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Today Google officially launched a new project called Open Social. There have been tons of stories about Open Social prior to today, but there is still a lot of confusion about what it is. Open Social is a set of open APIs that Google is releasing to web application developers to create web apps for social networks like, Myspace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Orkut, Beebo, etc. To date web app developers have had to recode their applications from one language to another for each of these social communities. Google’s Open Social is trying to make it easier for these developers to port their apps from one community to the next.
What Open Social Isn’t?
Many people think that Google’s Open Social is a new social media network. It is not. It is just a common set of APIs.
Why is everyone saying that Open Social is the Facebook Killer?
To be honest, I think these people are dreaming. Facebook is here to stay. However, Open Social is taking a huge swing at Facebook and it is hitting it right in a very vulnerable spot. Facebook is a closed network that is coded in its own programming language. If developers want to create an application to work on Facebook, they have to use Facebook’s own programming language. This makes it very difficult to port the Facebook application to another social network.
While this will certainly create some problems for Facebook, I don’t think that this it the killer app that brings Facebook down. But, only time will tell.
Why is Open Social good for us?
More web applications. That’s right. These open APIs will allow web application developers to develop a lot of cool new applications. I can’t wait to see what they bring us!!
If you are interested in learning more about Open Social, here are some more great articles.
- Open Social: a new universe of social applications all over the web
- Open Social - The Social Network For Companies Scared of Facebook
- Google Reputation Management Disaster With Open Social
- Google’s “Open Social”
- Open Social And Web 3.0
- Keeping Up With Google OpenSocial
- OpenSocial: Led by Google. Social Networks Band To Take on Facebook
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[...] Check it out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today.Here’s a quick excerptToday Google officially launched a new project called Open Social. There have been tons of stories about Open Social prior to today, but there is still a lot of confusion about what it is. Open Social is a set of open APIs that Google … [...]
Great post! I agree that Google’s OpenSocial is targeting Facebook, in a subtle manner. Ever since they lost the opportunity to purchase the social networking company itself, they have been searching for a way to surpass it. It seems as if OpenSocial is partially their way of trying to do that. But, I do not think it will be successful. I don’t even think Facebook will look back in its race to the finish.
wow such a great article
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