Checkmate? MySpace, Bebo and SixApart To Join Google OpenSocial (confirmed)

Trackbacks/Pings (Trackback URL)

1. Shafqat
   

   November 1st, 2007 at 10:57 am

   I don’t normally get too excited by all the Platform talk, but this is HUGE. Its basically Google and Everyone Else vs Facebook now. Can’t wait to see this play out. Let the games begin!

2. techcrunchreader
   

   November 1st, 2007 at 10:57 am

   Good news, lets get ready to rumble!
   MSFT/FB VS GOOG/MySpace

   Maybe FB will decide later to join the bigger parade.

3. Mike Veytsel
   

   November 1st, 2007 at 11:03 am

   I wonder if Google helped push up the valuation of Facebook when it was bidding for investment against MS, all the while knowing the scope and magnitude of the platform they were working on.

4. Joey Tyson
   

   November 1st, 2007 at 11:07 am

   This is not checkmate, though it may be check. Facebook still has plenty of moves left, and it remains to be seen how well OpenSocial will work in practice.

5. Facebooks Platform
   

   November 1st, 2007 at 11:09 am

   Google will win the volume battle, but Facebook will reign the Social Graph war. Facebook’s UI flows, it’s going to be nearly impossible to coordinate between a dozen or so social networks. Goodluck!

6. Ben
   

   November 1st, 2007 at 11:09 am

   Plaxo’s new site is an interesting entry into the fray. It provides hooks into all the latest API’s and provides a more business focused answer to Facebook.

7. rick
   

   November 1st, 2007 at 11:12 am

   Something unpredictable could emerge from all of this, and that’s the only way it’s significant. Myspace could team up with Jesus, Mary, and Joseph and it’s still not gonna generate the hype that FB does

8. JasonH
   

   November 1st, 2007 at 11:14 am

   Checkmate? I don’t think so. The entire point of social networks is the NETWORK, not the additional apps. With all of the social platforms now going to have the same available third-party apps, what is there to differentiate them from Facebook?……the answer is where your network is at be it friends or colleagues such as in LinkedIn. On top of that, it still isn’t clear whether or not open platforms are successful at the user end. For teens the third-party apps might be, but for the mid-20’s and up I am not so sure. OpenSocial will have no affect on Facebook’s numbers. Other strategies might, but it will be hard to separate the causes from the effects if, for instance, you start seeing a change in Facebook growth.

9. Jerome
   

   November 1st, 2007 at 11:15 am

   “the entire social networking world has announced that they are ganging up to take on Facebook, and Google is their Quarterback in the big game.”

   Nice.

10. MadMax3000
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 11:16 am

    If you can’t beat them, join them. This is revolutionary. And FB must join or may fail.

    http://www.givemebeats.com

11. agnieszka
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 11:16 am

    Just as I was heading out… I had to spot-check TC, and was compelled to sit and read. Definitely throws an interesting wrench into things.

    Point and counterpoint.

    Next?..

12. St Stephen
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 11:22 am

    Oh yeah! awesome!!!

    Man, i was just about to ask - why not myspace on open social?
    google an myspace are already in bed..

    Next question: what about Yahoo’s Mash

13. Chris
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 11:23 am

    I don’t think it’s checkmate, Facebook’s API can be mapped to the new openSocial API. It’s just XML anyway right?

14. lajolla5380
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 11:23 am

    This sloppy coordination of shitty networks copying Facebook will do nothing but make Facebook stronger.

15. seamus
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 11:23 am

    I’m with JasonH. Third party apps create best-of-breed opportunities, but people still have to like the interface and get their friends to join.

16. Ryan Merket
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 11:25 am

    Look, guys, SOCIAL means people, friends, family. This is what Facebook has, and none of the others have. People won’t create an Orkut account so they can use apps, nor will they create a Facebook account to use Slide’s Top Friends. That’s NOT how the model works.

    Google can create the coolest widgets in the world for social networks, but people won’t join a SOCIAL network for the widgets — they might if it was a WIDGET network.

    Think about it!!!

17. St Stephen
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 11:26 am

    How compatible will this Open Social API be with the Facebook API?

    Does anyone remember Java? The JVM?
    How that was supposed to be the open platform for running apps?

    Then what happened? Microsoft made a JVM that was incompatible with
    Sun’s. What did everyone call that?

    “Evil”

    Anyone noticing an analogy here?

18. Mik
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 11:32 am

    Every other social network other than facebook will be joining opensocial social, I think facebook’s $15B valuation just cut down to $15M tops

19. Todd
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 11:35 am

    To completely make a mess of The Ninja’s signature line…”Google looks forward to killing you later, Facebook!”

    http://fans.askaninja.com/vide.....ideo:63555

20. coches
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 11:36 am

    Google is being stupid, they are giving facebook too much importance just like microsoft gave to Google. Seems facebook is the smart player here, find a bigger enemy and look at pair with it

21. Mike
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 11:38 am

    Yeah, so basically… i see it like this. Facebook came out of nowhere to top myspace and reign supreme… all of a sudden myspace’s home page design (when logged in) looks a whole heck of alot like facebook… especially their new functionality… did myspace see a spike in new registrations or traffic? no.

    so why should this? unless all of these sites are becoming one, i think this is pointless… good to see that ill be able to write apps for the masses on other platforms, but people arent going to be like “OH WOW” and start joining…. at least in my eyes…

22. EH
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 11:38 am

    Such a choice, GOOG+Microsoft or GOOG+FOX…

23. Slappenstance
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 11:40 am

    This is good mainly for developers looking to get wide distribution of apps. I don’t think it hurts facebook too much yet. Like a previous poster said no one will join a network because of the apps. Especially if facebook has the same ones. This will only work if one side has a killer app that the other does not.

24. Thinker
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 11:40 am

    Facebook should launch a search engine. Now that would be some counter Check..What say?

25. Larry
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 11:41 am

    Who cares.

26. Zaid
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 11:43 am

    Google has checkmate Facebook as much as Facebook has checkmate Google with their SocialAds stuff.

    More than few google execs must have lost sleep after facebook announced that stuff. On the other hand, myspace is a total fad that lasts only until people haven’t heard of facebook.

27. Mr.Chips
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 11:46 am

    I would not call it a Checkmate… by the end of the day, the USERS are the ones who will rule the Chess game here…

28. Me
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 11:46 am

    I really dislike MySpace. Google you used to be my friend, but I feel our relationship is on the rocks…

29. ML
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 11:48 am

    Google is supposed to go this way otherwise they cannot maintain their position as the No.1

30. Tony Bacigalupo
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 11:52 am

    Umm… That’s Alley Insider. Wrong coast.

    I’m excited about this!

31. Salem
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 11:54 am

    I never got a MySpace account. Facebook got my attention enough to try it. I don’t have the time to manage multiple accounts. I have enough connections on Facebook that there has to be some monumental shift to OpenSocial (ie everyone else I know gets an OpenSocial account) in order for me to join. What I do not want is to have to create a new profile every 2 years for the next new networking site.

32. faceloop
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 11:56 am

    whats up with all of these facebook-fanboy commenters? have they not read the 5 googillion facebook/myspace comscore posts on tc?

    myspace is to facebook as google is to yahoo.

    stop drinking arrington’s fb flavored coolaid and look at the numbers. myspace dominates facebook and this could put a lock on the door (at least until everyone gets bored with this social network fad).

33. MikeW
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 11:59 am

    Here’s what it means:

    Everyone’s joining-in to justify and support Facebook’s ridiculously-high valuation.

    Yeah!

34. noname
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 12:00 pm

    Did Google seek MySpace or vice versa?

35. bernie lomax
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 12:00 pm

    MySpace is smoke. It’s the poor man’s social network. While it may reign in terms of pretty graphs Facebook will eventually surpass it. Actually, who even cares, Facebook and MySpace will be things of the past in a next two years. Social networking needs to get far more involved than simply sitting at a computer and adding friends and comments, after a year of it you realize…wtf did I just accomplish? The answer…not a whole lot.

36. Sam Chupp
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 12:03 pm

    Whatever. I’ll believe it when I see it. Google has a lot of work to do to make everything happen smoothly, quickly, crisply, and I am not exactly holding out much hope in that direction. We’ll see.

37. AW
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 12:04 pm

    The only winners I see here are end users.

    Every time you sign into an OpenSocial enabled network, your information can be automagically ported over from your existing networks — contacts, relationships, statuses, everything.

38. Pete
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 12:06 pm

    Question: do the set of common APIs that make up OpenSocial work *across* platforms?

    I mean, if I can tag of photo of one of my myspace friends from a Hi5 or Ning account after we’ve both added an app, that’s really huge; if not, I agree (a la JasonH and seamus) that people are gonna follow their friends to facebook, or their colleagues to LinkedIn.

    I’m really curious, if someone can please answer this.

    Thanks.

39. Mike B
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 12:07 pm

    I sure hope this provides GOOG stock one final juicing up to $720 plus. This is setting up an extraordinary shorting opportunity. This platform means very little to GOOG revenues.

40. Voices
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 12:09 pm

    Nice. I was wondering when MySpace would join this party.

    Re: 39. Mike B: You don’t think this will increase Google’s Adsense Network revenues? Sounds like more pageview = more add impressions which, albeit a small percentage, increases clicks.

41. Richard Corsale
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 12:10 pm

    @39 my strike price is 800

42. Mike B
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 12:12 pm

    Voices: no, not in a meaningful way.
    Richard: I think 800 might happen, and it will be an amazing place to short from.

43. dave mcclure
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 12:14 pm

    not checkmate, but now at least it’s a game worth playing.

    for the record: MySpace, not “open standards”, makes this an interesting move.

    what would make it even more interesting? Gmail and YouTube implementing Open Social. start the over/under at 6 months on both

44. tiffany
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 12:14 pm

    it was reported first in silicon *a*lley insider (no ‘v’)

45. Nate
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 12:19 pm

    This is the greatest one upper move in the history of everything

46. Chris
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 12:25 pm

    wow, this is pretty crazy. What I find most funny about all this is OpenSocial makes it easier to do exactly what I can’t stand at Facebook, the millions of stupid apps!

    I really liked facebook before, but as soon as they opened their API, it seems like I get 10 requests a day to join the zombie force or send someone alcohol. What a waste of time…

    Have you seen some of the pages people setup too? I swear, I need a super computer at my desk to process all the Javascript required to load 100 apps on a single profile.

    I think the complete opening of the API is where Facebook miss stepped. They should have put a lot more regulation into it…

47. Chris Ar
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 12:26 pm

    Zuckerberg will be lucky to sell FB for $1 billion. Hedge Funds will be stupid to invest on FB now. Even if it was true that they are trying to invest on FB, it will be smart for them to wait until this OpenSocial pans out. Good Job Google. Right on your face..facebook..Zuckerberg and his investors got too greedy too fast. Should have sold the company to Yahoo last year

48. David Litsky
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 12:26 pm

    “Something unpredictable could emerge from all of this, and that’s the only way it’s significant. ”
    Skynet?

49. Barry
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 12:27 pm

    I would imagine that FaceBook had a huddle today where Zuckerburg started off by saying “Well, … crap.”

50. Julio
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 12:28 pm

    Does anyone know what time the Google announcement will be made today and where I can follow it?

    I definitely don’t think it’s check-mate for Facebook. In fact, I think that OpenSocial is a good thing for Facebook. Facebook has the option to join OpenSocial (and eventually will), and that will only make that Facebook more useful as a product and monetizable as a business. With OpenSocial, everyone wins, including Facebook. Google stands to win “more” than Facebook, but that should be fine in Facebook’s eyes as their goal should be to make their platfom more valuable in absolute terms (rather than in relative terms to Google).

51. Dawson
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 12:29 pm

    Hello Guys/Girls, if there are any developers on here who are excited about getting their hands on the OpenSocial APIs (I know I am!), I have made a website/forum for discussion, would be cool to get a few active members to get the website going http://www.osocial.co.uk/forum/

52. Chris Ar
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 12:29 pm

    Facebook is too arrogant and greedy to join OpenSocial. I don’t see that happening.

53. MicroFace
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 12:29 pm

    Interesting…if you buy in to the notion that the battleground is now declared for the next big platform shift in computing, then the battle lines are clear: FB/MSFT (heretofore MicroFace) vs. GOOG. MySpace becomes just another social network leveraging the Google platform to try to remain relevant, while GOOG competes with MicroFace for the hearts and minds of developers. The platform with the most developers (and best apps) wins.

    Advantages for GOOG:
    + An open platform always trumps a closed one (see Apple Vs. Microsoft in the last great computing battle)
    + They already have an ad platform to give application developers a way to make money off apps.
    + Everyone is scared of MicroFace as the new platform, so it will be easy to recruit partners to write apps for the GOOG platform.

    Advantages for MicroFace:
    + Have at least a 6 month head start on the development platform
    + They are committed to winning and are willing to bet the company (at least Facebook anyway) at every turn (see Facebook spurning $1B offers). GOOG is a public company with a $700/share stock price to protect
    + Programming is a young man’s game. Young people want to be a part of the next big thing (Facebook), not the old thing (Google). GOOG will strike lots of partnerships with companies, but MicroFace will be the platform of choice for the
    young entrepreneur.

    Should be fun.

54. Mrinal
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 12:32 pm

    Wondering who Yahoo will work with now? Hope Mark treated them well

55. kiakanpa
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 12:34 pm

    this will only be good if it is DECENTRALIZED other wise it will just be replacing facebook with a google network that you can access on different sites - that is NOT good enough, we need control of our own data

56. Zaid
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 12:37 pm

    Platforms are the new plug-ins–with a promise to make developers money.

57. Dheeraj Sultanian
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 12:37 pm

    What’s stopping someone from creating an application that converts OpenSocial apps to facebook apps (xml -> fbml) or vice versa? What is google’s revenue model on all this? Will they control the platform - charge for api calls, feed advertising through the platform? its all still very unclear, but an interesting development

58. AnonTroll
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 12:40 pm

    Checkmate is right and wipe that smug smirk off Mark Z’s facebook (pun intended). Facebook valuation:
    last week - $15B
    this week - $5B
    next week - $1B
    week after - chump change

59. Ronald Lewis
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 12:41 pm

    While this is huge news, and it’s great to see someone (Google) developing commonality across disparaging networks, Facebook is undoubtedly moved by this announcement. Social networking is a huge space and there’s enough room for both Google and Facebook to flourish with their initiatives.

    Who wins in this? Not Facebook nor Google. We do, as we’ll get the best of breed in social networking to date thanks to this news. At some point, however, we just might see a collaborative effort between Facebook and Google’s OpenSocial initiative. It *is* imperative that we glue everything together and make them easily accessible for everyone (APIs) and that is the message Google is sending with this.

60. John McCrea
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 12:43 pm

    Great news! This makes a big story even bigger. If people want to see some of this OpenSocial stuff actually running, I’ve got details on where they can see it tomorrow, here: http://therealmccrea.wordpress.....ocial-web/

61. Berlin
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 12:44 pm

    Fear of death is good.

    This will save me time and moolah. Now devs only have to worry about two corners: the dying and the aged on one corner and Zuckerberg’s baby elephant on the other.

    Myspace, however, will look more cluttered than it already is.

    But don’t expect FB members to delete their accounts and go back to Friendster or Myspace!

    If you think they will, you’re either blinded by hate like a religious fanatic or you too nerdy to understand why Myspace users are leaving FB.

    Hint: Steve

62. Jerome
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 12:47 pm

    @48 LOL

63. Chris
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 12:50 pm

    Um guys, this is just HTML and javascript and pseudo cross site scripting.
    This isn’t a technological breakthrough?

    Is life this boring?

64. crazyC0w
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 12:51 pm

    Now we will see how is better on SM, they are both pretty good, but only one shall stay

65. techcrunchreader
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 12:52 pm

    As a young smart entrepreneur, who would you rather develop for:

    a 67M (MySpace)users + Hi5 + Orkut + ?

    or

    24M (Facebook) users base?

    Google will make it worth (Ad Sense = $$$) to develop for the OpenSocial API. FB will have to quickly find a solution to keep developers using their platform. Sure they will probably announce something (Ad Network?) on Nov 6th , but they do not have, as of today, a functional revenue sharing platform like Google . But for a young company, FB has done an amazing job so far.

    “I Got You Babe”

    [FB:] They say we’re young and we don’t know.
    We won’t find out until we grow
    [MSFT:] Well I don’t know if all that’s true
    ‘Cause you got me, and baby I got you

    [MSFT] Babe
    [BOTH:] I got you babe I got you babe

66. Sean
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 12:55 pm

    I get the feeling that Facebook will join in as well, I don’t see it as being a checkmate. Definitely a way to force FB to play along with Google though…

67. Lux
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 12:56 pm

    Until we see the API in the wild and find out whether it actually delivers value to all these partners, this is all a lot of vaporware.

68. Dennis
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 1:03 pm

    If you add OpenID (http://openid.net/, which many of the partner companies have talked about implementing) to this, then the whole thing gets even more interesting.

69. bala
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 1:10 pm

    FB should embrace OpenSocial, same way as IBM embraced JAVA and benefited more than Sun… That is the only way to play the game, and beat the competition

70. Kelli
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 1:14 pm

    Microsoft must be steaming about this. They pay all this money for an almost nothing investment in a company that doesn’t make money and Google comes along and gets all the press for this? I know this may just be HTML and JavaScript, so it’s not an innovation technologically speaking but the fact they are able to pull all these networks together is remarkable.

    Got to hand it to Google, they are a leader and Microsoft is so far behind that you can’t even call them a follower. They are a dot on the horizon.

71. Jesus H Christ
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 1:16 pm

    I don’t understand how you guys can compare a company with 50 million(f8) in revenue to a company with over 6 billion(goog).

72. Brian Wilson
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 1:17 pm

    Wow, that is big. But I think we could liken this to baseball. The Yankees and Cubs sign high-priced free agents and trade for big names, but they can’t win it all in spite of this. Meanwhile, teams like the Indians and Rockies, for the most part, cultivate their minor league system and build from the ground up, and they go farther in the long run. OpenSocial = Yankees/Cubs, and Facebook = Indians/Rockies. Facebook will go farther in the long run.

    Brian Wilson, Zolve.com

73. Your Daddy
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 1:18 pm

    This is like all the IM clients joining so you can see al your friends and leaving FB out of it.

74. Shane
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 1:21 pm

    GANG STER

75. Buster Bluth
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 1:22 pm

    An unorganized coalition of losers(Friendster? hahaha) against a very well established brand name with a loyal fanbase.

    Even though I have a Google account for Adsense, Gmail, etc I still would never sign up to any of these other social networks. I use FaceBook exclusively because it’s a) clean and b) that’s where my friends are. MySpace is fucking horrid and no one I know still uses it except lame bands and 16 year olds.

    My prediction is nothing will come from this. It’s a lot of hype with very little meaning behind it. You can have all the users in the world but without a good frontend they won’t use the service. Go to MySpace.com then FaceBook.com to see the difference.

76. Steve Poland
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 1:25 pm

    OpenSocial API javascript code from Flixster on MySpace app — http://www.techquilashots.com/.....t-hacking/

77. shevdog
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 1:25 pm

    I think many are missing the point here, thinking this is some fb vs the world or good vs facebook war. It is rather a very significant effort to tie together the social net together and get a vast majority of web app developers working on common ground… I’m more interested at the moment how this will enhance the Six Apart network, which I use all the time.

78. Dan Birdwhistell
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 1:30 pm

    Man this is fun. The plot thickens.

    I think one of the things that everyone is kind of making too much of a big deal over is thinking that this is a battle between goog and facebook. Just because they both have platforms doesn’t mean that they are competing. Google is about Information; Facebook is about Identity and People Interaction. Facebook is getting closer and closer to owning people’s online identity. This will always give them a giant edge.

    All this said, the addition of MySpace is great, but what we have to remember is that what this will likely be is just a better way to build and distribute widgets. It is highly doubtful that users across all of these networks will give developers enough information to really be useful. We’ll see, though. I’ll be building on it for sure.

79. Stu
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 1:36 pm

    Really…..like who didn’t have strong suspicions about this before hand?

    I must benefit from being outside the valley, but it was obvious to all non-fanboys. I even saw some of them point to myspace missing from the original announcement as a reason OpSo wouldn’t fly.

    Now folks like “Buster Bluth” is continuing this crap by saying nobody uses myspace. Apparently the data from Hitwise and Compete is no longer relevant.

80. Big Bopper
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 1:39 pm

    The big winners here are obviously developers. Instead of having to choose carefully between partners, they can write to one API and have done with it. Worst case, they might have to do two if Facebook doesn’t join the standard.

    Consumers/end users are likely to care little. As the guys at the NY Times have correctly said (http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/01/googles-opensocial-is-not-a-facebook-killer), the technology doesn’t necessarily equal consumer adoption.

    I’m curious as to how long it will take some of the OpenSocial supporters to start cutting exclusives with developers.

81. Dennison Uy - Graphic Designer
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 1:41 pm

    Microsoft + FaceBook vs Google + MySpace will make the headlines any day but come on guys what’s to say FaceBook cannot join in and implement Open Social? It is OPEN after all. So even Microsoft can join in the fun.

82. fadbook
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 1:46 pm

    I am announcing that my New(yet to be developed) Social network
    http://www.MyLinkedSpaceBook.com is also joining OpenSocial

83. Morgan
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 1:48 pm

    As I said before, $15bln valuation = PWNT. In my opinion.

84. Richard Corsale
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 1:52 pm

    I’m a seasoned developer and.. I have no Idea WTF this Api is for , there I admit it

    accessing features of the network , which are unique to each network .. facebook api I get.. you access the users friends list messages etc.

    this.. you port features from other networks? I mean, I must be missing things here.

85. Your Daddy
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 1:52 pm

    FB will probably end up joining at some point or get left out. What if GOOG buys them all?

86. Tom Peterson
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 1:53 pm

    The real winners here are the developers. The companies like Slide, iLike and Flixter will gain tens of millions of users and be worth hundreds of millions of dollars very quickly.

87. Chris
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 2:00 pm

    I drank the Google Kool-Aid and a prefer Facebook over Myspace but Dennison is right - Facebook will be able to join because it is open. Here’s the cool part. Google bids up the price to get a stake in Facebook only to pull out and laugh at Microsoft when Microsoft opens their wallet. Google knew the entire time that they do not need Facebook - they need the content to aggregate. If Facebook joins Open - the ads on Open will be Google ads and the content will be supplied by FB.

    If they don’t join - then we will get to witness a battle of the socials. Either way it will be fun to watch.

88. bernard lunn
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 2:01 pm

    Here was the Facebook Bear Case back in July when the hype was first bulding:
    http://bernardlunn.wordpress.c.....bear-case/
    Nothing changed since then except more hype.

89. agnieszka
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 2:06 pm

    Microsoft + FB will have to join in the coalition. I cannot see how the team will compete with Google’s open architecture.

    Promises drama.

90. bala
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 2:08 pm

    FB is smart they took the M$ before this news is public……Imagine who will give 15b valuation when everyone is ganging up against them……I am sure they are smart enough to play out OpenSocial to their advantage..Time will tell, we are entering into very interesting Social Game

91. ayush
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 2:14 pm

    This is a good thing for everyone.

    The natural flow of evolution for a lot of successful systems usually goes through some process of standardization. Its great that the phenomenon of social networks is going to get blessed with a standard so early on. One does not have be altruist to propose a standard and its great to see Google slamming a stake in the ground and the other big guys willing to prop it up. The “right” thing to do would be to be competitive and fight the battles while adhering to the standard. If some of the big social networks break away and start a standards war, it would not help anyone.

    Fragmenting consumers is about fighting for a piece of the pie. Consolidating consumers is about making the pie bigger. With a standard which not only allows one application to be used by many social networks but also allows cross social network communication; everyone will win.

    I just wish that other online applications which are fragmented (most notably the photo sites) would also come together under a standard.

92. Rodger
    

    November 1st, 2007 at 2:15 pm

    MySpace is really Web1.0 and as such will soon be viewed as a Facebook clone/makeover.

    The SN world will be divided into two worlds. The followers and the trend setters. The latter being of higher I.Q class and more cash in their pockets.

    facebook will dominate the SN arena for years to come and is a Web2.0 portal yet to discover its true potential.

93. Mark Mayhew