The leader of a youth movement that swept the world this past year by encouraging Web users to share bits of their lives with selected friends spoke on Wednesday of spreading his service across the Web, even while apologizing for past excesses.

Mark Zuckerberg, 24, told an audience of 1,000 industry executives, software makers, media — and his mother and father — at Facebook’s annual conference of how the company’s features will run on affiliated sites outside its own.

“Facebook Connect” will transform the social network from a private site where activity occurs entirely within a “walled garden” to a Web-wide phenomenon where software makers, with user permission, can tap member data for use on their sites.

“Facebook Connect is our version of Facebook for the rest of the Web,” Zuckerberg told the second annual F8 conference.

Facebook, begun in 2004 as a socializing site for students at Harvard University, has seen its growth zoom to 90 million members from 24 million a little over a year ago, overtaking rival MySpace to become the world’s largest social network.

It has lured 400,000 developers to build programs for it since opening up its site in May 2007. Now Facebook is letting designers build software on affiliated sites, for mobile phones or as services that tap desktop applications like Microsoft’s Outlook e-mail system. It said that in coming months it would let designers building software for Facebook simultaneously create versions for Apple Inc’s (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) iPhone.

“As time goes on, less of this movement is going to be about Facebook and the platform we have created and more about the applications other people have built,” Zuckerberg said. “This year, we are going to push for parity between applications on and off Facebook.”

Google Trends was originally released as a tool that let you see visual comparisons between search volume of keywords. That hasn’t changed, but Google now also gives us the keys to more data about actual popularity of websites based on daily unique visitors.

This data is similar to what companies like Alexa already provides, but it’s not ready to be a complete replacement yet. There is not as much data available through Google Trends as there is in other tools. Searches are currently limited to the domain level — so blogs.zdnet.com would translate to zdnet.com before the search happens.

If you have a popular enough website to be included in these results from Google Trends, you may be disappointed to know that there is no way to remove your site if you wanted to. Google doesn’t think that rule should apply to them though, as they have removed all their web properties — searching for things like google.com or youtube.com comes back with nothing.

Most social networking sites aren’t exactly serious places. The most popular ones allow friends to post flip messages on each others’ walls or send festive clip art for special occasions.

On Friday, I met a man who is trying to build a social network he believes could save lives. In fact, he credits his social network with saving his own.

When Keith Schorsch contracted Lyme disease in 2004, a dozen doctors failed to recognize the ailment that had paralyzed his facial muscles and sapped his energy. Specialists suggested arthritis, rare viruses, and even brain damage. They offered to operate.

A second opinion from a friend, however, saved him from the potentially fatal consequence of an ill-advised surgery. His friend recognized that Schorsch had Lyme disease after Schorsch described symptoms that matched his friend’s own ailment. His friend also knew that Schorsch had recently been traveling through suburban and rural areas of New Jersey known as “tick country.” “I was on the cusp of late stage Lyme,” says Schorsch. “If it wasn’t for my friend calling…”

Schorsch got more than a correct diagnosis from his friend’s advice. The former Amazon executive also got the idea for Trusera, an online community where users share health information and experiences with once another. The site fully launched earlier today, June 16.

There is no shortage of health sites on the Internet. In addition to medical information sites such as WebMD and Medstory, Google and Microsoft have aggressively moved into the space with their own offerings. Google is creating a central online repository for individuals’ medical records, while Microsoft is building a platform that enables hospitals, medical devices, and other groups to take medical information digital. All are hoping to cash in on the estimated $500 million to $1 billion health advertising market.

Schorsch believes that none of these sites or programs, however, offer the kind of interaction with other people that proved so helpful in his own case.

Talking to Schorsch in person, it’s easy to see why he believes so strongly in the value of information from the average Joe. (Full disclosure: I met him, in part, through my sister who works at the company.) Friends first told him about using acupuncture to handle the muscle paralysis brought on by his disease. He got advice about how to discuss the fatigue he sometimes suffers by chatting with others coping with chronic diseases. Doctors, Schorsch says, often don’t have the time to discuss such things during a brief visit. “10 to 15 years ago you were in an environment where you had the same doctor and he knew you,” says Schorsch. Now, many people don’t have a regular doctor who takes that kind of time, he says.

Even when the experts are available, sometimes a friend can still know best. “Sometimes you just want a direct connection to someone who has gone through it,” he says.

Imagine a Web where your profile comes with you. Rather than manage contact info, friend lists, and descriptions of yourself across several websites, you’d maintain an overarching account that would be open to whomever you like.

For years, “open Web” enthusiasts have argued the importance and inevitability of a shift away from the “walled garden” atmosphere of social networks such as Facebook, and toward a more connected Web. This way, your information belongs to you, not your social networks.

This month, MySpace, Facebook, and Google consecutively announced their stabs at a more open Web.

MySpace’s Data Availability and Facebook Connect look almost identical: The social networks will share their users’ information with a few partner sites so that when someone updates his profile, those changes are automatically reflected on all the other sites. Friend lists will also follow you, although the details are murky at this early stage.

Google’s Friend Connect looks a bit different: Since the search giant lacks a major social-networking hub, Google has decided to basically lend its programming code to any website that wants social features. A user can go to a participating website, sign in using an account ID (from Googletalk, Orkut, and Hi5 for now – the latter two being popular networks abroad), and view, invite, and mingle with friends through the site.

Google launched a trial of Friend Connect with a few small websites, including the home page of indie musician Ingrid Michaelson.

Before plugging into Friend Connect, Ms. Michaelson’s site was little more than a place holder for information, says Lynn Grossman, the pop artist’s manager. Her music was primarily marketed through social networks, which were great for attracting new listeners, but Ms. Grossman had little control over the information presented to potential fans, not to mention the ads that MySpace and Facebook stick on the pages.

Now that Google has empowered Michaelson’s website, fans can sign in through their social networks and invite friends to check out her music. The increased traffic has encouraged Grossman to put more energy into the website.

Although users could previously post comments on Michaelson’s site, Grossman views the Friend Connect initiative as taking that basic social interaction to the next level.

“The biggest change is that we now lead people back to our website,” she says. “This brings your entire posse with you.”

She anticipates that if Friend Connect is successful, it will make Michaelson less reliant on networks like MySpace to promote her music.

Google clearly is making great friends with small website owners with this move, but it’s not pure altruism. Neither is it the ideal version of an open Web that some have in mind.

“What we are seeing is a brawl over who is going to host users’ profiles,” says Dawn DeBruyn, head of WeMeUs.com, a site that helps professionals manage their connections across various social networks. “The assumption is that this will happen from one central location, with each player trying to lock it down in their site, or services in Google’s case.”

Perhaps that’s why Facebook, initially listed as one of the sites that would work with Google Friend Connect, has suddenly banned the service. And why shouldn’t they ban it? Google is effectively trying to co-opt its status as a dominant directory for user information. Facebook’s official response is that it is looking out “for the privacy of [its] users.”

So what now? The Google initiative may fail, once again separating small website owners such as Michaelson from her network of friends and fans. Facebook and MySpace’s push to extend their fence while still maintaining their walled gardens might eventually lead them toward a public relations backlash.

“Overall I think that all of these companies will have to get over it,” says Ms. DeBruyn, “in spite of their efforts to the contrary, because the movement to the open Web and decentralized storage and distribution of information is inevitable, the only question is how quickly will it happen?”

Facebook thinks Tom Ham and I should be friends. But we’re not. In fact, I’m pretty sure he can’t stand me.

I ticked off the guy more than five years ago, and we haven’t spoken since then (more on that later). But he pops up with disquieting frequency on the “People You May Know” box at the right side of my Facebook page. Facebook compares your mutual friends to suggest connections with people you might not have thought to connect with. The program is called the Friend Finder.

But I call it the Foe Finder. Tom Ham appears there all the time. I don’t really blame Facebook for causing me brief moments of anguish each time it throws up its postage-stamp-sized reminder. Tom and I do have 69 “friends” in common, many related to the video game industry that we both cover. The program is saying, “Look! You like all the same people, so this guy has GOT to be your soul mate!”

This seems to be a common issue among members of Facebook and other social networking services that use computer algorithms to help connect people. For example, LinkedIn, a professional networking site, looks through your online resume to suggest people who worked at the same company while you were employed there. Never mind that it might be the boss who fired you for bringing plants to your cubicle.

When machines do the matchmaking, funny things happen. An acquaintance in San Francisco kept getting paired up with a landlord who evicted his family for refusing to pay an outrageous (and illegal) $1,000 raise in his rent.

Then there are the people …

… who are already on your friend list but turn out to be scheming snakes. One of my friends found out that a colleague had lied to him about a job opening. He’d gladly wipe this person from his Facebook page, but that would cause a minor scandal because the two have a zillion mutual colleagues.

Of course, you can also drop the nuclear Facebomb and ban individuals from seeing your profile. I did this once for an ex- whose very picture made me ill. But I’ve otherwise resisted pushing the red button just so I can see how this online social petri dish evolves.

Anyhow, back to Tom Ham and what I did to earn his disdain. A few years ago, I wrote a story for The Times about “playola” — the junkets and trinkets that video game critics were regularly showered with by companies hoping for a favorable review. Tom was among the top reviewers in the field at that time, and I featured him in the story. He stopped talking to me after it ran. I imagine that my profile picture keeps appearing on his Friend Finder, which can’t be much fun. I e-mailed him to ask him whether it does, and how he feels about it. Not too surprisingly, he didn’t respond.

But I can see some benefits to this Foe Finder thing. An ex-boyfriend I hadn’t talked to for more than 20 years found me on LinkedIn and asked to be in my network. I added him.

As one of my bona fide friends advised, “Keep your friends close, your enemies closer.”

– Alex Pham