

MySpace To Join Google OpenSocial (confirmed) - gabrielleydon
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/01/confirmed-myspace-to-join-google-opensocial/
Incredible news!
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breck
The social networking scene has turned into a war zone. If I were planning on
starting a company today, I'd try to do something in an area that people don't
pay much attention to, like Google did with search in 1998.

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mtw
for me, it's not a war zone, it's a boxing match between Google and facebook.
but Google was the heavyweight and facebook was young and arrogant. we all
know waht happens next.

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copenja
More like a boxing match between facebook and myspace actually.

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staunch
Google is a crazed heavyweight who was just watching the fight, but had to
rush the ring.

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aston
Facebook doesn't have to join up. It'll take a half day's work to make a
wrapper you can throw on your OpenSocial app to make it work in Facebook. If
that.

It's in Facebook's interest to keep people making apps that have some
attachment to Facebook proper, though. If people aren't using FBML and FQL,
there's no platform lockin. I assume Facebook's going to beef up their custom
offerings so that people are at least forced to make a special version of
their product just for Facebook.

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cstejerean
I'm not sure if that's good for Facebook. Sure. some developers out of trying
to get the best market share might develop a version for Facebook and one for
OpenSocial, but some might stick with just OpenSocial and Facebook will loose.
The benefits of third party apps on Facebook does not come from locking in
developers. It comes from bringing features to Facebook so that users don't
have a reason to switch.

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blader
Wow, the world just got a lot more interesting.

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shayan
One question: when is facebook joining? My Answer: It will have to break the
walls eventually as they have mentioned it before themselves. When I dont know
but they will do it eventually. Maybe when developers realize they can reach a
much bigger market, a lot easier and faster with Opensocial compared to
facebook, and they start developing a lot more products for them. Or maybe
when Facebook creates its very own applications (their web-wide upcoming ad
network is a sign of this) for OpenSocial.

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Goladus
[http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/09/bloggers-
block-3-dre...](http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/09/bloggers-
block-3-dreaming-in-browser.html)

 _Oh, sure, they've made a few half-assed attempts to make IE standards-
compliant, sort of, but only after making many full-assed attempts to distort
those standards to give Microsoft competitive advantages. I've heard that
directly from folks working on the relevant teams over there. Microsoft
cheerfully shows up at the standards meetings to make damn sure they screw up
the APIs for everyone else. You know. Microsoft-style. Sorta like how DirectX
was bugly compared to OpenGL. Or Win32 compared to Xnix. Or MFC compared to
any sane object system (e.g. TurboPascal and TurboC). Or COM compared to
CORBA. (I mean, you have to work hard to be worse than CORBA.) Microsoft has
always been awful at making APIs, always always always, and I've decided over
the years to credit this to malice rather than incompetence. Microsoft isn't
incompetent, whatever else they might be. Burdened, yes; incompetent, no._

My question is on whose terms will they join?

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shayan
who are you referring to, Facebook or Microsoft? and whose terms to join what,
OpenSocial?

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Goladus
I'm speculating that Facebook may try to use Microsoft's strategy of mucking
up standards to gain a competitive advantage

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shayan
but at this point I think if there will be any standards it would be
OpenSocial, i.e. Google, rather than Facebook with their platform. I dont
think it will be that easy to pull off what Microsoft did, for anyone else,
the web is open and no one can create a competitive advantage by setting
standards anymore. There _will_ be standards but only those that are open and
not locked down by one site or company.

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electric
They should've bought the URL: <http://www.opensocial.com/> !!!

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jimbokun
Wonder how Microsoft feels about this? Is that Facebook investment still worth
as much as they paid for it? Looks like Google is consistently a few steps
ahead of them whatever they do.

~~~
shayan
I don't think Microsoft paid the 240m$ just to have some shares in facebook.
The most important thing Microsoft got out of the deal was the international
advertising exclusivity on Facebook. And that could only go away if Facebook
starts losing page views and eventually become irrelevant. Opensocial is
probably a move forward and might eventually cause facebook to join and
eventually break the walls, but it wont necessarily mean that facebook will
lose the fight, they could still be a huge platform, maybe the biggest one
(not considering OpenSocial, and looking at independent platforms, such as
Myspace, Hi5 ...) and facebook could still be a popular destination for the
years to come.

