Yahoo and Facebook tie-up

Beginning during the first half of 2010 Yahoo users will be able to to combine their activity streams between yahoo and Facebook. Currently the Yahoo homepage allows visitors to check their Facebook stream in a preview window without leaving the site.

"At some point in the first half of 2010, Yahoo users will be able to see their friends' Facebook activities directly within "Yahoo updates", while activity on Yahoo sites like Flickr may be automatically re-posted to the Facebook news feed."

The most important debate that has popped up is this. Who will be the primary social identity on the web. Facebook wants to be No1. with FB connect and so does Google with it's friend connect. Fb has since changed the whole scene. With it's 350 million users it can now be separate and  other sites would need to collaborate with it, instead of the other way around. Yahoo stands to gain from this deal rather than the other way around. What happens then to OpenID. Which was supposed to have grown and become the social web's primary identity.

This snippet from BusinessWeek explains it quiet clearly

"The Yahoo-Facebook tie-up may deal the strongest blow to OpenID, a movement to create a non-proprietary standard for identity and authentication on the Web. Some advocates for OpenID contend that the use of Facebook as an ID by millions of Internet users consolidates too much power in the hands of one company.

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Sociolatte