OpenSocial is a set of common application programming interfaces (APIs) leveraged by developers to create applications that can work on multiple participating social networking websites.
Launched in October 2007, Opensocial has partnered with several hosts and developers. The hosts collaborating with Google include Orkut, Salesforce.com, LinkedIn, Ning, Hi5, Plaxo, Friendster, Viadeo, and Oracle. Many developers providing applications to Facebook have also joined OpenSocial, including Flixter, iLike, RockYou and Slide.
MySpace is world’s largest social network, with 110 million active members. In addition to MySpace, Bebo, a social networking site in Britain with 39 million active users, has also joined OpenSocial.
Earlier this year, Facebook invited developers to create applications for its users. However, these applications written for Facebook restricted developer’s activity to its own platform.
OpenSocial enables easier development and distribution of applications to users, and it targets to add over 200 million users between its partner networks. Most of the developers have now joined OpenSocial to build applications for a larger audience.
The launch of OpenSocial was followed by Microsoft’s announcement of acquiring a $240 million stake in and becoming the exclusive third-party advertising platform partner of Facebook.
Source: ComputerWire daily updates
