Empire Strikes Back: Google OpenSocial

So that was my fix of drama for the evening.

Am as indolent as all get-out now, so just a few lines. It has been an eventful week in startup schemes, but today’s twilight highlight is summarized in one sentence:

Google OpenSocial debuts this Thursday.

Hosts include

- social networks Orkut, Ning, Friendster, Hi5

- business connection sites LinkedIn, Viadeo

- organizational service Plaxo

- CRM application company Salesforce

- industry heavy Oracle

On the developers side, enter

- movie fan community Flixster

- application and widget provider RockYou

- social music site iLike

- photo and video media creator Slide

Orkut, Ning, Friendster and Hi5 tall up to roughly 100 million users. No mention on Facebook or Myspace. One of my favorite bloggers and Ning Founder Marc Andreessen comments that Facebook and Myspace are not included, at least in the duration, for applications have already been developed for their audiences.

In the words of Rob Hof of Tech Beat:

The Google platform, called OpenSocial, potentially lets software developers create programs that will run on any social network that accepts the standards (though each site will have control over which programs, or widgets, will run on its real estate). Google’s Joe Kraus says it’s not just about making Google social, but “making the entire Web social.”

“This is an open version of what Facebook has done,” says Andreessen.

“This definitely poses a real challenge” to the prospect that Facebook would have the biggest platform for social programs on the Web. Developers can potentially reach even more people than on Facebook alone, and other social Web sites don’t have to persuade developers to write just for their sites, which
they generally don’t have the resources to do.

“Developers found their new gold strike,” Michael Arrington writes, “and they will soon all be there, mining away.”

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Thinking tangentially and relationally, here is a Bill of Rights for usage of the OpenSocial web, authored by Joseph Smarr, Marc Canter, Robert Scoble, and Michael Arrington.

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Gigaom, OpenSocial, Google’s Open Answer to Facebook
Techcrunch, Details Revealed: Google OpenSocial to Launch Thursday

Blog.P.Marca, OpenSocial: A New Universe of Web Apps..

Techworking, Why Google Didn’t Shed Tears For Facebook

Tech Beat, Google’s OpenSocial: Take That Facebook!