I agree that a standards based web is probably never going to fly, just because restrictions to growth and usage are just not going to be accepted en masse.

Semantic web? Codewranglers’ wet dream.

However… even though I haven’t been following the discussion much, Open Social does sound somewhat useful.

Maybe it’s true that social networking needs its own ‘protocol’.

That’s what makes email work, after all. Despite all the different clients etc., the underlying protocol stays intact and interoperability stays intact.

And the mobile networks we have today would never be able to work with the thousands of different clients without uniform protocols.

So, yes to protocols and no to standards?

Kind of.

I can’t say I like the walled-garden future Facebook and others like it have drawn for us, so I hope SOMETHING useful happens in this space at any rate.