagree with that current state but I hope we will see a greater benefit soon.
      December 23, 2009 at 6:03pm · Report
    • Miles Beckett
      Facebook, but only if they start sharing user emails with developers AND if their latest privacy policy changes don't blow-up in their face and hurt their trust with users (time will tell). The thing is, if they do start sharing emails the...y'll open themselves up to attack by competitors... the biggest of which is Google in IMHO... so it's kinda a chicken/egg thing... which is why they haven't yet and it remains to be seen how easy they make it when they do roll it out in 2010 per the roadmap. I think it's best for everyone if email is the "ID" for authentication because there's already some great UI work that Google did supporting the ease-of-use... it's basically just as easy as a "branded button" like "Connect with FB" and it makes it super simple for developers to parse the email and send a user to one of MANY centralized identity providers and then just authenticate using whatever stack they support (preferably OpenID/oAuth for ease-of-implementation). Anyway... we shall see....See More
      December 23, 2009 at 6:17pm · Report
    • Jay Neff def NOT PayPal
      December 23, 2009 at 6:20pm · Report
    • Vic Berggren Anyone != Microsoft
      December 23, 2009 at 6:23pm · Report
    • Victor Panlilio I have profiles on all of the services Robert listed, and many more, and I just wish there was an easy way to consolidate all of them and maintain fine granularity on the access controls for different groups. That, to me, would be a genuine "win" for the users.
      December 23, 2009 at 6:24pm · Report
    • Michael T. Halligan Someone else. In fact, I'm betting on somebody else's mother.
      December 23, 2009 at 6:35pm · Report
    • Courtland Allen Facebook has a head start, but all of the above have a lot of friction to work against. Wouldn't be surprised if some unheard-of gets the scoop.
      December 23, 2009 at 6:39pm · Report
    • Brett Douglas Williams Facebook has a few yards head start... in a marathon.
      December 23, 2009 at 7:25pm · Report
    • Mike Veytsel
      First company to bring a biometric fingerprint reader with wireless capability and the right security protocols will have a huge headstart.

      This could come at first in the form of integration into smartphones, which companies like Apple or G...oogle are in a good position to do, since it will require the pairing of the hardware reader with a software platform to give end users a simple solution.

      More optimally for the end user but trickier to implement, a compact standalone reader will emerge which can store/manage an identity profile and be securely used as an authentication method through WiFi Direct (or perhaps Bluetooth).

      This solution is unified (not only logging into sites, but computers and devices, authorizing instore payments, etc.), easy (at the swipe of a finger, compact), secure (scanners aren't easy to fool, and can be used in tandem with a PIN or password), and relatively inexpensive.      See More
      December 23, 2009 at 7:47pm · Report
    • Brian Hendrickson I love what Victor Panlilio said! yes that would be a big win
      December 23, 2009 at 8:09pm · Report
    • Jennifer Small Robert: the reason less at least one (moi).
      December 23, 2009 at 8:31pm · Report
    • Aj Cates I really hope Facebook doesn't win. There technology is anything but open. And judging by the php code in there sdk, not well written.
      December 23, 2009 at 8:49pm · Report
    • Joshua Allen We'll all win :-)
      December 23, 2009 at 8:58pm · Report
    • Roger Maddy The ability to crosspost to all of them with one click. ;)
      December 23, 2009 at 10:04pm · Report
    • Rohit Prakash PayPal is in the list? I am surprised. I think facebook will will because of the millions of dollar someone pumped into it.
      December 23, 2009 at 11:32pm · Report
    • Mutimba Mazwi It's Microsoft:-)
      December 23, 2009 at 11:34pm · Report
    • Jesse Stay I agree completely with Chris. However I argue it will be the users, not the web that will win. In the end it's all about people having control over their own experience, no interference. I see the same vision Chris sees I think. My hope is that all the parties you mention can play a part in that (and more) - if they don't they will lose. People will win.
      December 24, 2009 at 12:48am · Report
    • Michael Slattery lol Scoble is doing Friendfeed on Facebook now
      December 24, 2009 at 7:40am · Report
    • Martin Chidi Is definitely going to be face book, why? face book is just like internet personified,I mean is like bring all internet activity on one platform.just imagine bring your dot com name to face book. pages holding photos and video's including article's what else.
      December 24, 2009 at 9:27am · Report
    • Kaliya Hamlin
      To start with I have an issue with the "frame" you are using if WAR.

      I would ask how are Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, Google, PayPal, etc going to COLLABORATE on level's never before seen to solve identity in a way that works for everyone ...most importantly END USERS / REGULAR PEOPLE so they are not trapped with any one corporate silo for their online identities.

      The identity community that has been working together and growing for 5 years meets at the Internet Identity Workshop (http://www.internetidentityworkshop.com/) every six months and talks a lot online in between has it's 10th workshop coming up in May.
      See More
      December 24, 2009 at 11:05am · Report
    • Kaliya Hamlin
      This community is actually a thriving network of real people with real relationships working across company and organizational boundaries to figure out this identity stuff out.

      At its foundation is a core "ideal" that pretty much everyone... participating is committed to on some level "The purpose of Identity Commons is to support, facilitate, and promote the creation of an open identity layer for the Internet, one that maximizes control, convenience, and privacy for the individual while encouraging the development of healthy, interoperable communities."

      This is a super complex set of both techno-social protocols being developed and we need to support engagement and collaboration - along with tech-conversation leaders like your self hosting space for dialogues about issues emerging as they get figured out. Rather then fermenting a "WAR" with your words and instigating distrust amongst competitive players that are getting along amazingly well.
      See More
      December 24, 2009 at 11:05am · Report
    • Chris Keene The frame of the question seems wrong. Not only is this a federated problem, but by definition, if one player seems to get too much ID-power, the others will band together to ensure that there is not a single winner-take-all outcome.
      December 24, 2009 at 11:26am · Report
    • Michael Slattery Now I've read the whole thread. First, Facebook Connect fails to work on lots of sites. The website has to activate it somehow, and even then my profile picture is missing half the time. Second, very few people figure out OpenID and OAuth (over Xmas I'll make time) - these are definitely for geeks only.
      December 24, 2009 at 11:29am · Report
    • Robert Scoble Kaliya: the players behind the scenes aren't talking about how they can play paddycake with each other, sorry. That's what I'm keyed in on. I hope your vision proves true, because it's the best one for us, but I'm a realist too and know that big companies often don't look out for us, but rather their own bottom lines.
      December 24, 2009 at 12:55pm · Report
    • Robert Scoble And, Kaliya, sorry, some parts of identity will be very specific to one company or another. Google knows who is linking to my stuff. Facebook knows my friend graph. Twitter knows where I am and what I'm talking about and experiencing. Foursquare knows even more where I am and what I'm likely to be doing there.
      December 24, 2009 at 12:56pm · Report
    • Kaliya Hamlin
      Sure Robert - different aspects will be at different companies & we need to have autonomy too.

      Have you been to IIW (we always invite you) The level of collaboration or perhaps better described as coopetition (cooperation+competition) is re...ally amazing. The people from different companies working on this problem all have relationships with each other - and have been struggling together on figuring this stuff out for years.

      I see an opportunity for more people who are web literate who want it to work for people to participate in the community. We need to put pressure on companies to release the data we generate to us - so we can collect it all on our own behalf. Google has the data liberation group which is interesting. Data Portability Project has it's EULA/ToS task force work - http://bit.ly/FYJe to help get a clearer for picture for end users if they own the data they generate on a service and they can get it out.
      See More
      December 24, 2009 at 1:13pm · Report
    • Christian Scholz If some of these would win then nobody really has won. Data Portability FTW!
      December 24, 2009 at 1:25pm · Report
    • Allen Tom Found this thread from @IdentityWoman on Twitter, and now we're discussing this on Facebook... My personal opinion is that "Real Identity" controlled by a single Identity Provider is too restricting, and that users and site owners will demand alternatives.
      December 24, 2009 at 2:43pm · Report
    • Michael Slattery Robert is right. Companies (big AND small) will naturally try to grab identity - the same way they gather our data in their silos. Who wants to make a cooperative social network? http://interdb.org/index.php?title=Cooperative_Social_Network (Zomg and I'm advocating this on FB even...)
      December 25, 2009 at 5:48am · Report
    • Kaliya Hamlin
      Micheal no one is talking about a "cooperative social network" - everyone is talking about open interoperability, open standards and not having one dominant player. Check out who attended IIW last time (http://iiw9.eventbrite.com/) and the ...results they speak for themselves.
      (http://iiw.idcommons.net/Notes_iiw9)
      The community has been working together for over 5 years.       See More
      December 25, 2009 at 12:25pm · Report
    • Frank Wray Kaliya is right. The biggest problem with not having some open framework is that Identity and providers of Identity will be left to a select few leaving us and the users of Identity Providers without options. And hopefully our Federal Government will not have a monopoly over this in the long term. Some of my thoughts at (http://identityinthecloud.blogspot.com/) or (http://www.twitter.com/freeIdentity)
      December 25, 2009 at 7:01pm · Report
    • Srini Kumar the intel community will figure out a way to create detailed databases on all of us because of exploding underwear.
      December 30, 2009 at 10:04am · Report
    • Andre Boyle
      I firmly believe that Facebook will continue to dominate but there seems to be little true innovation there. Microsoft will continue to evolve, albeith behind the times and twitter will continue to ride the celebrity enhance wave it's been ...on for a while now.

      I don't see anything desperately innovative from Paypal either to be hones, it is what it is, a mechanism ... a cog in an otherwise potentially more interesting system.

      To be truthful it's feeling all a bit same-ey. I think 2010 will have some of the smaller newstarts bringing something interesting to the party. Perhaps 2010 will truly be the year for Augmented reality apps.      See More
      January 2 at 3:49pm · Report
    • Andre Boyle What are the chances that Facebook will truly open up their system allowing us to get data OUT as well as IN? I suppose the question is "Does it matter?" People really don't seem that very much concerrned about the ownership and storage of their data, let alone the idea that they may want to move it on elsewhere at some point in the future.
      January 2 at 3:52pm · Report