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Today, 50 million and more users- most of them in and outside the age group of 18-25, are making ample use of online social networking. The ever- increasing number is indication enough of the importance of social networking, which cannot be dismissed lightly.
Making the most of the growing mainstream trend of social networking, Google has very recently introduced OpenSocial, a site that invites developers to create third-party apps that work with any network that links to it. To make up for lost time Google has already formed relationships with major networking sites and tech vendor., LinkedIn, Friendster, Plaxo, Ning and Google's own Web site, Orkut, are reportedly among those that are already on board to support OpenSocial. Tech vendors oracle and Salesforce.com have also indicated their plans to support the platform.
OpenSocial comprises of a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) for developers to create software that can work in any social network linked to OpenSocial. The API's by Google are provided for Profile information, friend information, a news feed and other features.
The key to OpenSocial's success will be the number of participants, as well as the open platform. Partners can develop widgets or applications that can be deployed on any or all of the social networks that link to Google. Google's open standards approach is not limited to OpenSocial. Rather, there is a tug of war in tech space, with Google now lining up against names such as Apple.
Google's social networking space, OpenSocial is a backhanded slap against "Facebook". The latter website has kept it's code proprietary, and is most likely to suffer. Google is adopting as open a platform as possible!
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