OpenSocial or OpenGadget?

Steve O'Hear, who runs our digital blog, posted a very curious post on his ZDNet blog that asks if Google’s OpenSocial initiative is only information portability, or is it standard widget development. O'Hear quotes from the latest article by Marc Canter, advocating for the expansion of standards and portability of information.

"It seems that many are already concerned about the true purpose of OpenSocial, pecked at Google's attempt to outwit Facebook and put the last hidden information," writes O'Hear. "Except if OpenSocial does not provide users with the ability to move their data from one social network to another."

He also writes that the goal of OpenSocial is to standardize the development of widgets. According to Kanter, many social networks that use OpenSocial were never going to open access to their data, and allow users to transfer information, despite the fact that it could be included in Google’s plans. Social networks wanted to have access to OpenSocial Google gadgets (as they call widgets), thus trying to respond to the success of the Facebook platform.
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Marshall Kirkpatrick spoke about this right after Google announced the release of OpenSocial. “Several people told me today that it would be more accurate to call OpenWidget, although the press would take it more severely. We waited for the possibility of transferring information and profiles with personal data, will we get it? ”, He was interested in November.

And if Google is just trying to standardize the development of widgets, do we want to see them as leaders in this area? Ivan Pope (Ivan Pope) from Snipperoo declares "We prefer to start development from the very beginning, rather than to become dependent on Google and others like him, buying into empty advertising promises." I tend to agree with him. In addition to the seeming lack of data portability, as part of the OpenSocial initiative, one of our executives is also worried about what Marshall Kirkpatrick wrote about Google’s intention to take a leading position in this area.

“It remains an open question about Google’s control over the standards creation process. It is impossible for one of the largest companies in the United States and in its field to act without taking into account the opinions of colleagues, ”he writes.

So, if OpenSocial does not deal with data portability and interoperability between networks, then all their ideas can be found from other companies. Although it cannot be said that OpenSocial has only negative aspects, the standardization idea itself is good. As we wrote in November, many will benefit from the emergence of OpenSocial. "The output of OpenSocial will be beneficial to Google (which is attached to many social networks and, accordingly, to millions of users), the users themselves (who have access to social networking applications, where there was no API for programmers before) and an application developer."

The question is, do we want Google to become the leader in widget standardization? We are looking forward to your comments and feedback.