Amazon PR: Neither Open Nor Social
Is Amazon supporting Open Social? If they are, that would be big news. If they have decided not to, that would be big news too. We reported last night that Amazon was announcing support for the Google-led protocol, along with a number of other smaller announcements.
Context & Ripple Effects
Google's OpenSocial coalition launched at the end of October 2007 amid a wave of partner announcements — TechCrunch previewed the Thursday launch, Marc Andreessen walked through the vision on his blog, and our own analysis asked what OpenSocial really means for a web where social apps run anywhere. Against that backdrop, Read/WriteWeb reported last night that Amazon was set to announce support for the protocol alongside several smaller announcements.
That report has now collapsed: Amazon denies it is supporting OpenSocial, despite the earlier claims of imminent backing. The episode lands just as Amazon's own platform ambitions are in focus — an industry source cited by CNET News has an unconfirmed Kindle e-book reader unveiling slated for a high-profile New York event on Monday.
First-order effects
- Developers who read last night's reports and began targeting Amazon properties with OpenSocial gadgets have no supported surface to build against, and Amazon's communications team takes the credibility hit for a premature or misread announcement.
- Google loses what would have been its most prominent retail-side partner in the coalition days after launch, leaving the alliance leaning on the smaller social networks that signed on in October.
Second-order effects
- Other large consumer platforms now face pressure to declare a clear position on OpenSocial rather than let press speculation answer for them, since ambiguous signaling proved damaging enough for Amazon to issue a denial within a day.
- The confusion hands skeptics of the Google-led standard an argument that its partner list is thinner than the launch-week optics suggested, which competitors can cite when weighing whether to join.
Third-order effects
- If large platforms treat open protocols as optional branding rather than commitments, cross-site application standards will depend on anchor tenants actually shipping integrations — a coalition without them risks becoming a specification in search of adopters.
- The pattern points toward platform owners joining open ecosystems only where distribution flows their way and abstaining where a shared standard commoditizes their own walled garden, making 'open' claims something buyers and developers should verify against shipped code.
The trend: The 2007 wave of open-platform announcements is entering its verification phase, where each major platform's real commitment — Amazon's included — gets tested by whether code ships rather than whether press releases do.