Get Your Space Face On

I count myself lucky to have met Marc Canter last year. I didn't really grok his Digital Lifestyle Aggregator (DLA) concept at the time (though I'm clearer now), but what it has definitely given me is a framework in which I can start to place contemporaneous developments as diverse as Google's OpenSocial initiative and KylieKonnect (an entire social networking site devoted to Kylie Minogue) in context.

Tedious and pretentious as much of the MySpaceFaceBookYadaYadaYada noise is, there is a kernel of truth there and we are potentially on the brink of another round of profound changes online.

I'm trying to persuade clients to take advantage of some of the opportunities that social sites offer today, but in a much more down to earth way.

My approach is based on exploiting the economies of scale that result from the Internet's relentless commoditisation of storage and distribution of media types.

Imagine my surprise to see an excellent example of it in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's web presence. Look at this page about the Saudi Arabia State Visit; video is hosted and embedded from YouTube and photos are hosted and embedded from Flickr.

This rids the FCO of much of the overhead in managing and serving media files and also gives it extra online presence, visibility and distribution on http://www.flickr.com/photos/foreignoffice and http://www.youtube.com/user/ukforeignoffice.

It is very clever. I'm torn between feeling vindicated and a little put out that I'm not as original as I sometimes imagine.