AOL launches new Socialthing platform

AOL is set to rollout a new platform that adds social networking services like Facebook and Twitter to any website, broadcasting users’ activities in real-time to their friends.

The social networking aggregator ‘Socialthing’ will be deployed across MediaGlow’s – AOL’s publishing arm – 75 sites, which will reach around 181 million users worldwide.

Socialthing focuses on “activity streams” like those found on the redesigned Facebook, or Twitter, and integrates the concept on top of a third party website.

The new platform premiered on the online music site last week and is due to launch on Cinematical, the blog for film fans, over the next few weeks.

Joanna Shields, president of AOL People Networks, said: “Socialthing turns any media into social media, making it easy for people to share their experiences in real time with their friends, wherever they are on the web.

“Built on AOL’s best-of-breed messaging technology, unrivaled social networking and media aggregation tools, Socialthing enables users to converse, connect and broadcast messages and their activities to friends on the web.

Socialthing combines the following four elements to provide website owners with the reach and functionality that AOL claims could “formerly only be found on large social networks” –

• “Unified Sign-on makes it easy for users to log into Socialthing today using their AOL screenname and password, and soon using their Bebo, Facebook, Gmail, Yahoo or OpenID, without having to create a new account.

• “Social Syndication will unlock the marketing power of users by letting them automatically share their experiences with their social network, including their Bebo, AIM, ICQ, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter friends.

• “On-site Chat and Instant Messaging lets users engage in real-time conversations with others who share the same passions as they do.

• “An Open Platform will enable third-party developers to build their applications on top of the Socialthing platform, helping them increase distribution and add value to site owners and their audience.”

MediaGlow’s president Bill Wilson, said: “We have successfully created valuable brands around original and best-in-breed content by targeting the areas that people are most passionate.

“Socialthing enables us to extend each MediaGlow brand into a true social experience. With one simple implementation we can connect 181 million people and let them socialize with their network of friends around the topics and content they love.”

AOL said: “Socialthing boasts a simple interface that makes it easy for even the most novice user to enjoy the benefits of social networking.”

Users can create a Socialthing ID using an email and password on any Socialthing-enabled website, and take control of their own privacy settings – whenever an action is taken on a site, Socialthing asks for the user’s consent to publish their action into a ‘Lifestream’, which is a real-time open platform for distributing social feeds across different mediums.

Socialthing also allows publishers to insert their own content, such as news articles or breaking news stories, directly into the feed.

In addition, publishers can offer signed-in users the ability to enter public chatrooms and launch an Instant Messaging window directly from the site.

Socialthing has been dubbed as AOL’s answer to Facebook Connect, which allows users to ‘connect’ their Facebook identity to any social media website, like Digg.

AOL plans to introduce Socialthing to other websites outside its MediaGlow group and will offer the service for free in exchange for user data that can be used to implement targeted content.