Tomorrow, Google will launch its new social networking API, called OpenSocial, with a host of high-value social networking players already at the party. The most significant of these players are LinkedIn, Salesforce, and Orkut, who've all been around quite a while and have substantial vertical popularity: LinkedIn in the business work, Salesforce in CRM applications, and Orkut as a South-American MySpace-killer. Even Friendster, which has become a sort-of also-ran with a great brand name, has joined the party. Perhaps these relatively peripheral social nets see Google as their ticket to competing with MySpace and Facebook.
Like Facebook, Google's API will provide participants with options for dealing with user profiles and events. But unlike Facebook, OpenSocial will really on commonplace JavaScript to do the API's bidding. Facebook uses it's own "FBML" specification, which means it can't be used off of the Facebook system. Google's intention is to get as many third-party social nets supporting OpenSocial as possible. And developers will flock to anything that saves them from having to re-develop their widgets for a dozen different social nets.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-31-2007 @ 1:03PM
Jason said...
BLAH... "Google to launch another boring looking..." blah blah... Google is taking WAY too much stock in their name alone... most of the applications they have put out there lately just look like crap... if they are going to copy stuff other companies do on a regular basis they could at least make their stuff look better...
Seriously... its like they start writing something and just use text links as they are developing just to get the functionality in but they never go back and make the stuff look nice.
Worst part of it is that all the Googaholic's out there somehow find that to be a "feature" of Google's crap software... "simply is beatufil..." blah blah...
They are like Apple with Fanboys but backwards... they have everyone sold on the fact that "crappy looking" is good.
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10-31-2007 @ 6:59PM
james 42 said...
Jason, you are funny.
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11-01-2007 @ 12:58AM
michael said...
But will anyone care?
I don't think so.
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11-02-2007 @ 3:32PM
Tony said...
LOL @ Jason - Google has convinced eveyone that functionality is good - and 'nice looking' is way down the list.
Who gives a **** if a link is a text rather than an image..?
Isn't the fact that it has better functionality better..?
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