New details: Google OpenSocial will be launched on Thursday

Today some details about Google’s big social network ambitions were revealed. It was first reported about it here in September, the continuation was earlier this week. A new project called OpenSocial (the address will be available on Thursday), surpasses everything we reported earlier. This is a set of common APIs that developers can use to build applications that run on any social networks that want to join.

However, this can not be called another social networking platform . Platforms are launched one after another, and developers are faced with a difficult choice. Support in the application of each of the following network has its price. Most developers will choose one or two platforms, and ignore all others, based on the simple relation of costs to benefits.

Google is going to give developers a simple way to create an application that works equally well in all social networks. And if they deal with it, they will be in the center, controlling the network.

What do they run

OpenSocial is a set of three generic APIs defined by Google and partners that allow developers to access the main features and important information of social networks:

• profile information (user data)
• friendship information (social graph)
• activity (new events, things like News)

Sites agree to process API calls and return relevant data. Google will not try to provide universal access to all opportunities, concentrating on the most common tasks. And access to specialized functions and data can be obtained through the use of its own API sites.

Unlike Facebook, OpenSocial does not imply its own markup language (Facebook requires the use of FBML for security purposes, but this also makes the code applicable only to Facebook). Instead, developers use plain javascript and html (and can embed flash objects). The benefit of this approach is that developers can use most of their existing software code, and just slightly modify it for OpenSocial, so creating applications is even easier than for Facebook.

Applications may not be limited to anything on the profile page and / or on the “web page”, this is determined by the rules of each site individually. Facebook, on the contrary, allows you to use only a widget with limited capabilities in your profile.

OpenSocial says nothing about the specific rules and restrictions of sites, for example, is it permissible to use advertising, or whether it is possible to use the site without first submitting an application (as required by Facebook). Sites set their own rules and themselves monitor their implementation. The APIs themselves are designed to be as flexible as possible.

Project partners

Partners can be divided into two categories: sites and developer. Sites are affiliate social networks including Orkut, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Ning, Hi5, Plaxo, Friendster, Viadeo, and Oracle. Developers include Flixster, iLike, RockYou and Slide.

What does this mean

The time to start OpenSocial is the best possible. Developers are constantly complaining about the difficulty of learning another markup language for each new social network platform, and about the time spent on creating and maintaining code. Someone had to create a system that simplifies this process (as we said in the last phrases of this post ). And the obvious fear of Facebook brought Google good partners. Developers will immediately begin using these APIs to gain access to an impressive list of participating social networks.

And soon they will achieve their goal. Obviously, the first developers for the Facebook Platform got easy prey. However, those who came for them had much more difficult. Now the developers have found a new Klondike, and soon they will all work on it.