OpenSocial's been getting so much coverage, you'd think it was world-changing. Presidential candidates don't get as much coverage for their initiatives as Google gets when it announces an API. I've heard more about OpenSocial than I have about the recent turmoil in Pakistan, and Pakistan has nuclear weapons.
OpenSocial won't change much for the end user. Facebook is the leader because it has presented a clean, well-organized environment that leaves users in control. People feel comfortable there and so do their friends. An API isn't going to cause them to go anywhere else.
If anything, OpenSocial may introduce a sameness that makes it harder for one social network to distinguish itself from another. If I can toss a sheep at my friend equally easy on Bebo, MySpace or even LinkedIn, then really what's the difference?
This may be the big OpenSocial time-bomb for its participating companies. Will OpenSocial end up being like the European Union, with standards set from Brussels, blurring the borders and unique identities of the participating nation-states?
Of course, where there are fuzzy borders, there are security challenges. The early reports of privacy hacks make OpenSocial look initially shaky. Facebook's primary asset is the privacy and control it offers to its members, along with its clean interface, and to date this hasn't been visibly compromised.
OpenSocial is great for developers. They can easily build for multiple social networks using one set of protocols. But really, if they need to use a second set of protocols for Facebook, what's the big deal? Facebook has a large enough audience to make this well worthwhile. Don't expect to see anyone soon announcing they are dropping support for the Facebook platform.
Comparisons between Facebook and AOL's old Rainman architecture are misleading. Rainman was complex and cumbersome, and using it required training. It was a proprietary advantage for AOL at a time when the content development tools elsewhere were primitive. It became less relevant when the capabilities of web development tools caught up.
By contrast, Facebook's architecture is so easy that a 13-year-old can write an application after school. This is not a high barrier. Those who attempt to contrast the sunny openness of OpenSocial with the supposed bleak darkness of Facebook's closed architecture are being disingenuous.
It's no surprise that every major social network other than Facebook has piled on to join OpenSocial. They are all so focused on Facebook as their major threat, they would sign up for anything that offered the promise of weakening their powerful rival. Affiliating with OpenSocial is also a great way for a second-tier player to be seen to be joining the big leagues, standing alongside Google and the other big names. Who would pass up that opportunity?
If I were Facebook, I'd like my position right now. With the launch of OpenSocial, it's even more clear that there's Facebook, and everyone else. OpenSocial represents safety in numbers, or circling the wagons perhaps. In either case, Facebook looks strongest. If I were Facebook, I'd remain aloof.
Disclaimer: One of my former bosses at Excite, David Sze, is a venture capital investor in Facebook via his firm, Greylock. One of my other former bosses at Excite, Joe Kraus, leads Google's OpenSocial initiative. I have other friends and colleagues at both companies.
Tags: OpenSocial, Facebook, Google
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