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Google's OpenSocial Platform Releases
shadowmage13 writes "Google just announced that starting tonight, developers can start writing applications using the social API for Orkut, MySpace, Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, Ning, Oracle, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING at http://code.google.com/apis/opensocial. Will Facebook give in?" There is quite a bit of analysis of this announcement available in yesterday's discussion.
So now even Google is jumping into this whole web 2.0 thing?
Not now at all. Orkut is Google, and it's social networking, and social networking is by definition "Web 2.0". So no, not just now.
Besides, the only thing wrong about Web 2.0 is the term 'Web 2.0'.
You just got troll'd!
I've already given up. The internet is just turning into one giant party phone. Like the chat lines they used to advertise in the middle of the night in the late 1980s. If you can cash in on that sad state of affairs, I guess you might as well. Can't blame any company that does. Perhaps some day that will fade away and the internet will become something slightly less sophomoric and navel-gazing. Yes, part of the internet still serves a purpose other than trying to score with teenage girls and watching the video at 2girls1cup.com, but not much.
Yes, and sadly the one thing they seem not to be doing, is the one thing they should be doing -- developing the next gen of search. We are still a long long way away from adequate search.
Google is uniting these other sites because they each have something to gain from that alliance... new segments.
Facebook has nothing to gain because people from each of those segments are already on Facebook.
Facebook only has something to lose by joining that alliance... control over how their medium is dished up and the browser interstitials and advertisement revenue. My dollar is on Facebook for the long haul, unless they are shut down due to code theft (which is actually still in limbo right now, if I understand correctly).
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Social networking is peaking in growth, ergo it's entering a consolidation phase. Google's OpenSocial APi release is a brilliant counter-strategy (for once). FaceBook's API was a good gamble into a peaking market but I think Google has outdone them.
My prediction on FaceBook's growth rate BEFORE the Google OpenSocial API release.
http://www.realmeme.com/roller/page/realmeme?entry=social_networking_meme
You can access both public and private feeds using the OpenSocial People data API. Public feeds don't require any authentication, but they are read-only. If you want to view Friends then your client needs to authenticate before requesting private feeds. It can authenticate using either of two approaches: ClientLogin username/password authentication or AuthSub proxy authentication.
How could I authenticate myself into other social websites like Friendster then?
Authentication is one of the most important aspect to make OpenSocial open, I think.
While I'm sure that there are some people that like to have their networking links travel from place to place, I think this is a feature that is really designed to benefit on-line marketers more than end users. Developers that write for these APIs, are really sort of fools, because ultimately, they are giving away to Google and others information that they should really actually -pay for-. If I were lucky enough to put some social site together with millions of hits, the last thing I'd want to would be to give away all of my behavior information to Google. If they want it, then they can write me a fricking check.
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