W3C to boost social networking initiatives

The W3C is looking to define plans for the future of the social networking industry

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is to increase its work in the social networking sphere by investing more resources into the development of industry guidelines and payments protocols, and undertaking greater outreach on accessibility and mobility matters.

In a new report summarising the organisation's recent Workshop on the Future of Social Networking, the W3C argued that the lack of a micropayments protocol could be holding back some networks from creating sustainable business models.

"Some of the participants felt that the ecosystem has sufficiently changed in the past 10 years to justify trying to restart discussions towards the establishment of such a protocol, and are planning to set up a dedicated W3C Incubator Group to work on these questions," the report said.

The group also decided to create a Social Web Best Practices Incubator Group, or a taskforce within a larger Social Web Incubator Group, to explore the development of privacy guidelines for social network operators and privacy tutorials for social networks users.

The meeting decided that social networks "represent a particular opportunity and challenge for both accessibility and mobility", and therefore decided that the relevant bodies - the Web Accessibility Initiative Education & Outreach Working Group and the Mobile Web Initiative Steering Council - should engage more with social network operators to tackle the issues.