Rewarding Bad Behavior

With the recent unveiling of the Obama administration's housing plan there is a growing concern that the government is promoting policies that reward bad behavior and punish good behavior. The housing plan is the latest policy where the government gives money to those who are in over there head. This is a somewhat more palatable policy than preceding bailouts as it focusses on helping the individual with mortgage problems. However, it is following a string of policies that that basically says 'if you screw up, the government is here to give you money.' Businesses and individuals that pay their bills and taxes on time are subsidizing those who don't. The housing plan isn't completely without merit, but this trend of government bailouts big and small is wearing on many as can be seen in this CNBC clip of Rick Santelli becoming fed up with the government rewards for bad behavior on the floor of the Chicago Stock Exchange...

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Punishing Good Behavior

Google Brings SocNets to Web Sites

From etech.eweek.com Google Opens Up Social Networking

While many site providers have been intrigued by the idea of adding social networking capabilities, for the most part efforts in this area have been unsuccessful. This is mainly due to the fact that the last thing most people want to do is join yet another social network, especially one that is tied to a specific Web site.

But this week may see a big change in the ability of Web sites to add social networking capabilities. Both Google and Facebook released services that make it possible for Web sites to easily add social networking features that don't require visitors to join a brand-new social network.

For the last couple of days I've had the chance to test out the beta of Google Friend Connect. Google Friend Connect lets any Web site operator easily add functionality to a site that lets visitors join the site, see other users of the site, and participate in social networking activities such as commenting on and rating content.

From a strict feature standpoint, there isn't much in Google Friend Connect that seems all that new. In fact, Yahoo's MyBlogLog service has been providing similar capabilities for some time now.

However, what makes the Google Friend Connect service stand out is its extreme openness and its potential for near-unlimited extensibility. That's because, rather than using proprietary technology, Google Friend Connect heavily leverages open technologies such as OpenID, OpenSocial and OAuth.