We work hardly to build an usable version. The final release will be ready for next summer. In the meantime, we invite you to try Movim Next (daily build) at this address: http://etenil.net/movim/

Login : movim@etenil.thruhere.net
Password : movim

You can also come and meet us on our Jabber chatroom: movim@muc.jappix.com (or via the web on http://www.jappix.com/?r=movim@muc.jappix.com )

This does show that users will be willing to tag products they own too – so it might not even have to be a fully manual process for a sponsor – they could just set themselves up as one of the possible tags and users will, for example, tag their new iPhone 4.

Facebook’s grip on the internet is clearly a threat to innovation and other companies are now forming temporary alliances in order to level the playing field again. If OExchange is used more widely than the like button (it’s not… currently) then Facebook will eventually be forced to abandon the non-standard Like button and adopt OExchange.

If anything, this is the perfect time to suggest workable alternatives to the Facebook platform, as it is still feasible for the other big social networking providers to fight back. Due to Facebook’s recent expansion into the web in general (through Facebook Connect), other providers are going to be motivated to have their own offerings.

I do agree it’s going to be hard to get people to switch from Facebook to an open alternative (such as Diaspora). That’s why the proposal I made a few blog posts ago includes Facebook integration and avoids things such as forcing users to create new accounts. Websites which use the tagging system can choose to allow people to authenticate using their Facebook accounts, post to their Facebook wall, etc. exactly as they can currently. However, because of the decentralised nature – this could also invite new social networks, or existing social networks, to run their own etags servers which store the tags for their networks. All of the clients using etags could then have their photo pages with “Photos on LinkedIn”, “Photos on the Web” for example – which is a clear advantage over what Facebook offers. This could tempt users away from Facebook or encourage Facebook to embrace etags (or something like it).

Further to that, we would still be offering the cross-site tagging service, allowing blog and website owners the chance to allow people to tag the photographs they post. This is another thing which Facebook currently lacks (although I’m almost sure they’ll be working on this…. it’s such an obvious idea… unless they are hoping to keep ownership of actual images for as long as possible).

I also don’t think it’s a bad thing to be ambitious here. Why should we be following the trend? (I’d actually suggest we are following the trend of decentralisation which is being seen across the web except from Facebook – see Diaspora, Google OpenSocial, OExchange, etc. etc. but that’s besides the point). Nobody got anywhere by keeping a low profile and thinking small. If we release the initial idea of a closed cross-site image tagging service we’ll quickly be replaced by a more open solution.