Social networks are still mostly gated communities

NEW YORK -- Online social networking today is more about hanging out with friends behind gated communities than exploring the World Wide Web: Visit another site and you'll have to rebuild your profile from scratch.

That's like having to get a new driver's license for every state you drive through.

Although the walls that keep users from taking their data wherever they go are starting to erode, how much three recently announced programs will help users move among the networks remains to be seen. Google's attempt to break those fortifications was quickly blocked by Facebook.

The two leading online hangouts, News Corp.'s MySpace and Facebook, have promised to release tools in the coming weeks for websites to incorporate profile data, friends lists and other social functions. Google followed with its own program for bridging various networks.

MySpace users, for instance, can soon have their biographical information appear on eBay profiles. A social network focused on skiing will be able to incorporate Facebook photos and friends list rather than build its own.

It's all done through software hooks that let eBay and others grab profile data from MySpace and Facebook. Changes made at MySpace and Facebook are quickly propagated because third-party sites can't store the data and must check back frequently.

The new programs come as users increasingly complain about having to retype basic profile information over and over. By holding onto users' information while letting them bring temporary copies of it elsewhere, Facebook and MySpace can remain at the core of users' social interactions and keep them from leaving.

More important than saving keystrokes, the programs bring along the meaning and connections behind the data, allowing social circles to travel from site to site, much as friends going bar hopping together don't have to start conversations afresh at each pub.

That said, there are no current plans to exchange profile data between MySpace and Facebook. Message postings at one won't show up at the other, and party invites still will have to be copied and pasted to cross services.