July 2008

First topic — Facebook Connect launched last week. It lets you add Facebook identity to any web site. It’s a bit like OpenID, but with the backing of Facebook. Plus, it has the ability for you to populate your Facebook news stream with data from that site, and for applications that aren’t part of Facebook to access your social graph.

Is this a good idea? Or is it a privacy busting virus from the folks that brought you beacon? Our consensus was that it was probably a good idea. Facebook is distributing apps across the social graph, and that can only be good for everybody.

We also discussed the talk last week that iPhone was for the Rich, and Android for the masses. Show us the phones, we said. Even so, we believe that Android will be a success, and will change the dynamic of the phone industry. Listen to the call to learn why.

And lastly we chatted about Cuil, the new search engine that launched last night. A couple of folks had tried it. Pluses: The layout is nice, as is the related items feature. Minuses: the index isn’t as complete as it could be yet.

What would it take to really beat Google at this game, though? Or maybe Cuil’s strategy is simply an exit to Microsoft.