Google launches open APIs for social networks
Google has launched OpenSocial, its platform for building social networks. Unlike Facebook, OpenSocial is not a consumer destination. Rather, it’s a way for developers to more easily build social networks, and to link them and their users to other OpenSocial nets. Very clever. But Facebook is still the consumer network to beat.
Google’s version of this “write once run anywhere” concept is called OpenSocial, a set of common application programming interfaces (APIs) that will enable developers to create applications for social networks, blogs and any Web sites that accept the OpenSocial code. Currently, developers have to write new programs for each site, even if the functionality will be the same on each site.
This initiative “marks the first time that multiple social networks have been made accessible under a common API,” according to a Google statement.
The OpenSocial resources for developers and Web sites will be available at code.google.com/apis/opensocial.