Exchanging contact data between social networking sites
Now this is a really interesting concept - and one that's going to make exchanging social networking contact data a lot more easy. John Richards has blogged about an agreement that we've put in place with Facebook, Bebo, Hi5, Tagged and LinkedIn so that contact details stored in one of these social networking sites can be exchanged with other social networking sites. (It's all in the Windows Live Contacts api's)
So if you're on Facebook for example, you can find your friends from the Live Contacts api, and also invite your social network buddies to join your Windows live contacts. Neat idea. Angus has some screenshots over on his blog about how credentials are collected. Collecting your private credentials to harvest contact data from outside networks, is known as “screen-scraping,” and it can put you at risk for identity fraud, phishing attacks, and spam.
This method doesn't use screen-scraping technology. Using “screen-scraping” social networks ask you for your private credentials, including your email address and password, in order to automatically login your email service and harvest your data. The site could store the your credentials, use them to make repeated logins to your account without you knowing, or even storing your data permanently without your consent. Using the Windows Live Contacts API to access contact data instead puts you in more control.
The API uses the Windows Live Sign-In page so you don't hand over your credentials to the social network. You authenticate directly to the secure sign-in page. You then get a consent screen that asks you for explicit consent to access your data. In some cases, the access that is granted is only limited to a brief period of time, or longer-term, but only at your discretion. In these cases, you can revoke access from the social network as well.
So, all in all it's a much safer way of accessing contact data and will avoid those applications that automatically spam everyone in your contact list with invitations to their service. Great for portability across sites - and secure too.
Now I just need to find the time to talk to all my new imported facebook friends on messenger now...
