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November 2, 2007

Google Opens OpenSocial Site And Provides Orkut Support

Duncan Riley

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The Google OpenSocial site is now live (here). The video above comes from the Google OpenSocial Campfire held Thursday night and is featured on the front of the new page.The site includes the complete OpenSocial API Documentation, FAQ and Group area.Also now live is OpenSocial support for Google’s big in Brazil social networking site Orkut (here). According to Google, the OpenSocial implementation on Orkut has the following benefits:

* Building both showcase and canvas views, with Apps having the ability to create multi-page experiences in the full page canvas view.

* Foster communication among friends by allowing access a user’s profile information, friend list, and an update feed so that people can see what their friends are up to.

* Learn once, write everywhere as apps written for Orkut under OpenSocial can be used to build social apps for other websites.

The OpenSocial team also has a blog here.

Orkut joins Plaxo, and possibly tonight Ning as being the first sites with OpenSocial support.

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Friday, November 2nd, 2007 at 3:10 am and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Comments

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  1. K.Kaviraj

    November 2nd, 2007 at 3:21 am

    Cool - the long wait is over … :-)

  2. Desh

    November 2nd, 2007 at 3:21 am

    First orkut application ‘ask friends’ is there. though it’s pretty useless. I doubt if it’s on open social though.

  3. facebook

    November 2nd, 2007 at 4:13 am

    It’s hard to understand. It’s hard to use. I sign up these services… :( I think facebook got killerapp.

  4. Manuel Vila

    November 2nd, 2007 at 4:15 am

    In my mind, OpenSocial is a kind of closure of the Web 2.0. This is the combination of the View and the Controller. The Model (the semantic) remains and I think the next step could be called the “Object Oriented Web”, a strange concept I just described here:

    http://blog.kindalab.com/2007/.....ented-web/

  5. Tech For Novices

    November 2nd, 2007 at 4:15 am

    Its not live now. Its was hours ago

    http://digg.com/programming/Al.....OpenSocial

    http://digg.com/tech_news/Goog.....and_Hungry

  6. Dan Ackerman Greenberg

    November 2nd, 2007 at 4:17 am

    Maybe this is a naive questions, but will you be able to build OpenSocial apps inside of Facebook? Why not, right?

    Dan
    http://www.ackermangreenberg.com

  7. Sean

    November 2nd, 2007 at 4:18 am

    Even though google are mega successful they rarely get a large market share of anything apart from search, e.g. froogle (tiny when compared to kelkoo, etc), gmail (when compared to hotmail, yahoo mail, etc). Facebook are gonna be hard to beat too, so good luck google you are gonna need it.

  8. Dan Ackerman Greenberg

    November 2nd, 2007 at 4:23 am

    …an opensocial app in facebook would probably make the internet explode, wouldn’t it?

  9. Matthew Clayton

    November 2nd, 2007 at 4:24 am

    Is it me, but where is the SDK?? I cant find it anywhere….

    Mat

  10. JohnofScribbleSheet

    November 2nd, 2007 at 4:26 am

    Well, Google are trying, the thing is, Facebook is the premier social network. Ning may be useful to add apps into, but the other sites I am not so sure.

    Lets see what happens.

    My money is on Facebook to come through strong.

  11. Raphael

    November 2nd, 2007 at 4:28 am

    #7 gave me a really good laugh.

  12. Christoffer Björkskog

    November 2nd, 2007 at 4:31 am

    Well i think that this will be THE thing. Imagine that you just need to write one app, that you can easily get work in different networks. Without having to learn n amount of markup languages, apis etc.

    One api to rule them all…

  13. sinha

    November 2nd, 2007 at 4:33 am

    Will it see a reverse pattern of social networks running after developers for
    licensing their apps?

    Only time will tell!!

  14. nick of cebu

    November 2nd, 2007 at 4:42 am

    This is basically an API protocol, right? One thing that I don’t really get, is why are Google doing this? I think the idea of Google wanting to somehow dominate Facebook is bunkum. There has to be a solid financial side to it. But advertising isn’t mentioned.

    I can’t quite see how Google could use OpenSocial to increase adspace supply. If they were to use any leverage to force their product on the developers, which is what Microsoft would unashamedly do given the same position, people would start bitching and bailing… Somebody enlighten me.

  15. N.Cauldwell

    November 2nd, 2007 at 4:44 am

    Is LinkedIn getting a makeover soon? Looked like a different interface.

  16. jwc

    November 2nd, 2007 at 4:52 am

    @8

    From the developers guide:

    Important: The OpenSocial People data API hasn’t been released yet; this document is a preview of the developer’s guide that we’ll publish when we release the data API. All of the details are subject to change, but this preview should give you a general idea of what the API will be like.

    Same comment is included for the Activities and Persistence API’s.

  17. Matthew Clayton

    November 2nd, 2007 at 5:01 am

    @15 thanks,

    They could do with putting it on the main page!

    Mat

  18. Dawson

    November 2nd, 2007 at 5:15 am

    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/

  19. uday kalbhor

    November 2nd, 2007 at 5:16 am

    Simply Great News

  20. Honey

    November 2nd, 2007 at 5:16 am

    ‘Will I succeed in my purpose of having the whole world under control?’ Well, not probably the whole world (or probably yes - google earth, google maps, google…) but at least the WWW is mine and must remain like that!
    So what about when a young 23yo is just trying to be too much clever? Why? Well, how many tailor made apps for its platform have been developed out there since his presentation at the f8? Sorry? 5,000? And now he’s been given a present from Microsoft valued at USD240 Mio. and therefore the whole company valued at USD 15 Bio…. oh my good!
    So when you can not beat ‘em, join ‘em… and thus the’ll lost their competitive advantage of having most of developers working exclusively for them…
    Do you really think that for consumers is gonna be ‘more more more’… but what about if I’m a Facebook user and I’m happy with that and I don’t want to join any other Social Network… will I have the same rithm of apps out there available for me in the near future?
    You know what? I love all the Google interfases and just get impresed about it’s Google Labs and whatever, but I hate people that want to control the whole world…

  21. Steve Ballmer

    November 2nd, 2007 at 5:18 am

    One last time! (not really)
    The whole “social” thing is a fad, like knickers, bellbottoms, swallowing goldfish, mac computers, pet rocks, …..
    Don’t invest in it!

    http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com

  22. Rajeev

    November 2nd, 2007 at 5:53 am

    Good news for all netizen socialites.

    http://tekno-world.blogspot.com

  23. jwc

    November 2nd, 2007 at 5:55 am

    Just tried to sign up for a Orkut sandbox account and received this:

    –
    Thanks for signing up. We’ll let you know when spots are available.
    –

    Gee, thanks Google. I think the name ‘OpenSocial’ is totally misleading as it implies an Open Source project where everyone is free to participate. Instead, Google chose a select group of people to participate in the pre-launch and now they are teasing us with ‘draft’ API docs and telling us about a sandbox environment that we can’t use yet.

    Reading through the developer docs, there is no support for inter platform interoperability. So just to keep this whole thing in context, it’s basically so you can build applications (like facebook apps) and they will work on multiple social networking sites. Again, the OpenSocial name seems to imply a bit more than this .. but my understanding so far is that you won’t be communicating between networks any time soon.

  24. Smiley

    November 2nd, 2007 at 6:12 am

    This is it! it is here now lets get it started buddies!

  25. John

    November 2nd, 2007 at 6:30 am

    Google has completely missed the mark on this API. Facebook will jump in and take care of google in they old-time NY mafia took care of competition. Google’s Social Networking experiment will be “sleeping with the fishes” very soon. Bye bye Orkut, its been real nice knowing of your meager existence.

    Read more here

    http://techwaste20.blogspot.co.....g-api.html

  26. Ricardo

    November 2nd, 2007 at 6:32 am

    A cada dia, a internet torna-se o meio de comunicação mais importante para disseminar idéias e gerar negócios. Para um universo tão imediatista como a internet, com mais de 35 milhões de usuários só no Brasil, decidimos criar o DestaqueSP, um site dirigido para um público altamente qualificado e que oferece canais exclusivos de Gastronomia, Bares e Baladas, Cafés e Padarias, Mestre-Cuca, Sabores da Itália, Sabores Kids, Cultura, Turismo, Esportes, Saúde, Beleza, Estética, Hair & Make-up, Fitness, Moda, Sua Casa, Pet Shop, Metrópole, Entrevistas, Chat, além de contarmos com os melhores colunistas nacionais e internacionais!

    http://www.destaquesp.com

  27. Olivier L

    November 2nd, 2007 at 6:34 am

    #20 : It’s the future, not a fad.

  28. Nat

    November 2nd, 2007 at 6:37 am

    If Google is doing this because of Facebook open API and the Microsoft deal, i can tell Facebook is smiling at them.. Mark (Facebook) will probably say, Gotcha.

    Nat
    http://www.workersinc.com

  29. Does google have real operating system?

    November 2nd, 2007 at 6:39 am

    Microsoft + Facebook + Parakey = billion dollar operating system

    http://www.parakey.com/

    I don’t think Google have real operating system.

  30. Nate

    November 2nd, 2007 at 6:54 am

    This is one of the worst presentations I’ve ever seen. Where’d Google find this guy? On a late night infomercial?

  31. Smiley

    November 2nd, 2007 at 6:55 am

    this is the thing like it or not! it is huge and here is the time everyone invest! invest!! invest!!!

  32. Jessica Mah

    November 2nd, 2007 at 7:16 am

    Hahaha this guy sucks as bad as Zuckerberg!

    Oh well, OpenSocial is still cool though. When will Facebook join the loop?

  33. JT Olds

    November 2nd, 2007 at 7:21 am

    Google’s API seems to make no allowance for blocking app-writers from collecting statistics on app-viewers, like the Facebook API does.

    If OpenSocial supports plain Flash, Javascript, HTML, it should be easy for any app-writer to make an app that displays detailed view information for anyone’s profile.

    This seems like a very bad idea to me.
    http://valleywag.com/tech/quot.....316918.php

  34. James

    November 2nd, 2007 at 7:26 am

    How is this any good? There is no way to monetize opensocial and no one that I know uses any of those networks. let’s be honest.. hi5 is basically in latin america, and the rest, not sure if they areinto the stuff… linkedin caters to older folks

    you know? i mean, we can’t even MONETIZE this like facebook allows us to

  35. Ryan Merket

    November 2nd, 2007 at 7:31 am

    Guys, this is nothing more than glorified widgets!!!!

    1. OpenSocial cannot do site specific requests (access photo galleries, send messages, get yours friends lists — only the friends that add an OpenSocial app, update your status, etc, etc).

    2. This is nothing more than an iframe embedded into a web page.

    3. LIMITED

    4. Google and 2nd rate social networks are running SCARED with this media blitz.

    5. Stick with Facebook — they pioneered it and everyone is teaming up to release widgets to combat Facebook’s ingenious platform.

  36. James

    November 2nd, 2007 at 7:40 am

    I agree with Ryan.

    People are over hyping this framework so much..

    Everyone should know salesforce.com has its own framework APEX programming language… just like facebook’s code, it’s much better

    OpenSocial is just widgets

  37. Wondering

    November 2nd, 2007 at 7:43 am

    …if we could now take out personal profile data outside of Orkut to another private website. Does the API provide us a way for implementing this??

  38. Martin

    November 2nd, 2007 at 7:43 am

    Does anyone know if I can add a widget or so on my Blog showing all my Networks using OpenSocial? Would we be allowed to build something like this or does it have to run on one of the “Container” sites.

    I think this would be really useful, wouldn’t it?

  39. Tony

    November 2nd, 2007 at 7:54 am

    That snapshots thing is annoying. Try playing the movie, and the mouse over the snapshot icon right below the video - it will cover the video and not disappear. Bug?

  40. John McCrea

    November 2nd, 2007 at 8:34 am

    Get a peak at the OpenSocial app running in a live social network, here: http://blog.plaxo.com/archives....._at_o.html

  41. cweeb

    November 2nd, 2007 at 8:48 am

    Google realizes that “the person who holds the data wins”.

  42. Monkeypilot

    November 2nd, 2007 at 8:54 am

    Sledgehammer to crack a nut, guys?

  43. Prime

    November 2nd, 2007 at 9:36 am

    That is why google owns the net.

  44. IP Freely

    November 2nd, 2007 at 9:58 am

    Unfortunately, Google has made a mistake by “googlizing” the Open Social platform in many instances (in the open social API docs) talking of Google Gadgets.. (”OpenSocial apps typically include Google Gadgets, so you will need to provide a way to allow a user to add gadgets to their page.”).

  45. Yelp Sucks

    November 2nd, 2007 at 10:01 am

    RIP

    the Open Social initiative is Google’s admission that they lost the game in social networking.

    news flash… the reason people are flocking to facebook ain’t because they have a bunch of widgets.

    oh, i almost forgot, google has Orkut:)

  46. Former Plaxo/LindkedIn user

    November 2nd, 2007 at 10:29 am

    Great! Now companies that play fast and loose with customer privacy like LinkedIn and Plaxo can really abuse their customer data!

  47. Bob Loblaw

    November 2nd, 2007 at 11:48 am

    The example apps really blew me away.

    A Jimi Hendrix gadget! Now that’s something to get excited about.

    Open Social! Google! Web 2.0! Social Graph!

  48. Richard Corsale

    November 2nd, 2007 at 12:22 pm

    Let me explain to everyone why this API confuses me :)

    is a blogging platform (like sixapart) uses this container, but there is no friends list in a blogging platform. what does the getfriends(); function return in this case? if null then .. its like java’s “write once run nowhere” paradigm from the mid 90s

  49. Paul Lindner

    November 2nd, 2007 at 1:15 pm

    #47: Six Apart has support for friends in Vox and Livejournal. Typepad already has TypeLists, which allow you to list your favorite blogs, which match to ‘friends’.

    As for the rest of the naysayers, look at the OAuth server-side API, instead of the JavaScript API. That’s where the real innovation is going to come from.

  50. JC

    November 2nd, 2007 at 1:57 pm

    I don’t like the way this asshole talks. Talk like a human, not a robot, dumb ass.

  51. Alan Lewis

    November 2nd, 2007 at 3:18 pm

    I read through the docs, and it all reminds me of reading useless Java “JSR” specifications in 2001-2003 — there is very little useful data that is specified here, and even that which is specified, like a friends list, doesn’t seem to specify the data format. I call bulls**t.

  52. MikeW

    November 2nd, 2007 at 4:42 pm

    Boy, this guy is so damn phony.

  53. jamster

    November 2nd, 2007 at 6:50 pm

    google does it again.

  54. humanclone

    November 2nd, 2007 at 7:54 pm

    Can google woo facebook to participate?

  55. TringMe

    November 3rd, 2007 at 1:02 pm

    cool! we just added an app for orkut

  56. Petri Pokka

    November 3rd, 2007 at 3:47 pm

    Good for them, very good. I really hope that OpenSocial catches up, we’re already writing our app in OpenSocial version… Well, hurray for Google!

  57. ashwin

    November 5th, 2007 at 9:18 am

    Good one …..lets see the upcoming orkut’s OpenSocial Network ……..how it works and looks like ……

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