Yesterday, some pundits were dissing the social networks who were signing on to Google's OpenSocial application platform as a bunch of also-rans. Today, Google gave us a memorable Steve Jobsian "One more thing..." moment when it let loose that MySpace was also on board as a full parnter. (Bebo, another one of the planet's largest social networks, will apparently support OpenSocial, too.)
Okay, now that changes everything: With MySpace supporting OpenSocial, all those developers who are busy cranking out Facebook applications might quickly turn their attention to OpenSocial, which will let them create apps for the biggest social network and a bunch of others, too. I didn't wanna use the phrase "Facebook killer" yesterday when discussing OpenSocial, but it's more plausible today.
Or maybe not--it's always foolish to assume that just because a new Web idea has impressive backing that it'll catch on. (I'm remembering when Microsoft, Excite, Lycos, and other Web 1.0 titans teamed up to kill eBay--and couldn't even give it a flesh wound.) Everyone who's jazzed about OpenSocial (and I include myself in that group) should wait until the apps show up before pronouncing Facebook in dire peril.
(For one thing, everyone who's built up a large network of pals on Facebook will have lots of reason to continue to hang out there--especially since there's no way to transfer that network to any other site. I'm not on MySpace, Bebo, Plaxo, or Friendster, and it'll take some nifty apps that aren't available on Facebook to get me to consider making the move.)
But like I said, I'm excited. Google might be doing this in part to slap down Facebook--the company's motto is "Don't be evil," not "Don't have ulterior motives"--but open and widely-adopted is nearly always better than closed and proprietary.
And hey, it certainly upgrades my impression of MySpace in multiple ways that it's going from not being a true platform at all to becoming a rather open one, if its support for OpenSocial pans out the way it should in theory.
