Authorization by social graph
I've been kicking around an idea for a while now, discussed with some friends, but don't have time to implement this just yet. A I may use this at the core of a project early next year, but I wanted to get the main idea out there now. A Perhaps others are already doing this, but I haven't seen it anywhere (yet?).
Currently, many apps tie in with twitter/facebook/etc for authentication - a third party openid server indicates to the original app that you are who you say you are. A In some cases, there's even a degree of sharing of data or allowing of control of a remote app (posting tweets via oauth, updating facebook wall, etc). A What I've not seen yet is something which allows for collaboration, with degrees of permissions defined by relations in your personal social graph.
For example, consider google docs. A Rather than inviting and granting permission on specific docs to specific people, A allowing anyone who is following me on Google Buzz or FriendFeed to have read access to my document would be useful. A Take that a step further - anyone who I'm following back - a two-way relationship - would automatically have read *and* write permissions on that document.
This is a somewhat simplified example, but the notion of permissions being automatically granted/revoked based on position and status in my social graph seems relatively unique (if also a probably rather obvious evolution in the coming near term).
Are there examples of this behaviour out there already I'm not seeing?