Google’s Salvo at Facebook Revealed
We knew Google had something in the works to “out-open” Facebook, and the extent of that plan became much more clear today.
The much rumored Maka-Maka has a name now: OpenSocial.
Facebook gained a lot of popularity last spring when it opened up its service to outside developers, prompting over 5,000 programs to be developed within the network, many of which have been dispersed throughout the Facebook system. iLike, for example, developed an application for Facebook users to play clips of music they like in their profile. 7% of all Facebook users now use iLike.
The openness of Facebook has a lot to do with its rise in popularity over the last year or so. The fact that anybody could use their framework to develop apps was very attractive to users and developers. However, one of the drawbacks is that developers were forced to use the language of Facebook’s platform, FBML.
OpenSocial will allow users to program in javascript and html, which means they will be able to basically tweak the code they already have to work with host. Instead of learning and rewriting their apps in a foreign language, it will be much easier to transfer what they already have through OpenSocial to the host social network.
Who are the hosts signed on to this? Besides Google’s own Orkut, which is far more popular overseas than in the US, there is Friendster, LinkedIn, Ning, Plaxo and hi5. Oracle, Salesforce, and Viadeo are also signed on.
The four developers mentioned have all worked with Facebook before but have agreed now to work with OpenSocial. They include iLike (mentioned above), Flixster, Slide, and RockYou.
While it may seem odd for Google to form an alliance with other social networks when they already have Orkut, the answer is simple: this will allow Google’s advertising wing access to those networks. And there’s no reason to think this won’t help Orkut too.
Besides, according to Google, their advertising has been much more effective on those applications used over the social networks rather than on the user pages themselves. So it’s not the social network itself that holds the biggest promise for business: it’s the apps used on those networks.
With OpenSocial, Google will be able to do just that: be the medium between the social network and the developer, and have access to all of the benefits that relationship provides.
Technorati Tags: opensocial, facebook, google, friendster, ilike, social networks, maka-maka
