Apps Already Coming for Google's New OpenSocial
A day after MySpace and Google sent shockwaves through the Web 2.0 world, third-party developers already are announcing plans to build applications using their jointly developed social network APIs. — Recommend this story?
Context & Ripple Effects
The launch details dropped October 30 and moved fast: Marc Andreessen framed OpenSocial as 'a new universe of social applications all over the web' the next day, and by November 1 TechCrunch was calling the MySpace, Bebo and SixApart defection to Google's standard 'checkmate' — the three biggest non-Facebook networks signing onto one set of social APIs. A November 2 analysis argued the real story is what OpenSocial means rather than what it ships.
What changed on November 3 is speed: developers are committing applications before most users have seen a single one, and the pickup was immediate enough that TechCrunch's syndicated follow-up reported the first OpenSocial application was hacked within 45 minutes of going live. The counterweight in the confirmed record: only sites invited to Google's launch event can currently host OpenSocial apps, and at least one prominent blogger is publicly criticizing the spec's missing Container API.
First-order effects
- Third-party developers gain a write-once target: an application built against OpenSocial's jointly developed Google-MySpace APIs can reach audiences across MySpace, Bebo and SixApart without per-network ports, and several are announcing builds a single day after launch.
- Google controls the gate for now — hosting is limited to sites invited to its launch event — so early developer commitments concentrate attention and traffic on whichever containers Google admits first.
Second-order effects
- Facebook, which kept its application platform proprietary while MySpace, Bebo and SixApart joined the open standard, now faces pressure to respond either by opening its own APIs or by out-investing rivals in developer tools — the checkmate framing in coverage makes that contest explicit.
- The 45-minute hack reported in syndicated coverage plus the public criticism of OpenSocial's missing Container API force Google into a rapid spec-iteration cycle, since security holes and API gaps in a shared standard propagate across every member network at once.
Third-order effects
- If the standard holds, social application distribution shifts from per-network platform lock-in toward shared web-wide APIs, with Google positioned as the standard-setter across social networking — the same open-source coalition play it is running in mobile, where Android is confirmed as carrier- and handset-backed software aimed squarely at Apple's closed iPhone model.
- Network operators become commodity hosts: when any container can run the same social apps, competition moves to audience size and data portability rather than exclusive developer deals, a structural change the invited-only launch phase is currently masking.
The trend: Web 2.0 platforms are consolidating around shared open API standards — first in social networking with OpenSocial, simultaneously in mobile with Android — as Google converts openness into standard-setting leverage against closed rivals like Apple and Facebook.