OpenSocial
is a set of common
application programming interfaces
(APIs) for
web
-based
social network applications
, developed by
Google
along with
MySpace
and a number of other social networks.
It was released November 1, 2007.
[1]
Applications implementing the OpenSocial APIs will be
interoperable
with any social network system that supports them, including features on sites such as
Hi5.com
,
MySpace
,
[2]
orkut
,
Netlog
,
[3]
Sonico.com
,
[4]
Friendster
,
[5]
Ning
, and
Yahoo!
.
Structure
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(
November 2007
)
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Based on
HTML
and
JavaScript
, as well as the
Google Gadgets
framework, OpenSocial includes four APIs for
social software
applications to access data and core functions on participating
social networks
.
[6]
Each API addresses a different aspect: one is the general
JavaScript
API, one for people and friends (people and relationship information), one for activities (publishing and accessing user activity information), and one for persistence (simple key-value pair data for server-free stateful applications).
[7]
History
Development
OpenSocial was rumored to be part of a larger social networking initiative by Google code-named "Maka-Maka",
[8]
which is defined as meaning "intimate friend with whom one is on terms of receiving and giving freely" in
Hawaiian
.
[9]
The initial version of the API that was made public was 0.5, followed by version 0.6 released on December 21, 2007.
[10]
Version 0.7 was released on February 4, 2008.
[11]
Version 0.8 was released on May 28, 2008.
[12]
Version 0.9 was released on April 16, 2009.
[13]
Version 1.0 was released on March 15, 2010.
[14]
Implementation
For launch, partners
[15]
committed to supporting the OpenSocial APIs included the social network companies
Bebo
, Engage.com
[16]
,
Friendster
,
hi5
,
Hyves
,
imeem
, NetModular
[17]
,
mixi
,
MySpace
,
Ning
,
orkut
,
Plaxo
,
QuePasa
,
phpFox
,
Six Apart
, Freebar.com
[18]
; as well as business-oriented networking companies
LinkedIn
,
Tianji
,
Salesforce.com
, Viadeo
[19]
,
Oracle
, and
XING
.
[1]
Plaxo
and
Ning
released OpenSocial support within the first day of the launch, with Plaxo adding OpenSocial support to its Pulse feature,
[20]
and Ning adding basic OpenSocial support ahead of its previously announced release
[21]
of full support in late 2007 to early 2008.
[22]
Developers who had already built applications implementing the APIs upon launch include
Flixster
,
FotoFlexer
,
iLike
, Newsgator
[23]
, RockYou
[24]
,
Slide
, Theikos
[25]
, and
VirtualTourist
.
[1]
Initial OpenSocial support experienced vulnerabilities in security, with a self-described amateur developer demonstrating
exploits
of the RockYou gadget on Plaxo, and of Ning social networks using the
iLike
gadget.
[26]
On Mar 25, 2008 Yahoo! also announced it has joined the initiative.
[27]
An
open source
project,
Shindig
, was launched in December, 2007, to provide a
reference implementation
of the OpenSocial standards. It has the support of Google, Ning, and other companies developing OpenSocial-related software.
Criticism
Opened to much fanfare in news coverage, OpenSocial did not work well in the beginning; it only ran on Google-owned
Orkut
, and only with a limited number of gadgets, returning errors for other gadgets. Other networks were still looking into implementing the framework.
As reported by TechCrunch on November 5, 2007, OpenSocial was also quickly cracked. The total time to crack the OpenSocial-based iLike on Ning was just 20 minutes, according to TechCrunch, with the attacker being able to add and remove songs on a user's playlist, and to look into information on their friends.
[28]
On December 6, TechCrunch followed up with a report by MediaPops founder Russ Whitman, who said "While we were initially very excited, we have learned the hard way just how limited the release truly is." Russ added that "core functionality components" are missing and that "write once, distribute broadly" was not accurate.
[29]
Background
OpenSocial is commonly described as a more open
cross-platform
alternative to the
Facebook Platform
, a proprietary service of the popular
social network service
Facebook
.
[30]
After launching Facebook Platform in late May 2007,
[31]
as well as acquiring startup
web desktop
company
Parakey
in mid-July 2007,
[32]
the fast-growing Facebook has been widely reported as a challenger to Google
[33]
in establishing and leveraging a ubiquitous
web operating system
.
[34]
[35]
Compared to Facebook, which is ranked second by page views worldwide for the month of September 2007, Google's social network
orkut
is ranked sixth for the same month, with more than half its members living in Brazil.
[33]
Reports on competition between the two companies increased with Facebook scheduling an announcement of an
online advertising
initiative (named
Facebook Ads
) the day after Google's social networking announcement was originally scheduled
[36]
(November 6, 2007
[37]
). The initiative includes
ad serving
and targeting programs (named Facebook Social Ads and Facebook Insights, respectively)
[37]
in competition with Google's market-leading
AdSense
and
AdWords
programs.
[38]
[39]
Using
OpenSocket
[40]
, the user can run OpenSocial gadgets within Facebook.
[41]
References
- ^
a
b
c
"Google Launches OpenSocial to Spread Social Applications Across the Web"
.
Google
. 2007-11-01
. Retrieved
2007-10-31
.
- ^
"MySpace and Google Join Forces to Launch Open Platform for Social Application Development"
.
Google
. 2007-11-01
. Retrieved
2007-11-02
.
- ^
"Developer / OpenSocial"
.
Netlog
. Retrieved
2008-09-17
.
- ^
"OpenSocial Week: Exitoso paso por Argentina"
.
Sonico
. 2008-05-05
. Retrieved
2008-06-05
.
- ^
Helft, Miguel (2007-11-02).
"MySpace Joins Google Alliance to Counter Facebook"
.
New York Times
.
The New York Times Company
. Retrieved
2007-11-02
.
- ^
Andreessen, Marc
(2007-10-31).
"Open Social: a new universe of social applications all over the web"
.
blog.pmarca.com
. Archived from
the original
on 2007-11-02
. Retrieved
2007-10-31
.
- ^
"OpenSocial API Documentation"
.
Google Code
. Google
. Retrieved
2007-11-02
.
- ^
Schonfeld, Erick (2007-10-29).
"Google's Response to Facebook: "Maka-Maka"
"
.
TechCrunch
. Retrieved
2007-10-31
.
- ^
"maka.maka"
.
N? Puke Wehewehe ??lelo Hawai?i
. Ulukau: The Hawaiian Electronic Library
. Retrieved
2007-11-01
.
- ^
"OpenSocial 0.6 and Beyond"
. 2007-12-21
. Retrieved
2007-12-21
.
- ^
OpenSocial API Blog: OpenSocial 0.7: Coming to a user near you
- ^
OpenSocial API Blog: OpenSocial v0.8 is defined
- ^
"OpenSocial API Blog: OpenSocial community defines version 0.9"
. 2009-04-17
. Retrieved
2009-05-06
.
- ^
"OpenSocial 1.0 spec published"
. 2010-03-15.
- ^
[1]
- ^
[2]
- ^
[3]
- ^
[4]
- ^
[5]
- ^
Smarr, Joseph (2007-11-01).
"OpenSocial is now live on Plaxo Pulse"
.
Plaxo's Personal Card
.
Plaxo
. Retrieved
2007-11-04
.
- ^
Bianchini, Gina (2007-11-02).
"And ... We're Live with OpenSocial!"
.
Ning
. Archived from
the original
on 2007-12-12
. Retrieved
2007-11-04
.
- ^
Bianchini, Gina (2007-10-31).
"OpenSocial & Ning"
.
Ning
. Retrieved
2007-11-06
.
- ^
[6]
- ^
[7]
- ^
[8]
- ^
Arrington, Michael
(2007-11-05).
"OpenSocial Hacked Again"
.
TechCrunch
. Retrieved
2007-11-06
.
- ^
Das, Anupreeta (2008-03-25).
"UPDATE 1-Yahoo supports Google social network applications"
.
Reuters
.
- ^
Arrington, Michael (2007-11-05).
"OpenSocial Hacked Again"
.
TechCrunch
. Retrieved
2010-07-24
.
- ^
Schonfeld, Erick (2007-12-06).
"OpenSocial Still "Not Open for Business"
"
.
TechCrunch
. Retrieved
2010-07-24
.
- ^
Helft, Miguel (2007-10-31).
"Google and Friends to Gang Up on Facebook"
.
The New York Times
.
The New York Times Company
. Retrieved
2007-10-31
.
- ^
"Facebook Unveils Platform for Developers of Social Applications"
.
Facebook
. 2007-05-24
. Retrieved
2007-11-06
.
- ^
"Facebook Acquires Startup Parakey"
(PDF)
.
Facebook
. 2007-07-19
. Retrieved
2007-11-06
.
- ^
a
b
Stross, Randall (2007-11-04).
"Why Google Turned Into a Social Butterfly"
.
New York Times
: Digital Domain
.
The New York Times Company
. Retrieved
2007-11-06
.
- ^
Dreyfuss, Joel (2007-10-26).
"Is Facebook An Operating System?"
. Red Herring
. Retrieved
2007-11-06
.
- ^
Riley, Duncan (2007-07-19).
"Could Facebook Become The Next Microsoft?"
.
TechCrunch
. Retrieved
2007-11-06
.
- ^
Schonfeld, Erick (2007-10-30).
"Facebook's Social Ad Network: What We (Think We) Know So Far"
.
TechCrunch
. Retrieved
2007-07-06
.
- ^
a
b
"Facebook Unveils Facebook Ads"
.
Facebook
. 2007-11-06
. Retrieved
2007-11-06
.
- ^
Malik, Om
(2007-11-06).
"Why Is Google Afraid of Facebook?"
.
GigaOm
. GigaOmniMedia
. Retrieved
2007-11-06
.
- ^
Nicole, Kristen
(2007-11-01).
"Newsgator Joins OpenSocial"
.
Mashable
. Federated Media Publishing
. Retrieved
2008-01-24
.
- ^
[9]
[10]
- ^
http://www.opensocket.org/blog/2007/11/11/opensocket-facebook-app-released-in-beta/
External links