The OpenSocial team at Google today announced an updated JavaScript API. While the actual content of the update is rather technical, Google engineer Cassie Doll says that it addresses “the most immediate pain points” for developers. But the big albatross around OpenSocial’s neck is the question of just what MySpace is going to do.
In November, MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe announced support for OpenSocial saying that the MySpace/Google partnership “spearheads an initiative to standardize and simplify the development of social applications.”
However, in the 7 weeks since that announcement, OpenSocial widgets still haven’t been deployed on MySpace, and to many, OpenSocial still feels like alpha software. Read/WriteTalk’s Sean Ammirati pressed Google Developer Advocate Kevin Marks on that point during an interview about OpenSocial last week, but Google is reluctant to put a date on MySpace’s adoption of their platform.
“I cant make a commitment on their behalf but theyre very keen on working with us and pushing ahead,” was all Marks would give us.
MySpace is continuing to work on their developer platform, announced in October, though they say it will be compatible with OpenSocial. Will that be the extent of their partnership? Or will OpenSocial be fully deployed on MySpace as it is on Google’s own social network, Orkut?
With Facebook opening up their platform to third party social networks, and already luring OpenSocial launch partner bebo, MySpace’s participation seems particularly important to the success of Google’s endeavor.
The appeal of Facebook’s platform — which is already complete (as much as software ever is) and tested in the wild and comes with more than 6,000 ready-made apps — is a threat to OpenSocial, even though publicly they deny any brewing competition (“The goal of this is to provide infrastructure,” said Kevin Marks in our interview, saying that Google would welcome Facebook as an OpenSocial participant).
For their part, Facebook has also said they are open to one day joining OpenSocial or making the two platforms compatible — a move that I don’t think will happen, but would certainly be a great thing for users. As we wrote in November, however, Facebook really needn’t fear OpenSocial the way perhaps Google should fear Facebook’s platform.
