Facebook vs. OpenSocial: seconds out, round one (and 1989 razor cheese)

It's IT Blogwatch: in which the OpenSocial partnership squares up against Facebook. Not to mention the cheesiest Gillette spot ever...

Here's Heather Havenstein, hotfoot:

MySpace and Google Inc. announced Thursday that they have joined forces to launch a new social platform complete with a set of APIs for developers to build social applications. The launch of OpenSocial by Google was expected,  but the partnership with MySpace put added weight behind Google's plans ... The OpenSocial standards are designed to evolve through contributions from the open-source community and from partners like Friendster, LinkedIn, Ning, Six Apart, Plaxo and Salesforce.com. [more]

Rob Hof says, "Now, it's getting interesting":

OpenSocial [is] Google's shot at one-upping Facebook in the race to get outside software developers to create programs for social networks. The program allows developers of social applications, such as Slide, RockYou, and Flixster--which in turn have helped make Facebook the hot company of the year--to write programs once and have them run largely unchanged on any social site that signs on to OpenSocial ... For now, at least, the battle lines have been drawn: Google, MySpace and the rest of the social networking pack vs. Microsoft and Facebook. (Where's Yahoo!? Who knows?). [more]

Google's Amar Gandhi and Peter Chane are like proud parents, or something:

The killer apps of the web -- email, instant messaging, blogging -- have enabled us to communicate with our friends, family, and the rest of the world on a large scale. But there is a newer characteristic of the web that has been emerging: to become social. The first wave of killer apps allowed us to communicate with the world at scale. The next wave is about connecting us and our online activities with our friends ... Perhaps most interestingly, we will see social capabilities move into new contexts. OpenSocial will also work in non-traditional social contexts, such as on Salesforce.com and Oracle. With a common set of APIs, it will be even easier to extend social functionality. Beyond the many fun and entertaining social applications we already have seen, we think we'll see a number of social applications emerge in business contexts. [more]

Plaxo's Joseph Smarr yells, "FIRST POST!":

As long-time advocates of the Open Social Web, we're thrilled ... we've been working hard to implement the OpenSocial APIs in Plaxo Pulse, and in fact we've just released it into production, making it the first live OpenSocial implementation in the wild. So if you'd like to play around with open social gadgets or develop one yourself, there's no need to wait any longer! ... it's still a work in progress. The APIs are only at version 0.5 and they're still changing almost daily. So expect a bit of a bumpy road for the next few weeks. [more]

Duncan Riley asks, "Who's next?":

We also have unconfirmed news that Ning will be rolling out OpenSocial as an option to its 115,000+ social networks on Friday evening. It will be in beta/sandbox format, and network owners will be made to understand that the API may change one or more times before it’s stable. [more]

So Facebook should be worried, Erick Schonfeld?:

Not so fast ... The anti-Facebook coalition piling onto Google’s OpenSocial platform does not constitute checkmate for Google just quite yet. These are developer announcements. No actual consumers have changed their social networking habits because of OpenSocial. Facebook still has all the momentum with consumers (and, thus, with the developers who want to reach them). It can afford to wait and see how this whole OpenSocial thing plays out. [more]

Robert Scoble asks, "What will Yahoo and Microsoft do?":

I talked with an executive from Yahoo today and he said he had nothing to announce. Translation: we have no clue. If they had a clue they would have had all guns blazing today ... What will Microsoft do? Who cares. They bought the inventory on Facebook. They are safe for now by NOT having a developer strategy. I think that’s stupid long term, but heck, my Microsoft stock is going up so who cares? [more]

Fred Stutzman has déjà vu:

There have been a number of attempts at creating standardized wrappers for social. FOAF is a notable example, XFN another. Like Google's initiative, none of these are "standards" in the IETF or W3C sense. Seizing on its place in the market, its powerful, hegemonic voice and the cadre of willing followers, Google's opensocial is a super-standard - not sanctified by any body other than the sheer volume of developers who will start playing with it ... Social information transfer should be standardized, but the standard bodies (and interested parties) have simply been too slow to create and approve standards. [more]

And finally...

• Oh wow, I'd forgotten how incredibly cheesy this 1989 Gillette ad was [hat tip: the often-non-work-safe Holy Moly]
  

Buffer overflow:

• StorageMojo: The China syndrome
• Schneier on Security: The War on the Unexpected
• Chris Albrecht, NewTeeVee: Does HD Online Matter? AOL, CBS Say No
• Windows Mobile Team Blog: Shadow Homescreen
• The Old New Thing: Why does GetDiskFreeSpaceEx return the wrong amount of free space?
• Techdirt: Spammers For Ron Paul
• Good Morning Silicon Valley: Hardball or dirty pool?
• Theo Moore: Guitar Hero III: Initial Impressions
• WinApse: My Silverlight Morning
• Mark Tordoff: The Red Sox, The New England Patriots and Using Technology for Managing IT

Other Computerworld bloggers:

• Michael R. Farnum: Social engineering is not necessary in many cases when performing security assessments
• Preston Gralla: Was the Ron Paul botnet attack a dirty trick?
• Shark Tank: Right where you can't miss it
• Shark Bait: Please Do It

Richi Jennings is an independent analyst/adviser/consultant, specializing in blogging, email, and spam. A 20 year, cross-functional IT veteran, he is also an analyst at Ferris Research. You too can pretend to be Richi's friend on Facebook, or just use boring old email: blogwatch@richi.co.uk.

Previously in IT Blogwatch:

• $199 PC from Google/Everex at Wal-Mart (and bizarre bikes)
• Mac OS X scares security spods (and WCC FTW)
• Net neutrality haunts senate (and the working dead)