Google launched OpenSocial on Novemeber 1, 2007 and I was made aware of it by a colleague at work. OpenSocial is a social networking platform which will allows application developers to work with social data from the participating social networks. OpenSocial, unlike any other social networking site is, not another social networking site. Rather, it provides a common set of APIs for social applications across multiple websites, thereby minimising development and maintenance work. There are basically two type of OpenSocial APIs: JavaScript APIs and Google Data APIs.

According to google, there are many websites implementing OpenSocial, including Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, MySpace, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING.

Oh, that sounds exciting, how do I get started, I hear you say. Well, fear not, there are quite a few example applications that you can check out. There is even a tutorial on how to build your first OpenSocial application.

I will definitely be checking the documentation out on the weekend and report my findings in due course.

So what do you think? Is google going to pull this off and take control of the social networking phenomenon?

Related News & Blogs

• Google Aims to Break Open the Closed World of Social Networking
• OpenSocial: Developers speak out
• Google Squares Off Against Facebook With OpenSocial

[tags]opensocial, social, networking, networks, google, news, web, developers[/tags]