OpenSocial - Should you trust Google?

Last week I was in Bangalore for a WebInnovation seminar during which I asked Marc Canter (Co-founder Macromedia and CEO of Broadband Mechanics - PeopleAggregator)...

'In the last week three partners of Google's OpenSocial (Friendster, Bebo and LinkedIn) have announced their individual platforms...why so? Do they not trust Google entirely?'

Marc's reply wasn't really clear - he talked about Bebo partnering with both Facebook and Google and then took the question on a different tangent...about MySpace and how they might never open their own APIs and how they are losing the social network war against Facebook.

Anyways I came across an interview of Marc today and here are a few excerpts from it:

Why shouldn't a company go for existing social platform (say from Google when it launches such a platform) rather than building its own?

It shouldn't. Absolutely not! Today, social networking is a commodity. It is same everywhere. Most sites have standard features, personal page, login page, group page etc. However, to have a compelling online experience you need not only differ from competitors, but also offer something more compelling.

Social networking features need to be everywhere; whether as a productivity suite or as an e-commerce tool.

There is a lot of money to be made in social networking. I believe the company who embraces it in the beginning will be the leader.

How is Google's OpenSocial different from existing social networks?

Today, OpenSocial mimics Facebook. It should be called open widget. However, this is just the opening move of a chess game. This is not the end but the beginning. The beginning for Google was to identify a hole in Facebook's strategy.

Facebook was great when it opened its platform to developers in May. The site was immediately flooded with several interesting applications. However, in the end, Facebook is just another closed system. It locks in its customers. In the end, it only works when you go to them.

Unlike Facebook, OpenSocial does not have its own markup language. It allows developers to write in normal java script and html with only minor adjustments needed for the code to work on its platform. Facebook requires use of FBML (Facebook Markup Language) for security reasons, but it also makes code unusable outside Facebook. OpenSocial will especially attract small developers who can create 'learn once, write anywhere' applications.

Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are today one way. But they should be two-way. OpenSocial will be first two-way API. Watch Google, it will get APIs into Maps, RSS Reader, spreadsheets and all probable places.

OpenSocial Partners

A lot of activity is being seen in the Social Network scene with Bebo launching it's own platform on the lines of Facebook and LinkedIn & Friendster also launching their platforms last week. It seems like most of the Social Networks are keen on having their own platforms up and running rather than relying only on Google's OpenSocial - which might be a pretty smart thing to do.

Anyways here is a list of all OpenSocial partners:

Bebo - Very popular Social Network in Europe especially the UK.

Engage - A dating centric Social Networking website.

Friendster - Very popular in South East Asia.

Hi5 - A social network which sees global usage with no particular country dominating demographics.

Hyves - Extrememly popular in the Netherlands

imeem - A popular Social Media service site.

LinkedIn - The most popular Professional Social Networking site. These guys recently launched their own platform and opened it for 3rd party developers.

NetModular - Social Networking + Blogging platform.

mixi - A very popular social networking site in Japan.

MySpace - One of the largest if not THE largest Social Networking site in the world.

Ning - An online platform for users to create their own social networks.

Oracle - One of the major companies developing database management systems and tools for database development.

Plaxo - Online address book service.

Salesforce - Salesforce.com is an on-demand CRM solution vendor. They have something called AppExchange which is a way for external developers to create add-on applications that will link into the main Salesforce.com system.

Six Apart - Creators of Movable Type, Typepad, Vox and former owners of LiveJournal.

Tianji - Chinese Professional Networking site

Viadeo - Another professional social networking site.

Xing - Yet another professional social networking site. Majority of users are Germans.

Plaxo and Ning released OpenSocial support within the first day of the launch, with Plaxo adding OpenSocial support to its Pulse feature and Ning adding basic OpenSocial support.

Developers who had already built applications implementing the APIs upon launch include Flixster, FotoFlexer, iLike, RockYou, Slide, Theikos, and VirtualTourist. We'll have details about all these apps soon.