Innovation Toronto » Open Social http://www.innovationtoronto.com Innovation Acceleration ~ Innovation in Action Across Disciplines & Generations Sun, 16 Nov 2008 21:13:14 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.3 en This Day Will Be Remembered: Facebook, Google And Plaxo Join The DataPortability Workgroup http://www.innovationtoronto.com/2008/01/08/this-day-will-be-remembered-facebook-google-and-plaxo-join-the-dataportability-workgroup/ http://www.innovationtoronto.com/2008/01/08/this-day-will-be-remembered-facebook-google-and-plaxo-join-the-dataportability-workgroup/#comments Tue, 08 Jan 2008 19:03:19 +0000 ron http://www.innovationtoronto.com/2008/01/08/this-day-will-be-remembered-facebook-google-and-plaxo-join-the-dataportability-workgroup/ After publishing an invitation to Facebook to join the DataPortability Working Group January 4, we never thought that Facebook would accept it. Today changes everything you’ve ever thought about social-networking data and lock-in before, because today Facebook, Google and Plaxo have joined the DataPortability Workgroup.

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]]> http://www.innovationtoronto.com/2008/01/08/this-day-will-be-remembered-facebook-google-and-plaxo-join-the-dataportability-workgroup/feed/ OpenSocial Still “Not Open for Business” http://www.innovationtoronto.com/2007/12/07/opensocial-still-%e2%80%9cnot-open-for-business%e2%80%9d/ http://www.innovationtoronto.com/2007/12/07/opensocial-still-%e2%80%9cnot-open-for-business%e2%80%9d/#comments Sat, 08 Dec 2007 00:32:34 +0000 ron http://www.innovationtoronto.com/2007/12/07/opensocial-still-%e2%80%9cnot-open-for-business%e2%80%9d/ It’s only been about a month since Google launched OpenSocial, its development platform for social networking applications. But already developers are frustrated with how half-baked the whole thing is. Russ Whitman, the founder of MediaPops, a startup that launched at TechCrunch 40, reports to us in an e-mail:

While we were initially very excited, we have learned the hard way just how limited the release truly is. My dev group has been discussing the issues in the Google forum trying to figure out how to build our service through OpenSocial. From our experience its not even a beta platform. The concept of “write once, distribute broadly” is not accurate and core functionality components are missing.

Its clear we are pre-Beta at this point, with Google telling developers they are hoping to launch 1.0 early next year. Any company hoping to leverage Open Social as a means to grow its user base similarly to the Facebook growth model will need to wait at least until February to get started, if its ready then. In the end my hope is that Open Social becomes more than just hype to compete with Facebook.

In our opinion the fundamental problem lies in the core value of Open Social - it’s a unique partnership between Google, Containers/Hosts, and Developers. Getting all on the same page is going to be a ton of work. The opportunity is clear, but the path to get there will be difficult for sure. We remain excited about the vision, but are disappointed with the current state of the union. It’s clear that they announced too soon, and clearly Open Social is NOT Open for Business. (sigh)

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]]> http://www.innovationtoronto.com/2007/12/07/opensocial-still-%e2%80%9cnot-open-for-business%e2%80%9d/feed/ Social networkers warned of risk http://www.innovationtoronto.com/2007/11/12/social-networkers-warned-of-risk/ http://www.innovationtoronto.com/2007/11/12/social-networkers-warned-of-risk/#comments Mon, 12 Nov 2007 13:58:36 +0000 ron http://www.innovationtoronto.com/2007/11/12/social-networkers-warned-of-risk/ A quarter of the 11 million Britons who use social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook may be leaving themselves open to identity fraud.

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]]> http://www.innovationtoronto.com/2007/11/12/social-networkers-warned-of-risk/feed/ “Set the Data Free” http://www.innovationtoronto.com/2007/11/11/%e2%80%9cset-the-data-free%e2%80%9d/ http://www.innovationtoronto.com/2007/11/11/%e2%80%9cset-the-data-free%e2%80%9d/#comments Mon, 12 Nov 2007 03:51:15 +0000 ron http://www.innovationtoronto.com/2007/11/11/%e2%80%9cset-the-data-free%e2%80%9d/ Is OpenSocial open enough? The problem with OpenSocial, Google’s new platform for social-networking apps, notes Tim O’Reilly, is that it doesn’t go quite far enough. It lets applications out from the confines of any one Website, but it does not let the data out. Apparently, you cannot mix and match data from more than one app to create a new social app. This is wrongheaded, argues O’Reilly:

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]]> http://www.innovationtoronto.com/2007/11/11/%e2%80%9cset-the-data-free%e2%80%9d/feed/ The web is better when it’s social http://www.innovationtoronto.com/2007/11/04/the-web-is-better-when-its-social/ http://www.innovationtoronto.com/2007/11/04/the-web-is-better-when-its-social/#comments Sun, 04 Nov 2007 20:14:08 +0000 ron http://www.innovationtoronto.com/?p=44 The web is more interesting when you can build apps that easily interact with your friends and colleagues. But with the trend towards more social applications also comes a growing list of site-specific APIs that developers must learn.

OpenSocial provides a common set of APIs for social applications across multiple websites. With standard JavaScript and HTML, developers can create apps that access a social network’s friends and update feeds.

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