The Firefox browser is going social. The Mozilla foundation, parent of Firefox, has announced Coop, a browser extension that incorporates social networking right in the Firefox browser. Bringing social networking right into the browser is something I have wished for for a long time. Why put up with Myspace and all the other badly designed social nets when you should be able to control how and when you participate? This is perfect timing, especially with all the Twitter hype happening. I talk more about Coop over at Theprogressbar. This is going to be a closely-watched story for all those involved with social networking.
Online dating sites would do well to pay attention. I’ll pay for access to profiles, but let me view, interact and communicate with people how I want to, on my own terms. Why should I subscribe to your idea of what a dating site should look like and how it functions?
Imagine selecting from dozens of search engines, profile display systems, games,video and chat features. Why wait for your dating site to get with the program when you can roll your own experience.
It will have to be Apple-simple for most people. Managing the tradeoff between freedom and flexibility with “just show me some single people” will be a Jobsian effort.
Years from now we’ll scratch our head thinking about paying to access dating and social profiles on a website. All of this is moving to web services, slowly but surely. Coop is not even remotely ready for prime time. Let’s hope the initial release gets us excited and continues moving us towards open profiles.
