Redmond's Heavy Guns Go After OpenSocial

jg21 writes "It is probably coincidental, but two responses to OpenSocial from well-respected members of the Microsoft blogging community have each in their own way come out against Google's OpenSocial initiative, Dare Osabanjo because in his view OpenSocial while billed as a standardized widget platform for the Web, actually isn't. And Don Dodge because his claim is that fifty million Facebook developers "don't know what OpenSocial APIs are...and don't care.""

Comments

Big guns, eh? Bah.

[Bananatree3]

Guns ablazin', I'm SURE they could take on the entire Google fanbase.

Re:Big guns, eh? Bah.

[Zeinfeld]

Today Microsoft announced that it would be helping to make OpenSocial suceed in any way thet they can.

Re:Big guns, eh? Bah.

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft is just getting a taste of their own medicine. They can dish it out, but they can't take it. Googles big enough now to cause some of the same concerns for the big boys like Microsoft is, the only difference now is that Microsoft is on the other side of the recieving end of the table and they don't like it. Seems like the "What goes around comes around" is taking effect.

Ballmer, this would be the same reason small companies get angry at your company, this is why open standards are important, so no one owns them, yet everyone can benefit from them, and do true cross platform.

Oh, but wait that's right, you don't understand the meaning of competition or like it for that matter, because you haven't had it as you would say "in your way" in a longtime

Well - enjoy!

Re:Big guns, eh? Bah.

[kyofunikushimi]

Dare Osabanjo because in his view OpenSocial while billed as a standardized widget platform for the Web, actually isn't ODF, anyone?

Re:Big guns, eh? Bah.

[dynamo]

Microsoft does not know what an open standard IS, though they keep claiming to.

Hell, they don't really even know what a standard is.

Re:Big guns, eh? Bah.

[orclevegam]

Hell, they don't really even know what a standard is.

Sure they do, that's that thing they keep changing every time they release a new version of Office.

Re:Big guns, eh? Bah.

[Vitriol Angst]

Perhaps some vague warning that people using OpenSocial may get sued for copyright infringement -- or that it allows for some "communicable social disease" that can either destroy your hard drive or give you a rash.

Re:Big guns, eh? Bah.

[davidsyes]

Google... Ready on the left! Ready on the Right! Ready on the firing line... Open, FIRE!

Re:Big guns, eh? Bah.

[aichpvee]

Of course, it allows for windows clients, right?

Microsoft employees bashing something non-MS?

[ByOhTek]

Shocking! Shocking I say!

What is wrong with the world, this day in age, when a company's employees will come out and bash the competitors competing products?
</sarcasm>

This is about as surprising as Ballmer bashing Apple, Apple bashing MS or Google, [insert any other corporate rivalry here]. News it ain't.

Grammar Nazis: Yes, I am aware that "ain't" really isn't a word.

Re:Microsoft employees bashing something non-MS?

[$RANDOMLUSER]

It's even funnier than that! It's Microsoft employees bewailing the notion that people don't follow standards!

Re:Microsoft employees bashing something non-MS?

[StarfishOne]

Just wait! Tomorrow Ballmer will announce the 'OpenChair' API!

Re:Microsoft employees bashing something non-MS?

[ByOhTek]

I thought it was going to be the next MS hardware venture - the Chairapult.

Re:Microsoft employees bashing something non-MS?

[Misch]

I thought it was going to be the next MS hardware venture - the Chairapult

No, it's the Trebuchaise.

Re:Microsoft employees bashing something non-MS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Grammar Nazis: Yes, I am aware that "ain't" really isn't a word.

Ain't ain't not no word.

It's in the dictionary: ain't.

Re:Microsoft employees bashing something non-MS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Grammar Nazis: Yes, I am aware that "ain't" really isn't a word.

Yeah, but...

• "Competitor's" is the correction of a grammar mistake, while
  
• "isn't" ain't.
  

;-P

Re:Microsoft employees bashing something non-MS?

[El Lobo]

You are right. This is as surprising as seeing some Linuzzz user bashing MS on slashdot.

What people forget is that those 2 bloggers are expressing their "private" opinions, which may have nothing to do with the official opinion of MS as a corporation.

Hell, in my blog I have spoken pests about all thing Abble (considering that I am obligated to use a Abble Makintosh), but this is not the official position of my university. Not at all... and if you read the disclaimer on those MS bloggers you will note that the same thing apply to them.

Freedom of speech anyone?

Re:Microsoft employees bashing something non-MS?

[shaitand]

'Grammar Nazis: Yes, I am aware that "ain't" really isn't a word.'

Generally I hate grammar nazis but I can't resist; "ain't" is a word. Language ain't defined by prudes it's defined by usage. The usage of the word "ain't" is widespread and long established. It is actually depressing that even the dictionary contains bigotry and stereotyping though. "Ain't" is not widely used by the uneducated, it is widely used by southerners and the idea that "ain't" is used by the uneducated stems from the false belief that southerners are ignorant and uneducated.

Re:Microsoft employees bashing something non-MS?

[Zantetsuken]

Yes, but only *after* Google comes out with their "Open Lazy-boy launcher Beta" - this way MS can have a reason to fucking kill Google...

Re:Microsoft employees bashing something non-MS?

[bball99]

- this post is the funniest i've read here on /. in nearly four years!

- tks!

[wiping milk off nostrils, beard, and front of shirt]

Re:Microsoft employees bashing something non-MS?

[Anonymous Coward]

I vote this the best pun of the week!

Re:Microsoft employees bashing something non-MS?

[Spudtrooper]

Don't forget about RMS's Chair GNAT (GNAT's Not A Thrower).

What social networks are really about...

[TofuMatt]

I agree. Who the fuck cares about APIs? It's not like people are joining Facebook just to add fifty million stupid applications to their profile.

Re:What social networks are really about...

[monkeyboythom]

Actually, I don't care that you don't care. In addition, the Facebook crowd does not care either. But I do, because less developer competition is a bonus for me.

However, the Facebook crowd will care when they see a nifty new plug-in or tool that allows them to have a social calendar robot(tm) or ad hoc open forum(tm) or anything else that will make their Facebook experience more pleasant, more useful, or just plain old stupid but with really interesting eye candy.

And by then, you'll care because you don't want to be left out of the "cool crowd."

Re:What social networks are really about...

[clonmult]

Nope, you're absolutely right - its not fifty million stupid applications, its closer to 20 million.

And at least 99.999% of them suck.

Re:What social networks are really about...

[kebes]

Clearly what we need is a Facebook group for "Get Facebook to support OpenSocial!"

As we all know, when Facebook groups become big enough, they can move mountains... :)

Re:What social networks are really about...

[damaki]

I am a vampire/wereworlf/FilthBook user on Facebook and without APIs, I'd starve/sing/mast****** to death, you insensitive clod!

Re:What social networks are really about...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, since we're expressing opinions, and some of us are being dickheaded about it, I don't care about it either.

And if you think that this API will automatically move all development off of facebook like your shitty example seems to imply, you are wrong again. At best, you see developers building similar widgets for both in the same way you see it happening for Google Desktop, Vista Sidebar and Yahoo's Konfabulator. They aren't THAT difficult to build. The shit apps won't be copied. The good ones will within days. Nobody will ever even notice which site had it first.

GP is right, and I don't give a shit either.
So we'll be right back at zero on widgets and asking where the vibrant community is, which is exactly what these communities are all about anyway.

Re:What social networks are really about...

[rizzo420]

so a global group search on facebook and you'll see that there are 16 groups with "OpenSocial" in their name. they're all currently growing in size.

Re:What social networks are really about...

[acidrain]

the Facebook crowd will care when they see a nifty new plug-in

Many Facebook users are really sick of the apps on Facebook. I get 5 content-free messages every day that would require me to install some juvenile piece of shit just to confirm that I didn't care about it's content, and I'm thinking the mountain of stupid apps could be the death of Facebook. Considering Facebook's initial popularity was based on not being as stupid as Myspace.

Perhaps Google is late to the party on this one. We already have "app fatigue."

Re:What social networks are really about...

[Anonymous Coward]

Better that new cool plugin than AJAX, XmlHttpRequests which opens up your browser's (actually only Mozilla will be able to render GoogleAPI correctly!) backdoor for extremely insecure scripts. And google is a specialist in obsufscated javascript.

If it all boils down to "you have to trust somebody", I'd rather trust microsoft.

Re:What social networks are really about...

[Heddahenrik]

That's exactly my experience of the applications too. As I see it, the only uses I have of Facebook is the tagging of photos and the events. I'm not so happy about getting my brain eaten by a zombie while I'm being bitten by a vampire (referring to two stupid apps)...

I've thought a lot about adding applications to my social networking sites Elfpack and Elftown, but so far it only seems to make the user experience worse.

Re:What social networks are really about...

[bitserf]

Actually Facebook is now worthless to me - My parents have joined :)

Re:What social networks are really about...

[Anonymous Coward]

And by then, you'll care because you don't want to be left out of the "cool crowd."

Uh, we're on slashdot, remember?

fifty million Facebook developers

[mwvdlee]

fifty million Facebook developers "don't know what OpenSocial APIs are...and don't care."

Well yeah, if you're going to base the usefulness of something on how many Facebook developers know about it, pretty much nothing is useful.

Re:fifty million Facebook developers

[MightyYar]

Well yeah, if you're going to base the usefulness of something on how many Facebook developers know about it, pretty much nothing is useful. Yeah, that was a pretty retarded statement. Like saying that Linux is useless because Windows developers aren't interested in it. And 50 million? Uh, right...

Re:fifty million Facebook developers

[damaki]

Nothing's more useful than the useless.

Re:fifty million Facebook developers

[ShatteredArm]

Sorry, but in order for a social networking application to be useful, [i]lots of people have to be interested in it[/i]. You don't need a social networking application to connect to your friends whom you sit around with in the basement playing D&D. You're not going to reconnect with old friends (which is what I use Facebook for) if none of your old friends use it.

So, the Linux vs. Windows analogy isn't really fitting...

Re:fifty million Facebook developers

[DragonWriter]

Sorry, but in order for a social networking application to be useful, [i]lots of people have to be interested in it[/i]

(1) OpenSocial isn't an application, its a set of technologies on which applications are built;
(2) Actually, you need lots of people involved in the social network, which serves as the "database" of the social networking application. They don't have to use the particular application, much less be interested in the particular set of APIs on which the application is built; and
(3) Lots of people can be not interested in something (the supposed 50 million Facebook "developers") and still have lots of other people interested in it. "Lots of people aren't interested in X" does not imply the falsity of "lots of people are interested in X".

You don't need a social networking application to connect to your friends whom you sit around with in the basement playing D&D.

Certainly not while you are doing that; outside of that time, social networking functionality would be useful to just that kind of group, too.

You're not going to reconnect with old friends (which is what I use Facebook for) if none of your old friends use it.

So? What does that have to do with OpenSocial APIs? Your friends don't have to use the OpenSocial APIs, or even applications built with them, for them to be part of the network you access if you use them. You seem to be confusing social networks with social networking applications and with social networking technologies and confusing developers with users.

Re:fifty million Facebook developers

[jamesl]

It's "fifty million Facebook users ... " not developers.

Re:fifty million Facebook developers

[ShatteredArm]

(1) OpenSocial isn't an application, its a set of technologies on which applications are built;

Of course, but those applications as an aggregate require interest for any of them to be worthwhile.

(2) Actually, you need lots of people involved in the social network, which serves as the "database" of the social networking application. They don't have to use the particular application, much less be interested in the particular set of APIs on which the application is built; and (3) Lots of people can be not interested in something (the supposed 50 million Facebook "developers") and still have lots of other people interested in it. "Lots of people aren't interested in X" does not imply the falsity of "lots of people are interested in X".

Uhhh.... What? Sure, if you can find 50 million users outside of Facebook who are interested in OpenSocial, it might work. But I think it's pretty obvious that if 50 million Facebook users aren't going to switch over, there's not much of a market share left for OpenSocial, especially since people who are joining a social network for the first time will most likely join the one that most of their friends are on, i.e., Facebook.

Certainly not while you are doing that; outside of that time, social networking functionality would be useful to just that kind of group, too. My point is, social networking applications are most useful to connect with those you don't associate with the most on a normal basis. If I need a social networking application to keep track of what my best friends are up to, it really is a sad state of affairs for me.

So? What does that have to do with OpenSocial APIs? Your friends don't have to use the OpenSocial APIs, or even applications built with them, for them to be part of the network you access if you use them. You seem to be confusing social networks with social networking applications and with social networking technologies and confusing developers with users. First of all, I can care less about developers. It is the users who make the applications important, and honestly, Facebook would be better off without "developers."

And yes, my friends do have to be in the OpenSocial data store in order to be part of my network, and I'm not going to find any of my old friends in OpenSocial apps if they're only using Facebook. In order for it to be useful, they have to put their information into OpenSocial.

Re:fifty million Facebook developers

[orclevegam]

I don't think you're reading what's being said here. OpenSocial isn't a social network like Facebook, and it's not meant to compete with or replace Facebook, or MySpace, or whatever social network is currently the "hip" thing. OpenSocial is a standard design that people who write applications for things like Facebook can use to allow their applications to be used all over the place. If Facebook, MySpace, etc. all included support for OpenSocial, and the developers used that to develop their applications (widgets might be a more appropriate term, application I think implies more functionality than most of these things actually have) using OpenSocial, then they can all inter operate with each other and different social networks.

So, in short, OpenSocial neither needs nor wants the support of regular users, it's looking for the support of the social network developers (both internal to places like Facebook and MySpace, and external such as the ones making "applications" for Facebook).

Re:fifty million Facebook developers

[ShatteredArm]

I completely understand that if Facebook adopts OpenSocial, it will be able to interoperate with other applications. I also understand that if Facebook adopts OpenSocial, they have to share their ad revenue with other applications. And, I realize that OpenSocial doesn't really provide any new functionality that the Facebook API doesn't have, and only serves to open up the data to other social networking sites. And if Facebook doesn't use OpenSocial, Facebook data will not be accesible to users who aren't logged into Facebook. And if no users have data that is accessible to OpenSocial (I'm not even sure I want any of my data accessible through OpenSocial), OpenSocial will be useless.

Re:fifty million Facebook developers

[orclevegam]

Well, I'm assuming that Facebook is hosting their own ads, and not embedding them inside of widgets, in which case no, Facebook won't be sharing ad revenue. The only way this could hurt Facebook is it reduces the lock-in on developers who can freely distribute their widgets on all social networks that support OpenSocial, as opposed to having to develop versions for every network. I also don't know how much of a users data will actually be available when they aren't logged in. I'm assuming that you would need to be logged in to the social network (or else how would you even be viewing the widget in the first place) in order for it to access your data. OpenSocial is just a standardized Widget API to make it easier to port widgets between social networks.

Re:fifty million Facebook developers

[davidsyes]

Hmmm... ...ms just is chafing that we are NOT going to let them maximize value from investing in FaceBook...

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=348151&cid=21219915

http://www.touchgraph.com/

So, I think ms just doesn't want to look fracking stupid, which, for spending soooo much money on a social networking site when Google can just call in (more) guns from Open Social, Open Source and hit msoft with a full-one fusillade. Heck, maybe ms will need APIs just to perform battlefield triage on themselves.

Maybe ms will come up with ANTI-SOCIAL APIs? Like "Open Recluse", anyone?

Re:fifty million Facebook developers

[ShatteredArm]

So would we essentially be accomplishing the same thing if every other social networking site just started using the Facebook API?

Re:fifty million Facebook developers

[orclevegam]

So would we essentially be accomplishing the same thing if every other social networking site just started using the Facebook API? Yes, but that's slightly less appealing because it would be controlled by Facebook and thus Microsoft. Admittedly OpenSocial being backed by Google is somewhat suspect as well, but at least with that there's a call right from the outset to make it a standard API that's not owned by any particular social network.

Re:fifty million Facebook developers

[DragonWriter]

Of course, but those applications as an aggregate require interest for any of them to be worthwhile.

No, they really don't, but because the fact that a social networking service supports the OpenSocial APIs does not mean that it can only be used via those APIs.

All it requires for the OpenSocial apps to be useful is for them to connect to networks whose applications, in aggregate, including OpenSocial applications and all other means of using the underlying social data, are interesting to large numbers of users.

Uhhh.... What? Sure, if you can find 50 million users outside of Facebook who are interested in OpenSocial, it might work.

You don't need any users to be "interested in", or even aware of OpenSocial for it to work. You need users to be interested in the applications using the social networks the OpenSocial APIs can be used to access. And you need developers to be interested in building applications with it, running agains the social networks it can access. Then again, given developer interest in the Facebook API, and the fact that the social networking sites that have committed to supporting OpenSocial have, combined, several times the total userbase as Facebook (and one of them, MySpace, alone has more users than Facebook), I don't think that's going to be a problem.

But I think it's pretty obvious that if 50 million Facebook users aren't going to switch over, there's not much of a market share left for OpenSocial

There are, IIRC, about ~150 million users of the sites that have committed to OpenSocial, and about 400 million total estimated users of social networking sites. At 50 million, Facebook isn't a majority of the current social networking market, isn't even the biggest single site in the current social networking market, and certainly isn't consuming all the potential market for social networking such that OpenSocial has no room to maneuver.

My point is, social networking applications are most useful to connect with those you don't associate with the most on a normal basis. If I need a social networking application to keep track of what my best friends are up to, it really is a sad state of affairs for me.

Whether or not I agree with that value judgement, I know plenty of twenty-somethings who do use that as their main use of social networking sites. That you perceive of something as "sad" doesn't mean its not a real part of the way people use a product.

First of all, I can care less about developers. It is the users who make the applications important, and honestly, Facebook would be better off without "developers."

But users don't have to be interested in, or even know or care about, underlying technology (which is what OpenSocial is) for that technology to be successful. How many users are interested in TCP/IP? How many successful applications rely on it?

And yes, my friends do have to be in the OpenSocial data store in order to be part of my network

There is no "OpenSocial data store".

There are the various data stores of particular social networking services that support the OpenSocial APIs. And, again, users of the particular services that have committed to supporting OpenSocial far exceed users of Facebook.

Facebook Developers

[onion2k]

There aren't 50 million Facebook developers. It only seems that way because there's 50 million 'really awesome super dooper wall' applications.

Re:Facebook Developers

[cradle]

If you follow the link, you'll see that what he really said was "There are 50 million Facebook users who don't know what OpenSocial APIs are...and don't care." [emphasis mine]

Re:Facebook Developers

[mgblst]

I think that we should judge all our projects by this huge knowledge base, for if 50 million facebook uses don't know what something is, then it is a complete waste of time.

Re:Facebook Developers

[somersault]

I always knew those apostrophe things were a waste of time.

Well respected?

[EveryNickIsTaken]

well-respected members of the Microsoft blogging community Oxymoron?

Re:Well respected?

[CarpetShark]

well-respected members of the Microsoft blogging community

  Oxymoron?

Where did you get "oxy" from? ;)

Re:Well respected?

[tgd]

From the 50 million facebook users, I'd bet.

New Redmond Ploy

[segedunum]

It might be just me, but there seems to be an awful lot of blog posts coming from Redmond employees these days based on the new tactic of "If we get enough people banging on our blogs and rubbishing it enough, and then claim that we're the victims in all of this when someone raises a valid point, maybe people will believe that it's true!"

Re:New Redmond Ploy

[gamer4Life]

It's definitely the case - they do that for the PS3 vs Xbox 360 as well. Almost every gaming blog has people bashing the PS3 using Microsoft's corporate lines - "No games!!" "Expensive!!" "No BC!!" "Wii60!!" ... this is pure FUD, but it's taken on a life of it's own, so now people will do it on their own.

Microsoft embraced blogging several years back as a viral marketing platform, and now are utilizing it to full effect.

Users != Developers

[downix]

Facebook does not have 50 million developers. It has 50 million users. Active developers are an incredibly small minority within that community.

Or are you saying that Miss take-a-self-portrait-at-arms-length-on-her-cell-phone is a developer because she knows how to post a picture as her background?

Re:Users != Developers

[kebes]

Indeed, and the differentiation between users and developers is critical in this case. Basically, most users don't care about APIs and open standards and such (until, of course, the day they try to migrate all their perfectly tagged photos from one site to another... and discover they can't).

The developers are the ones who might care about APIs and open standards. Now, I'll admit that some casual developers of Facebook widgets don't care too much about portability and open standards. But, I would guess that many (most?) developers of social widgets do care about such things. As a developer, why would you want your work to be coupled to a single site, which is not under your control? Most programmers would prefer to have the ability to move their code from place to place, and for their widgets/applications to be accessible to as many people as possible (otherwise, why are they releasing it in the first place?).

So whereas users might not care about these things, I think many programmers/developers are going to be more interested in working on OpenSocial tools and widgets, rather than contributing to a walled garden that they have no control over. (E.g. Facebook can come up with a tightly-coupled widget that completely replaces your pet project.)

If the developers care, they could certainly shift the balance of power towards OpenSocial. Users may not care about APIs and open standards, but they certainly do care about awesome widgets, the ability to link with a large and growing social network, and (perhaps most importantly) the ability to migrate their current profile into this new network. If everyone except Facebook (for instance) is part of this OpenSocial network, then Facebook users will indeed be annoyed that they cannot interact with the cool toys everyone else is playing with.

Re:Users != Developers

[FreeUser]

Or are you saying that Miss take-a-self-portrait-at-arms-length-on-her-cell-phone is a developer because she knows how to post a picture as her background?

That sounds very much like a Redmond definition of developer to me.

Re:Users != Developers

[ContractualObligatio]

If you read the article you'd know that the Slashdot editor got the summary wrong, because the nice big headline actually states "Fifty Million Facebook Users Don't Care About Google's OpenSocial APIs". Users, not developers.

He further points out that the number of developers "is less than one/one hundredth of one percent of Facebook users".

Nice sarcasm, by the way. Goes nicely with the whole "why bother to check the facts" ignorance thing.

Re:Users != Developers

[Tide]

It doesn't sound to me that you're a Facebook Developer based on your comments. Since that's who is mostly affected here, like myself, you'd realized the FUD Google was spreading. An "Open" alliance that is governed only by Google and lacked inviting the industry leader. Please, I'm not blind. OpenSocial only offers a subset of everything Facebook was already doing, but Facebook provides deeper site integration than OpenSocial will for some time. Inbox, wall, navigation links, bug trackers, developer analytics, etc, all come with Facebook Platform. Sure, its their own language, but as a developer I have to learn APIs for any extra site I want to support anyways. Facebook even gives pre-designed HTML snippets like friend selectors, tab structures, headers, etc also for free speeding up development cost.

Yes FBML for profiles and the push tech behind it is less flexible that just an iframe. But its also safer and faster. What if a user on Myspace has 20 iframes from 20 companies going to 20 servers all over the world. The user experience of waiting an extra 10-20 seconds just for the page to load would be horrible. It clear in that looking at the lack of documentation and support for the OpenSocial API that this was pushed out the door when it wasn't really even in Alpha testing.

Sorry, I'll check back again when Google is done with the PR games and has a decent API... would be nice if it was actually "Open" too. The fact is most developers (larger ones) will simply support both, it's not a tremendous cost difference as its all web code (vs say Mac and PC).

Json again

[oliderid]

I tend to agree with microsoft developpers.

Json may be the right solution if you are web developpers working on javascript and all but for most projects it is just a tiny part of the development. For anything unrelated to this Ajax frenzy. It stinks.

Look at the relatively simple XML based solution provided by facebook...All you need is to look at the XML example and that's it, you get it. Then look at the rather complex solution provided by google for a similar service.

I had to choose between the yahoo API (xml based) and Google Json months ago. After days of struggling with this Json nightmare (server based application, not an HTML embedded script language), i left google and took the yahoo API instead.

Google is trying too hard to push is own agenda. It wants to be the only one proposing a real technologies. Third party developpers must use basic/vulnerable/volatile HTML script language.

In a way Google is doing the same than Microsoft web services (windows live or something)...They did their best to make it incompatible with non-windows technology.

Re:Json again

[orclevegam]

I'm not sure what exactly your point with this is, but I'd like to contribute some interesting facts. First, JSON isn't a Google thing. In fact, it was created by a Yahoo employee (Douglas Crockford), and is an open standard which is available as RFC4627. Having worked with JSON in the past, it's a much simpler, and much lighter markup language than XML (yes, that's right, it's a markup language, nothing more, just like XML, and HTML). I'm not certain how google is using JSON in their API, but in my experience deciding to use JSON over XML is probably a smart idea, as JSON is much more compact, and much easier to write (a lot less typing) and can easily represent all the standard data constructs available in almost any language.

If you want to bash the design of Googles API versus Yahoos that's fine, but please don't confuse the issue by saying JSON is somehow more complicated than XML, as that couldn't be farther from the truth.

Re:Json again

[hey]

The Facebook API let's you (the developer) pick between JSON or XML.

Re:Json again

[TheRaven64]

It's not entirely fair to compare XML to JSON. Something like XML-RPC would be better. XML-RPC defines a load of basic types (strings, integers, floats, dates) and some compound types (structures and arrays). It is semantically almost identical to JSON (although it also provides RPC functions). If you compare JSON to XML-RPC markup of the same document, you will see that the JSON markup is a lot simpler. Which is more easily readable is largely a matter of experience.

Re:Json again

[Anonymous Coward]

So what if its common\less typing. Has it ever occurred to you that it sucks? Javascript is one of the biggest screwups in programming language history. If you can replace that with a simple language that can be VALIDATED and have juicy object oriented solid code on a server back end instead of crappy, slow, error ridden client side scripting that would be a GOOD THING.

AJAX SUCKS.

Re:Json again

[orclevegam]

Once more there's confusion here. JSON is not JavaScript, any more than XML is. JSON was modeled somewhat after the JavaScript syntax, but it's considered a markup in its own right, and there are parsers available for it in many languages either out of the box (PHP), or as external libraries (Java, Ruby, etc.). JavaScript is a language like many others, and like any language it's possible to write very bad code in it. If you think strong typing will prevent that you're wrong (I've personally seen people write some very very bad code in Java).

AJAX exists because of a need that isn't being met. It's an attempt to fill that need and really has nothing to do with JavaScript other than that's the tool that was provided to get the job done. Like it or not, every web browser out there supports JavaScript, and the only other alternative out there with even as little as 40% of the browser market is VB (and then only if you're using IE and Windows). Do I think AJAX is wrong? Partially. I think that people are pushing browsers too far, trying to make them do things that they aren't really designed for. I think we need a new kind of browser to sit along side the web browser, not to replace it. In addion to http: which is handled by traditional web browsers, I think we need a app: or something similar handled by a "app browser" that's designed from the ground up to handle application development. The key to making the whole system work though is it needs to be a open standard not owned by any one company. If Google, or Microsoft, or even Mozilla Foundation get their hands on the standard and become the voice for it people won't want to adopt it because it will be used to bundle all kinds of things and lock people in to a particular vendor. We need HTML/CSS/JavaScript but done for applications this time. HTML was created for documents, and it's done very well in that regard, but we need something more, something for applications, and that's where we need to branch out and make something new.

Of course, most of this is terribly off-topic at this point, but since you brought up client side scripting and AJAX I'd figure I'd put this out here.

Re:Json again

[Anonymous Coward]

Json may be the right solution if you are web developpers working on javascript and all but for most projects it is just a tiny part of the development. For anything unrelated to this Ajax frenzy. It stinks.

In what way? I use it for all kinds of things (and its superset, YAML). It's like XML, but less verbose, simpler, and with real data structures. It has a slightly different aim than XML (XML is better for documents, JSON/YAML is for data), but for the things it does, it's far superior.

Look at the relatively simple XML based solution provided by facebook...All you need is to look at the XML example and that's it, you get it. Then look at the rather complex solution provided by google for a similar service.

Sure, you can write a simple example and people will nod and say they understand. You can write hello-world in C++ and people will nod and say they understand, too, but it doesn't mean that they can instantly start using C++.

You still need to understand XML. I bet virtually every developer has areas of XML s/he doesn't understand. Doctypes, entities, validation (many methods), comments, encoding (BOM), namespaces -- XML is complex. I'm building a web app that uses JSON for a lot of things, and XML for one thing (interoperability with other web services that require it), and the one use of XML has been more pain than all the JSON uses combined. (Don't even get me started on SOAP.)

Then look at the rather complex solution provided by google for a similar service.

Hmm, I didn't hear any JSON complaints. That complexity sounds unrelated to JSON.

Re:Json again

[Anonymous Coward]

The key to making the whole system work though is it needs to be a open standard not owned by any one company.

You mean like AJAX and the multiple frameworks that aren't owned by anyone is?

Re:Json again

[orclevegam]

You mean like AJAX and the multiple frameworks that aren't owned by anyone is?

Yes, but you're still missing the point. It needs to be designed from the beginning for developing network based applications. That means it needs real graphics and animation capabilities. Sure you can kludge it in JavaScript and HTML by using 1 pixel by 1 pixel colored divs, but that's really really slow and terribly wasteful, not to mention a real pain in the butt to program. It would also be nice if it could integrate into the native OS to a certain extent (tray icons, in OS X have the menu across the top of the screen, etc.). But most importantly it needs to be lightweight. Most if not all the data (barring graphics) should be in some sort of text format like HTML and CSS, not binary blobs like class files. It also needs to put a lot of thought into security issues. For an example of something that I think is very close, but fails at least the proprietary test, check out Adobe AIR.

Re:Json again

[davidsyes]

Json,

Ajax, SOAP... Things are getting pretty washed up.

When do we get BORAX, or TIDE, of WISK? (Palm Olive?)

What's next, F13CXML (Friday-13th Coder Slasher Markup Language)

Fifty million DEVELOPERS?

[TheSHAD0W]

Maybe Facebook has fifty million USERS. It's true most of them wouldn't care about Google's new API; most of them won't be writing a lick of code. They'll certainly be willing to incorporate pre-made widgets into their pages, though, which makes the question whether Google's API will produce neater widgets than Facebook's proprietary one.

Re:Fifty million DEVELOPERS?

[Eivind]

No they don't. They have 50 million -accounts- which completely fails to be the same thing.

Some of these are held by people who have two or more accounts. Some are held by spammers, and a great many are held by people who at some point or other signed up out of curisoity, but haven't actually used the site even once the last month. These aren't "users" of the service.

Re:Fifty million DEVELOPERS?

[Smidge204]

Even the Weighted Companion Cube has 16 accounts. What an attention whore! So much for being faithful...

At least he's never threatened to stab me.
=Smidge=

Re:Fifty million DEVELOPERS?

[TheRaven64]

50 million is a very low number. For reference; the UK population is 60 million. In 2006, 51% of the population had some kind of Internet connection. This gives around 30 million internet users in the UK, and every single one of them has email. The 50 million facebook accounts number probably equates to about this number of global facebook users.

Think about that for a second. Email is the oldest social network on the Internet, and it has as many users in the UK as Facebook has in the world.

Re:Fifty million DEVELOPERS?

[Eivind]

It's much less than that actually. As I said, it's 50 million -accounts-

I don't know, and neither does anyone except Facebook, but my guess would be that perhaps 10 million of those are current, active, nonduplicate accounts.

That's a lot from a certain perspective offcourse, but it still means that something like 1% of all internet-users use Facebook, 99% don't.

Wow

[insllvn]

"Dare Osabanjo because in his view OpenSocial while billed as a standardized widget platform for the Web, actually isn't." Did Microsoft really just criticize Google for creating a non-standardized standard? What?

Re:Wow

[gazbo]

No. Dare Obasanjo did. I realise that automatically distinguishing between a person writing on his blog and a multinational corporation may be difficult, but I'd have thought it was maybe easier when the bottom of the post reads:

This post does not reflect the opinions, thoughts, strategies or future intentions of my employer. These are solely my personal opinions. If you are seeking official position statements from Microsoft, please go here.

I'll play devil's advocate...

[ShatteredArm]

...and agree with TFA. OpenSocial will be nothing more than a Google version of Facebook, and I'm not sure I want that, or that any significant amount of people will switch over. And besides, the only thing worse than a 5% MS Facebook is a 100% Google Facebook.

Re:I'll play devil's advocate...

[someone1234]

I don't want Facebook either, so it is even.

Re:I'll play devil's advocate...

[DragonWriter]

OpenSocial will be nothing more than a Google version of Facebook, and I'm not sure I want that, or that any significant amount of people will switch over.

OpenSocial isn't a social networking website. If Google had a version of Facebook, I would guess it would be Orkut, which is Google's social networking website. But OpenSocial is a set of technologies that several social networking websites -- including MySpace, which has more users than Facebook -- are committed to supporting.

Re:I'll play devil's advocate...

[ShatteredArm]

Well, I think TFA made a pretty good case that the OpenSocial API is functionally the equivalent of the Facebook API. Maybe OpenSocial is simply a standard (or whatever), but realistically it is nothing more than another networking service that is consumed by multiple web applications, rather than a networking service that is consumed by a single web application.

Re:I'll play devil's advocate...

[DragonWriter]

Well, I think TFA made a pretty good case that the OpenSocial API is functionally the equivalent of the Facebook API.

That's not really in dispute.

Maybe OpenSocial is simply a standard (or whatever), but realistically it is nothing more than another networking service that is consumed by multiple web applications, rather than a networking service that is consumed by a single web application.

How is it a "networking service" at all?

In other news...

[thatskinnyguy]

Google has supposedly found a cure for Facebook addiction. Participants in a study responded 2 to 1 over placebo in favor of OpenSocial.

All kidding aside, we've all heard these "killer app", "[insert popular toy] killer" stories before. I'm sure it has some advantages over Facebook in many respects. But give it a year or so and we'll see if this is the app that ends Facebook. Considering all the hype is coming from blogs of Google developers, I have to take this with a grain of salt.

Re:In other news...

[jpfed]

It's not an app(lication)- it's an API (applications programming interface). It makes it so that social sites can present to third-party developers a common interface for development. OpenSocial itself is not a competitor to Facebook. It is even a logical possibility that Facebook adopt the OpenSocial API; this talk of OpenSocial "versus" Facebook is merely due to the historical accident that Facebook has not adopted it yet, and many Facebook competitors have.

Googles hidden motive

[ThirdPrize]

While its a good idea Google are only doing it for one reason. All that time you spend on Facebook and MySpace is time that could be better spent looking at ads. If they come up with the facility for you to do your social stuff without leaving their site or gmail or whatever thats more money for them.

Re:Googles hidden motive

[Anonymous Coward]

one reason. All that time you spend on Facebook and MySpace is time that could be better spent looking at ads.

Uh, no, but thanks for playing. If Google was only concerned that these sites don't have Google ads, they'd be concerned about all the big sites that don't have Google ads. Google isn't stupid: they know that there will always be many webpages with no Google ads.

Google's motive isn't hidden at all: Googlebot can't browse Facebook.

While Google is trying to heurstically determine what you're interested in by the content of the page you're looking at, Facebook knows what you're interested in because you've spent all your spare time explicitly adding the links. That's the kind of user data Google would kill for. They want an open social network so they can spider it and figure out what ads to show.

No one knows what it is...

[Anonymous Coward]

And at one time no one had heard of this thing called DOS....

So Much Kool-Aid...

[x_Curious_x]

Why any web developer or widget creator out there who would limit their WEB audience because they favor 1 API over another baffles me. There are several large networks out there moving to open up even more of their audiences to us, so why do I care if one API uses JSON, FBML(its cute but I stay with tried and true HTML on that one), XML, ATOM feeds, and etc. At the end of the day Open Social strikes at proprietary web platforms and allows a widget/web application developer to focus on marketing and spreading their wares instead of worrying about keeping up with multiple web platforms to develop for.

What's standardized anyway?

[internetcommie]

It might be correct that OpenSocial isn't a standardized widget platform, but neither is Facebook. Having 50 million users doesn't make anything a standard, as Microsoft should know the hard way after the Vista release.

MS talks, Google walks

[HangingChad]

Sure MS employees are going to take shots at Google services. But even if they're not perfect, Google is getting the services out there and putting the tools out there. While MS blogs about it. I'm sure MS will eventually field some Windows-centric competitive product...just as soon as they get done blogging about how bad Google is.

Re:MS talks, Google walks

[Billosaur]

But isn't this how MS works anyway? Someone else comes up with idea, MS poo-poohs it, then comes out with their own version, which thanks to their market penetration is taken up by a large user base? It seems MS lets a lot of other people get a head start, so they can see how an application trends before committing larger resources to it. On the one hand brilliant -- on the other hand, pretty nefarious.

Re:MS talks, Google walks

[arkane1234]

And to go along with their usual naming convention they'll call it "Microsoft Social Network"... wait til it's an abysmal failure then rename it to "Microsoft Live Friends & Family" and integrate it into the Windows profile somehow.

Re:MS talks, Google walks

[davidsyes]

You need an "I" in that acronym, and drop an "F". Then, mshaft can call it MILF.

RTFM

[heatdeath]

"Despite these misgivings, I think this is a step in the right direction."

It doesn't sound like bashing to me.

OpenSocial Hacked already

[Toreo asesino]

So says this article - http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/02/first-opensocial-application-hacked-within-45-minutes/

I'm sure we're all shocked, shocked!

[blueZ3]

Who would believe that Microsoft is denigrating a competing standard? What's next? Toyota comparing their trucks to others? Household cleansers claiming to work better than the leading brand?

This could lead to a calamity of Biblical proportions: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies. Rivers and seas boiling. Forty years of darkness. Earthquakes, volcanoes. The dead rising from the grave. Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria!

FUD filter anyone?

[pak9rabid]

Is it just me, or is anyone else conditioned to just ignore anything Microsoft's cronies have to say about competing products as FUD?

The Social Networking Fad is Dying

[johnsie]

Only stalkers and people who can't get chicks use those sites!!

"Open"

[DragonWriter]

It's even funnier than that! It's Microsoft employees bewailing the notion that people don't follow standards!

Its not about not following standards, its about not submitting work to standards body, and specifically, about not being "open" because the technology isn't submitted to a standards body. Osanbanjo writes:

There are all sorts of forums for proposing and discussing open Web technologies including the IETF, W3C, OASIS and even ECMA. Until all of the underlying technologies in OpenSocial have been handed over to one or more of these standards bodies, this is a case of the proprietary pot calling the proprietary kettle black.

Yeah, its the new Microsoft definition of "open": "open" means "submitted to a standards body".

Re:"Open"

[typicallyterrific]

Obviously, I didn't RTFA, but

There are all sorts of forums for proposing and discussing open Web technologies including the IETF, W3C, OASIS and even ECMA. Until all of the underlying technologies in OpenSocial have been handed over to one or more of these standards bodies, this is a case of the proprietary pot calling the proprietary kettle black.

Hahahahaha. As if anyone, and Microsoft of all companies, ever really bothers to follow all that the ECMA and the W3C have to say.
Ah yes, I'll now go and happily write some javascript-to-the-spec and some CSS-to-the-spec that'll work across browsers. Clearly, that's the kind of world we live in.

Is it now assumed Microsoft = Facebook?

[mikemuch]

I haven't seen the comment made anywhere that perhaps the real motivation for the bit OpenSocial announcement could be that Google lost the bidding war for a stake in Facebook. This could explain MS's lack of interest in creating a cross-SN API, though I can't picture them doing that anyway, except maybe as an option in their dev tools.

Re:Is it now assumed Microsoft = Facebook?

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember the timing. Microsoft only just won the bidding war. As much as I respect their intellect and flexibility, I highly doubt that Google would come up with this idea and implementation in a week. It'd be a negligent thing to do- to release an immature API, and that's a Microsoft trait- not a Google one.

My thinking was that Google should have had a limited interest in buying part of Facebook anyway. Facebook's profits are minimal, and users have been quite unhappy lately with some recent feature introductions. I personally hate all the "application SPAM" I get, with acquaintances trying to get me to rate them and answer asinine questions.

I think Google just got in the bidding war to freak out Ballmer and make Microsoft get scared enough to up their bidding and waste a shitload of cash on a non-controlling (read "non-influencing") share of the company.

The icing on the cake would be that Google had been developing OpenSocial for a while now, more than just the last week (when the Microsoft-Facebook deal closed) and timed the release to coincide, knowing the financial press and tech blogs would go nuts (which would in turn makes Ballmer throw chairs).

This is merely speculation of an outsider with no history in financial analysis, but it certainly did give me a good laugh.

-- NHMK

Simplicity

[Tony]

JSON is all about simplicity. It's trivial to write a JSON parser in any language that has first-class support for hashed variables. That is, all languages.

XML might be a better markup language for complicated documents. However, it sucks for exchanging data structures.

I think the difference is that between a strongly-typed language and a dynamically-typed language. XML has support for strong typing and structure verification. JSON is designed to work with languages like Javascript, Perl, Python, PHP, and the like-- which all have support for dynamic typing. So maybe the differences in opinion lie between developers who like the straitjacket (and algorithmic purity) of a strongly-typed language, and those who like the flexibility and simplicity of a dynamically-typed language.

Anyway, that's my opinion. I think the GP post might be referring to a preference in the matter.

Re:Simplicity

[orclevegam]

I've worked with some of the JS to Java AJAX bridges in the past that used JSON for the RPC communication and they usually add an extra "class" field to the JSON data to help serialize between the prototype based JS and the class based Java. It actually works very well, but has one catch that you can't have a property named class on either the JS or Java side of things or it mucks up the serialization.

I think his issue is more to do with a misunderstanding of the different technologies involved here. He seems to be confused between the "widgets" that googles API is designed for (embeddable in web pages, essentially small JS and HTML snippets with AJAX connections to backend servers) and the "widgets" that yahoos API is designed for (run inside a client side sandbox, xml widget layout, JS code for logic/RPC). Most of googles stuff is designed to plug into either their customized homepage, or be dropped onto a server and run in a web browser (like the google maps code). Yahoo on the other hand acquired Konfabulator which is a desktop client designed to function as a plugin framework for small widgets. That's the big difference, one is a scriptable rich client, and the other is basically traditional webapp development.

plogs, not blogs

[paiute]

When someone is paid to sit at work and comment on their web log about the competition, it is no longer a 'blog but a paid web log, or 'plog.

Re:plogs, not blogs

[DragonWriter]

When someone is paid to sit at work and comment on their web log about the competition, it is no longer a 'blog but a paid web log, or 'plog.

Also, when they are doing paid blogging about the competition, they are no longer developers, but instead marketing drones.

Re:plogs, not blogs

[mscherotter]

I know that i'm not a "Heavy Hitter" like Dare, but I tried out OpenSocial this weekend and I saw something very interesting. I am also a Microsoft employee and I am paid to blog: Silverlight in OpenSocial!
I thought that Dare wrote a very thoughtful analysis of OpenSocial but I wanted to get my hands dirty with it and see what I could do.

Michael S. Scherotter
Microsoft Corporation

Re:plogs, not blogs

[Anonymous Coward]

instead of blogs or plogs, why don't we just call it "Advertising," "Marketing," or "Propaganda?" Yes, it isn't as politically correct, but I think it fits.

appropriate captcha image: paranoia

OpenID yet? No? Damn!

[SanityInAnarchy]

I'll link to my other comment on this issue.

Basically, I'm still kind of bitter about Google releasing a standard that, well, doesn't seem much better than Facebook. For it to truly be open, you have to allow users, not just website admins, to choose other services than Google.

I can connect with Gmail people from any email server, because they talk SMTP. I can connect with Google Talk people from any Jabber server. I cannot connect with OpenSocial/Orkut people from any other authentication/profile server than Google's.

OpenID has already solved that problem. It doesn't do all the social networking stuff -- yet -- but it was a start. I don't really care if you throw it out and make up your own standard, so long as you have at least that basic level of functionality.

Wrong Name

[a1terego]

I think it's "Dare Obasanjo" not "Dare Osabanjo" ... and no, I am pretty sure he doesn't play the banjo. not many Nigerians do.

Did people actually read the articles?

[gaindev]

Did a few people actually read the articles before they commented? I think the two articles raised a few interesting points.

The one from Don Dodge pointed out the most important fact that Facebook's success is based on its users' loyalty to the service. Do they really care about applications? Most of them dont care that much. If one developer leaves, there will be plenty of others who will do same thing, even better.

The second article looks at OpenSocial from technical perspective. It compared the two set of APIs to see whether facebook's or opensocial is better technically. OpenSocial should be seen as FREE APIs rather than "open" (which generally regarded as good, no evil) APIs. These APIs are owned and administered by Google, which they can withdraw anytime they want as with Google Map APIs.

Having said that, it's still interesting to watch the battle bw facebook and "the new microsoft" :D

Re:Did people actually read the articles?

[davidsyes]

"OpenSocial should be seen as FREE APIs rather than "open" (which generally regarded as good, no evil) APIs."

And THAT probably is what ms is REALLY after. The younger, next-gen developers (NGDs, anyone). For free. They basically are getting a gigantic pool of presumably promising developers for free. After all, what do these "developers" have in the way of skills or experience. Their "offerings" are their resumes.

Why, I bet you ms this very minute has their Easy-Bake/Mix-Master DJ's in the board rooms spinning their yarn and asses off convincing Wall Street, Madison Avenue, and other exchanges of how "good" their $250M+ was... ummm *is*...

Re:ATTN: slashdot "editors"

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, he used to be a Slashdot regular under the name Carnage4Life. I remember him posting about starting at Microsoft.

OpenSocial = Google freaking out

[Anonymous Coward]

Google has been freaking out over Facebook, since it's a big chunk of the internet which is walled off to them. They wanted to buy in.... but Zuckerberg went insane, started seeing dollar signs, and valued Facebook at $15 BILLION. Those are some awfully big cojones, seeing as how Facebook hasn't made a single dime in profit yet.

Now that MS has not only sorta kinda bought in to Facebook, but has also given credibility to Faceberg's ridiculous $15 Billion valuation, Google knows it's crazy to dump that kind of cash into something which will probably never turn a profit. They can only support so many YouTubes, after all.

So now, OpenSocial is what it looks like when Google throws chairs against walls. They want in on Facebook, and are hoping people will give them a backdoor into the system.

Good luck on that, Googs. We see how many billions there were to be made in the instant messenger space. I'm sure the personal webpage/social networking stuff is going to be just as lucrative.

Re:OpenSocial = Google freaking out

[MightyMartian]

All of this for a stupid social networking site.

Re:OpenSocial = Google freaking out

[jo42]

Welcome to The Latest Internet Fad (c)(tm)*.

* Copyright/Trademark may or may not include bold lettering.

Re:OpenSocial = Google freaking out

[MightyMartian]

I'm so glad Microsoft and Google are responsible corporate entities, and not fueling a new feeding frenzy of irrational investment. It's not like the sub-prime collapse has done any collateral damage to the economy, so heap on more bizarre, nonsensical investment strategies.

It's soooo much like the 1990s that I saw mention of "Web 3.0" a few days ago, as if the comical fluff that is Web 2.0 wasn't bad enough. I think it's time I get on the bandwagon. Know of many brain dead venture capitalists out there willing to give me a few million. If I can beat the bubble's burst, I should be able to pocket a lot of money, live in Hawaii and laugh my ass off at the idiots out there.

Re:OpenSocial = Google freaking out

[entropiccanuck]

NY Times had an article "In India, Poverty Inspires Technology Workers to Altruism" that discussed how social networking sites had huge economic potential for the impoverished in India. I don't have much use for myspace, but social networking via the internet could have profound impact.

Re:OpenSocial = Google freaking out

[dave562]

It's soooo much like the 1990s that I saw mention of "Web 3.0" a few days ago, as if the comical fluff that is Web 2.0 wasn't bad enough. I think it's time I get on the bandwagon. Know of many brain dead venture capitalists out there willing to give me a few million. If I can beat the bubble's burst, I should be able to pocket a lot of money, live in Hawaii and laugh my ass off at the idiots out there.

I am intrigued by your comments and would like to buy into your newsletter. Can you publish it as an emersive web based experience that will leverage the latest in nVidia 3d graphics technology and an as yet to be standardized physics hardware accelerator?

Hear, hear!

[HotButteredHampster]

I recently deactivated my Facebook account, largely because of the flood of stupid applications and friends bugging you to add said stupid applications. Maybe if I spent an hour or more per day at Facebook I'd find them fun diversions, but as is they are annoying, annoying, annoying.

Personally, I think this is just an attempt by Google to kill the entire social networking fad. Make them ALL as annoying as Facebook, and they'll be done.

HBH

Hang on - let's count em

[Anonymous Coward]

Developers, developers, developers, developers. Developers, developers, developers, developers. Developers, developers, developers, developers!
Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!! Developers Developers Developers Developers!!! DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS!! DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DVLPERS DEVEELPRS VPLRES!!! VBBEPRS!!! AAAARGH!!!!! ....

Oops forgot the link

[shaitand]

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aint

Stamping feet, and shaking fists... on both sides?

[aeroseth]

Wow, is jg21 taking a jab at Dare Obasanjo by calling him Dare Osabanjo? Maybe it was just a typo, but I digress.
Dare seems to present his thoughts in a well written manner and doesn't seem to be ranting, so I dismiss jg21's one liner to describe Dare's article as a cheap shot. I'm no fan of Microsoft but if Google can learn from Microsoft's developers (hint, hint, free secrets about Microsoft's strategy) to make Google's API better then why not. However Don Dodge's comments are exactly the kind of "Na-na-na, naa-naa-naaaa", "in your face" kind of bullet-point ranting I'd expect from a Microsoft developer.

In any case this topic is sure to get more press here then it's worth, even my time spent commenting on it seems to be a total waste now that I think about it.

Seth

Google is acting more like Microsoft

[wicka]

The whole OpenSocial idea just reminds me of something Microsoft would do. Facebook is out there, it's great, people love it, and now Google is making their own version (well I guess they already have Orkut, but yeah) that will most likely be universally ignored. Microsoft does this over and over just to gain a foothold in every market. The only difference is that this will be one of the few times for Google that no one cares (whereas Microsoft is quite used to that).

Re:Google is acting more like Microsoft

[DragonWriter]

The whole OpenSocial idea just reminds me of something Microsoft would do. Facebook is out there, it's great, people love it, and now Google is making their own version (well I guess they already have Orkut, but yeah) that will most likely be universally ignored.

MySpace already exists, too, has more users than Facebook, and is one of the sites initially committed to OpenSocial. Orkut may be Google's version of "Facebook", i.e., a social networking service, and it may continue to be a relatively small player in the social networking space. OTOH, OpenSocial is not a version of Facebook. It may play a similar role to the Facebook APIs, but its not tied to anyone social networking service. Already, many other social networking services, including MySpace, have committed to it. It is not being ignored now, and the commitment by major social networking services makes it unlikely that it will be ignored by developers interested in making applications that leverage existing social networks.

Dictionary Boy to the Rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually according to the dictionary a word is "a unit of language, consisting of one or more spoken sounds or their written representation, that functions as a principal carrier of meaning".

Ain't most certainly is a word.

Sys-con hosting more FUD: remembering the past

[merc]

Consider the source folks, this is the same online rag that hosts Maureen O'Gara articles. For those that aren't familiar with "MoG" she a SCO shill with an extreme anti-IBM bias that stalked Groklaw's PJ, posted her personal information and other sorts of gossipy crap which SYS-CON happily published. MoG is also the last holdout that believes the SCO lies (and who is, coincidentally, owed money by SCO as is shown in the bankruptcy debtors list).

At one time SYS-CON promised to get rid of MOG, right after a mass exodus by SYS-CON writers in protest over what was called a gross violation of professional ethics. Later in an interview for Free Software Magazine, Fuat Kircaali, CEO of Sys-Con, stated he felt Maureen did nothing wrong. Today they still let her secretly write pro-SCO rubbish, and in some cases outright incorrect information under a pen name.

Anyone who consideres SYS-CON an authoritive source of IT information would be better off reading eweek or TheOnion for that matter. Sys-Con has some sort of agenda and are (at least in my opinion) serving interests other than Free or Open source software.

Sour grapes.

[QuietLagoon]

Microsoft is losing on the web. Microsoft is unable to compete. So what do they do? They whine.

Zan & Jayna reference

[Vitriol Angst]

Without even reading this, I can already tell the following;
"Wonder Twin powers, activate!"
  [Microsoft] form of; Fear and Doubt
  [coalition of the willing partner to make it look like we've got a coalition here, for reasonable rates] You know, what he said. But I'm also the shape of Uncertainty -- but that is really vague.

OK, I'm jumping the gun here ... this is just two guys on a blog. But this is pure Microsoft mentality; "If we don't have it, but it is something we want, there is something wrong with it and we just have to figure out what that is." There will probably be a more formal "beware of OpenSocial" coalition of the Microsoft in the future.

Prediction: Google's new API will take off. While the power of FaceBook is the people. The power of Google's new API is that it is for developers. So businesses and developers who want to do "facebook" like things will want to check this out. They will be bringing their own audience in a sense -- so it doesn't TAKE from Facebook's market, but it will take from their growth.

Microsoft will be beaten by a sponge -- and it won't have to be an evil sponge either.

>> Because, as concerned citizens of the world, these companies just have to make sure everyone knows that a free API can actually cause cancer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonder_Twins

Microsoft crowd is talking as if they own facebook

[unity100]

now ?

When did that happen ? with a pathetic 2% share ?

time to cancel my facebook account it seems.

.net API's

[fozzmeister]

most windows users don't know what the .net api's are, and don't care either. so is .net irrelevant ms?

Platform for Spam?

[sheldon]

Just curious. I was trying to understand what this OpenSocial was, so clicked through the links... ultimately ended up looking at some site called Orkut. joined some random group to see how it worked.

And I saw a forum filled with spam. In fact 99% of the content was spam.

I don't use myspace, et al... is this how all of them are?

Don Dodge knows what 50 million people care about?

[justdrew]

calling this 50 million 'developers' is a bit of a joke too. you might as well call me a slashdot developer since I was able to post this message.

Heavy Guns?

[PinchDuck]

Two Bloggers are heavy guns? Maybe you want to ask the boys over at Digital Research what it means to have the heavy guns come at you from Redmond. Writing snarky articles in a blog hardly counts.

Industry leader?

[DragonWriter]

An "Open" alliance that is governed only by Google and lacked inviting the industry leader.

MySpace was not only invited, they signed on, and by every account I've seen they are at least twice as big as any other social networking site.

So I think your criticism is misplaced.

Re:Industry leader?

[Tide]

Facebook to my knowledge has the largest number of social application developers, being the industry leader in the "social web platform" space. I was never meaning to imply Myspace doesn't have the most traffic, and more to your point, they are only participating, not governing. Myspace is still planning its own platform, as is Friendster and others.

My critism still remains that in not inviting Facebook (or Myspace, or anyone) to help *govern* the API, they clearly had not intended it to be "open". Standards organizations exist for a reason, so many people can come together and decide on whats best for everyone.

Re:Industry leader?

[DragonWriter]

Facebook to my knowledge has the largest number of social application developers, being the industry leader in the "social web platform" space.

But the number of developers doesn't make it the leader, the number of users does. Every social networking site is a social web platform, even if all the developers are internal to the site provider, and the important metric is the size of the audience, not the number of people currently trying to produce apps for that audience.

I was never meaning to imply Myspace doesn't have the most traffic, and more to your point, they are only participating, not governing.

That is not to my point at all.

My critism still remains that in not inviting Facebook (or Myspace, or anyone) to help *govern* the API, they clearly had not intended it to be "open".

This is a very strange definition of "open". Now, until the SPI and other server-side pieces are out, its hard to evaluate, but if it is possible to implement, with neither legal nor practical impediments, end-to-end independently of Google other than the use of freely-available code from Google, then it will clearly be "open" in any reasonable sense. If it falls short of that, it may or may not be "open" in some meaningful sense. Having other participants in governing a project doesn't make it open, and having one participant governing doesn't stop it from being open.

Standards organizations exist for a reason

One rather orthogonal, in most cases, to openness, and many standards-organization-recognized standards are proprietary solutions encumbered by patents, etc. Some standards organizations prohibit this, but standardization and openness are very different things that sometimes overlap.

How about reading the API?

[Kristoph]

So, you know, before bagging out this person for being a Microsoft shill (which he may be, I don't know) did any poster bother reading the OpenSocial API spec? Because I did, in fact, read it and I have to say, its really very bad. I mean, it reads like some marketroids gathered up some stuff Orkut is doing into a binder (which itself did not have much forethought), did a deal with some partners, and threw it out there with the word 'Open' in the title for the GOOG fanboys.

I am usually a fan of GOOG API's but this is pure competitive play that is weak technically and has little or no merit beyond who is supporting it.

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'Heavy Guns'?

[I'm Don Giovanni]

Only on slashdot would two blogs be considered "Redmond's Heavy Guns".
Microsoft has literally *thousands* of bloggers. Two of those stating their own opinions on something (and explicitly say, "This is my own opinion, not necessarily my employers") doesn't constitute "Heavy Guns".

Re:ATTN: slashdot "editors"

[0xdeadbeef]

Troll and Overrated? I'm pointing out that his name is misspelled, you humorless autistic twits.

Slashdot moderation should not be anonymous. We wouldn't need meta-mod if we had the ability to point and laugh at the morons.

The fact that ms is using fud ...

[Billly Gates]

.. means they got scared.

Typically ms keeps their mouth shut and even complements its comeptitors such as firefox.

I think the move by google surprised them and nothing scares ms more than a standard api they can not control like java or even html.

Do we really need gun metaphors for software?

[tjstork]

I love my guns as much as any good right winger, but, to even compare Microsoft's FUD to some sort of an armed camp seems awefully ludicrous when the real guys with guns are fighting in Iraq.