OpenSocial: after the dust settles

Google launched OpenSocial last week to much acclaim and oodles of press. So much talk and noise was generated that I think the real ramifications of this announcement have gotten lost.

Firstly, the net of this is that its really good for consumers. The OpenSocial API’s will make it easier for users to move from site-to-site, find their friends, turn friends into zombies, talk smack about being a pirate, etc. Its a “new” platform and as such it’ll get hacked and bugs will have to be worked out but at the end of the day, this is a huge win for users; real users of the Internet.

Now, let’s take a step back and see what is really happening here. We’ve got a whole list of social networking sites (pretty much everybody but Facebook) that have agreed to participate in supporting these new API’s. The gist is, each of these sites will be exposing data about their users, relationships and events all in easy-to-reach URL structure. As a developer I’d be super stoked about this. I can build applications that take advantage of this newly exposed data quickly and easily. Hoorah for me. Guess who else is super excited about this? Google.

Its funny to me that people forget that Google is an analytics company. Google takes oodles of data and sifts it down to help you find what you want quickly and easily. Phrased differently, Google takes all kinds of public endpoints, does some fancy math on them and distills it down to something users need. Now, what if you had public endpoints for social networking data that could then be crawled? Wow. That’d be pretty sweet if I were Google. Now I can use my giant data centers and crawl the world’s social networks and build the social graph and tools to access that graph making life easier for consumers to find their friends, see what they are up to, etc.

Let me restate that last point because its an important one; Google now has the means to crawl social networking sites delivering a “PageRank”-like service for social networks. Remember when search was dominated by AltaVista? I do (yeah, I’m that old). Then AltaVista decided to try and monetize like crazy and the experience sucked. Well, Google came along with some good, smart technology that solved a specific problem for me. I was hooked and they didn’t screw it up. My bet is they will do the same thing for social networking. They won’t build the sites but you can bet they will be the place you go to look for “what you’re looking for”.

The big question here is, if I’m a social networking site, why on earth do I support this? Well, Google is smart in this respect. I’m not one for conspiracy theories but the last couple of weeks/months have been interesting for Facebook. In fact, while Microsoft was courting Facebook, rumor was so was Google. Did they do it in hopes of getting access to that advertising platform? Or was it to build up a frenzy around Facebook such that they could use it to their advantage? Of course other social networking sites are nervous about Facebook. They’ve got $250+ million in the bank and are getting ready to grow like gangbusters. I would be nervous if I was any other site as well.

If I’m an OpenSocial enabled site, what distinct advantage do I have or any other social networking site? In one day Google has single-handedly commoditized the social networking scene and the best part is that everybody did it willingly. No long standards slog, no talk of “trust us, we’ve done this before”. With the heavy undertones of “we must stop Facebook!” Google has delivered a platform that will push them well beyond $2000/share and into the realm of “the next Microsoft”. Well played Google. Well played.

I’m not knocking Google here. I love this stuff. Open always wins and Google is showing that like no other. I hate that I have to have profiles on a gazillion social networking sites and honestly, I trust Google with more of my data than just about any company. This had to happen sooner or later and Google has taken the existing market atmosphere, its leadership in being more “open” than others and launched something that no one can ignore. Not even Facebook.