OpenSocial (The death of Facebook?)
In a blaze of publicity Google has launched its latest new technology. Called OpenSocial at first glance it seems like the sort of thing that would only interest the geek crew. However, it's set to have a profound impact on how social networking sites, such as MySpace and FaceBook operate.
Social networking sites have seemed to take the Internet by storm, but in most cases they've all worked on a limited system, the walled garden. You couldn't drag your friends network with you and none of these sites would operate with one another. The idea behind OpenSocial is break down some of those barriers. It's a set of codes that allows people to write 'apps' that can integrate with their site and draw on information from other social networking sites. I'll give an exaple that draws on two sites. Suppose you have a MySpace account with a list of friends in it, you go to CraigsList and are able to see a list of the items that people on your MySpace account are selling. You choose to buy one of the items. You log in to Paypal and are able to select that person from the list of friends on your MySpace account that Paypal has access to through OpenSocial and transfer the money to them. In effect, your friends list will be able to follow you around.
FaceBook has had these little apps and similar apps for a few months now, however, OpenSocial has a key difference. It's not stuck in the walled garden, any social networking site that wants to can participate. At launch most of the large sites are in, including MySpace (world #1), Bebo (UK #1), Orkut (Brazil #1), LiveJournal, VOX, Hi5, Friendster, LinkedIn and a whole list of others. In fact the only noticable holdout is Facebook, which is not participating and hasn't made any comment about it. However what's going on here is far too large to ignore. It's entirely possible that it's choosing not to particpate because Microsoft is now a large shareholder and the bitter rival of Google. However there's little doubt here that Facebook is looking like the cranky recluse who doesn't play well with others and may find itself left out in the cold by all of this. Already there are apps for OpenSocial popping up like wildfire. Google has created a combined user base that is simply huge compared to Facebook and over time may result in Facebook's users drifting off to sites that do play well with others.
Social networking sites have seemed to take the Internet by storm, but in most cases they've all worked on a limited system, the walled garden. You couldn't drag your friends network with you and none of these sites would operate with one another. The idea behind OpenSocial is break down some of those barriers. It's a set of codes that allows people to write 'apps' that can integrate with their site and draw on information from other social networking sites. I'll give an exaple that draws on two sites. Suppose you have a MySpace account with a list of friends in it, you go to CraigsList and are able to see a list of the items that people on your MySpace account are selling. You choose to buy one of the items. You log in to Paypal and are able to select that person from the list of friends on your MySpace account that Paypal has access to through OpenSocial and transfer the money to them. In effect, your friends list will be able to follow you around.
FaceBook has had these little apps and similar apps for a few months now, however, OpenSocial has a key difference. It's not stuck in the walled garden, any social networking site that wants to can participate. At launch most of the large sites are in, including MySpace (world #1), Bebo (UK #1), Orkut (Brazil #1), LiveJournal, VOX, Hi5, Friendster, LinkedIn and a whole list of others. In fact the only noticable holdout is Facebook, which is not participating and hasn't made any comment about it. However what's going on here is far too large to ignore. It's entirely possible that it's choosing not to particpate because Microsoft is now a large shareholder and the bitter rival of Google. However there's little doubt here that Facebook is looking like the cranky recluse who doesn't play well with others and may find itself left out in the cold by all of this. Already there are apps for OpenSocial popping up like wildfire. Google has created a combined user base that is simply huge compared to Facebook and over time may result in Facebook's users drifting off to sites that do play well with others.