November 11, 2007

Google Launches 'OpenSocial' Platform







As first reported at TechCrunch, Google has announced a social networking platform called OpenSocial, which includes tools to allow developers to create applications that utilize personal and social data contained in participating social networks - the first step toward putting you back in control of your online relationships.

Google appears to be supplying the "social graph" - the map of relationships between people that makes it possible for you to see when your friends add applications, photos or new connections to their profiles - with tools to allow developers access to the social graph and other personal data on participating networks.

Several players in the social networking space such as Hi5, Plaxo, LinkedIn, Orkut, Ning Engage.com, Friendster, Hyves, imeem, MySpace, Oracle, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING as well as widget developers RockYou, Slide, iLike and Flixster have all signed on to supply applications based on the platform. Unsurprisingly, Facebook is not on the list.

According to Mashable, Google finally released their open source container sample on November 9. After looking through it and the accompanying documentation, it definitely provides a good starting point for potential OpenSocial developers to begin forming the basis for their applications.

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