Microsoft Partners with Top Social Networks to Put Users at the Center of their Data
Hey folks, John Richards here, Director of Windows Live Platform. — Today Microsoft is announcing some significant developments to the Windows Live platform that demonstrate Microsoft's commitment …
Context & Ripple Effects
Microsoft had already positioned Windows Live as part of a plan to embed Live services in Windows, then recast the effort around software and services. The social-network partnerships extend that strategy from Microsoft-owned products to users' contacts and data across external services.
The announcement also follows Microsoft's stated support for OpenID, making user-controlled identity and data portability a coherent platform position rather than an isolated Windows Live feature.
First-order effects
- Windows Live users gain a Microsoft-backed route to manage data connected to participating social networks, while those networks gain integration with Microsoft's Live platform.
- Microsoft shifts Windows Live's value proposition toward being an intermediary for users' social data rather than only a destination for Microsoft services.
Second-order effects
- Other social-network and identity providers face pressure to offer comparable portability or risk making their users' data less useful across services.
- Windows Live's platform partners become more important to Microsoft: the usefulness of its social-data features depends on maintaining interoperable relationships rather than controlling every service itself.
Third-order effects
- If major platforms keep competing on user-controlled identity and data exchange, differentiation shifts toward the trust, permissions, and integration layers that govern access to that data.
The trend: Consumer internet platforms are moving from closed service silos toward partnerships that make identity and social data portable across services.