Filed under: Internet, Google, Social Software, web 2.0
Is Google playing Microsoft to Facebook's Apple?
And it looks like Microsoft arch rival Google may be playing the same card when it comes to social networking. The company's OpenSocial social networking platform allows third party companies to partner with Google. While Facebook opened up its API earlier this year, allowing third parties to create applications, Google has attracted some major players, including MySpace, Six Apart, and Bebo, LinkedIn, Ning, Friendster, Plaxo, and Hi5. That's sort of the equivalent of getting IBM and HP on your side.
But here's what makes OpenSocial different. You'll notice that some of the big names in there are other social networks. That's because OpenSocial is a platform, not a website. MySpace, Friendster, and other social networks partnering with Google will use OpenSocial APIs, meaning if you develop an application for one site it will function on all the other sites.
In other words, OpenSocial isn't a social networking site. It's a common set of APIs that will be used by social networking sites -- and Google is behind the initiative, which gives them the same kind of status here that Microsoft had in the early days of desktop operating systems. You know, if you think desktop OSes and social networks are comparable, which they're probably not.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Marky said 8:04AM on 11-02-2007
I don't think the analogy is correct.
Microsoft dominated PC's because it forced PC clone manufactuers to pay them for MSDOS whether they wanted it or not. DRDOS and others did not have the fair chance it wanted because manuafactuers has to pay for 2 OS's if it wanted to ship another. With a dominance of MSDOS on the desktop moving up to Windows 95 was just a logical step.
Google is not forcing social websites to pay for its product if it doesn't want it and if Yahoo!, Ask, OpenSourceCommunity or any other company comes along with a similar product it would have a fair shot.
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Vaibhav Pandey said 8:05AM on 11-02-2007
Definitely this will be the next big wave in the history of Social Networks.
Lets see what Facebook does after the release of OpenSocial.
Chow
Vaibhav
Helping laymen become technology enthusiast at http://technofriends.wordpress.com
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Tom B said 10:19AM on 11-02-2007
Marky (poster 1) is dead on. MSFT got to be a huge monopoly through the back door. Certainly, they do not nor have they ever had any technologically competent products. "Open Social" is the way it should be; it will benefit the USER to be able to interact across the various Web 2.0 platforms. So what if it benefits Google, too. I bet Ballmer is throwing chairs around the room right now, having blown 240 MILLION on Facebook. I bet in 5 years, MSFT will be pushing some kind of "open Social" knock-off based on C# that will be full of security holes and buggy as the rain forest.
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