Google Launches APIs to Drive Social Apps, Gains MySpace Support

Google Inc. has announced a set of common APIs for building social applications called OpenSocial in a move that portends to drive higher value across the Web while making a strong statement to those that have dismissed social networking as a fad lacking relevance.  

Specifically designed for developers of social applications and for Web sites that want to add social features, OpenSocial has already gained huge support from the likes of MySpace, Friendster, LinkedIn, Bebo, Engage and Oracle, providing a competitive threat to archrival Facebook, in which Microsoft last week bought a stake.

"Facebook requires webapp builders to adhere to its proprietary APIs,” said David Bradshaw, principal analyst at Ovum. “In contrast, OpenSocial is built using open standards like HTML and Javascript, and it also supports Adobe's Flash. As a result, widgets on Facebook will be a lot harder to deploy on other sites and vice-versa, while OpenSocial widgets should be relatively easy to deploy to between sites."

Social networking sites aren’t the only high-profile companies that need to open their APIs to the masses to drive developer enthusiasm and application creation. Xchange will examine this issue as it relates to the iPhone in the December issue and has already laid out the topic of service delivery platforms and APIs.

Google said OpenSocial will make life easier for developers by letting them build far-reaching applications that users can enjoy regardless of the Web sites, Web applications, or social networks they use. The release of OpenSocial marks the first time that multiple social networks have been made accessible under a common API to make development and distribution easier and more efficient for developers, as opposed to developing applications on a site-by-site basis.

"The Web is fundamentally better when it's social, and we're only just starting to see what's possible when you bring social information into different contexts on the Web," said Jeff Huber, senior vice president of engineering at Google, in a statement. "There's a lot of innovation that will be spurred simply by creating a standard way for developers to run social applications in more places. With the input and iteration of the community, we hope OpenSocial will become a standard set of technologies for making the web social."

Google emphasizes that a big benefit of OpenSocial is the vast distribution network that developers will have for their applications. The sites that the company says have already committed to supporting OpenSocial – Bebo, Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, mixi, MySpace, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING – represent an audience of about 200 million users globally.

Several developers, including Flixster, FotoFlexer, iLike, RockYou, Slide, Theikos, and VirtualTourist have already built applications that use the OpenSocial APIs, according to Google. A developer sandbox will be available soon at http://sandbox.orkut.com so developers can go in and start testing the OpenSocial APIs. The goal is to have developers build applications in the sandbox so they can deploy on orkut and ultimately other OpenSocial sites.

And while social networking sites in general have been ignored and written off by many in the communications industry as places for college kids to share videos and socialize, they provide a business model for their users and have driven corporations selling consumer products to create their own to better link with current and prospective customers.

"The ability to place third party applications on a large Web site is good for both the users (it adds more functionality to the Web site) and for the Web site owner (more visitors means more advertising revenue,” said Ovum’s Bradshaw. “Also the widget [Web] application]owner can gain revenues in one of several ways – the most obvious been ads placed in the widget.”

The industry analysts notes rival Facebook has already pioneered the use of third-party widgets on its site, “and this has widely been judged both an astute move and an instant success – at least in terms of user enthusiasm and adoption."

And VoIP visionaries see social networking as the near and long-term future of communications.

The OpenSocial APIs give developers (with users' permission) access to the data needed to build social applications: access to an application user's profile information, their list of friends, and the ability to share their activities with friends. OpenSocial resources for developers and websites will be available at http://code.google.com/apis/opensocial.  

Google says developers will have access to three JavaScript and Gdata APIs to access social functions; a live developer sandbox on orkut at sandbox.orkut.com; and a sample code, documentation and a support group available at code.google.com.

The company said Web sites will have access to a tool to help OpenSocial-enable their Web sites; a support forum for communicating with Google and other Web sites; and sample code, documentation, and a support group available at code.google.com. 

Google also said dozens of developers have helped test early iterations of the OpenSocial APIs including CurrentTV, the New York Times and PayPal.

Facebook www.facebook.com
Google Inc. www.google.com
MySpace www.myspace.com

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