Last October, Google launched an attack against the much vaunted Facebook platform by promising to be even more open with its own OpenSocial. It had also managed to assemble an impressive line-up of launch partners including MySpace. For a while it seemed as if the world had split into two camps — Facebook and the rest of the world. It seemed as if yet again, Google had pulled the rug under someone with its stellar execution and superior technology. Or had it?

Fast forward just a few months later to Spring 2008. Pretty much every one of the launch partners is announcing its own proprietary extensions to the standard. It seems OpenSocial is fast becoming the lowest common denominator — a spot it shares with many such poorly executed standardization efforts. Clearly there is huge consumer benefit if there are open standards in this space. A walled garden is not the right model. But, as OpenSocial partners and application developers (including us) quickly discovered, each of these networks caters to a different user base and serves different needs — from the attention-challenged MySpace to the staid LinkedIn. So, in practice, the promise of write-once, run-anywhere will not be possible with OpenSocial. As an application developer, I am forced to design my MySpace application differently from my LinkedIn application.

A better model that is emerging is exemplified by applications such as LivingSocial, Chirp and ours (See a sneak peek below). Each of these applications is offering a valuable service and does not require you to be logged into the various Social Networks. You get to share your information and get updates from friends no matter where you are — just like you IM with friends in AOL, Yahoo, Google Talk, Jabber or MSN using either a multi-protocol chat client or through gateways that allow you communicate with friends elsewhere. Users will not remain stuck in a walled garden and will cruise wherever they want to, however they want to. Then, and only then, should Open and Social be mentioned together.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 30th, 2008 at 3:25 pm and is filed under Stuff, Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.