Google to launch OpenSocial
October 31, 2007
If you haven't heard about this yet, head's up. Google is going to officially launch OpenSocial tomorrow (Thursday 11/1) and already the world of social media and tech vendors are a buzz.
What is Open Social?
OpenSocial is a set of three common APIs that application developers can use to create applications that work on any social networks (called "hosts") that choose to participate. These APIs were defined by Google with input from partners, and allow developers to access core functions and information at social networks:
- Profile Information (user data)
- Friends Information (social graph)
- Activities (things that happen, News Feed type stuff)
Hosts agree to accept the API calls and return appropriate data. Google won't try to provide universal API coverage for special use cases, instead focusing on the most common uses. Specialized functions/data can be accessed from the hosts directly via their own APIs.
Unlike Facebook, OpenSocial does not have its own markup language (Facebook requires use of FBML for security reasons, but it also makes code unusable outside of Facebook). Instead, developers use normal javascript and html (and can embed Flash elements). The benefit of the Google approach is that developers can use much of their existing front end code and simply tailor it slightly for OpenSocial, so creating applications is even easier than on Facebook.
What does this mean for NPTech?
It's far too early to hypothesize the magnitude of OpenSocial for nonprofits, but without a doubt this will be an exciting new area for tech vendors, developers and organizations to investigate and explore. The potential for organizations to leverage the growing number of social utilities without having to develop custom integrations for each individually is very exciting.
Want to learn more? Here are some great articles and blog posts.
