Innovation Toronto » Open Social

“Set the Data Free”

ron — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 03:51:15 +0000

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:

The web is better when it’s social

ron — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 20:14:08 +0000

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.

Why Google Turned Into a Social Butterfly

ron — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 17:05:38 +0000

FACEBOOK is an island. A most convivial island, with one’s classmates, friends, workmates and family members close at hand. An island that since May has been enlivened with entertaining fauna and flora in the form of minisoftware applications. But it’s still an island.

Suppose, however, that you could leave the island compound of a social networking site and take your network of friends, and friends of friends, anywhere on the Web? This is what makes Google’s announcement last week of a new alliance of companies so enticing — the possibility that social networking will become ubiquitous.