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Facebook (Microsoft) Vs. OpenSocial (Google)
By Eugene Lim | November 5, 2007
With the failed attempt from Google to buy a crumb of the Facebook pie, Google is ganging up with MySpace in the social networking power struggle.
“Our partnership with Google allows developers to gain massive distribution without unnecessary specialized development for every platform,” said Chris DeWolfe, CEO and co-founder of MySpace, in a statement. “This is about helping the start-up spend more time building a great product rather than rebuilding it for every social network. We’re pleased to collaborate with Google to establish a landmark standard for social applications.”
Google and MySpace jointly announce on Thursday that they are launching OpenSocial to contend with Facebook. Their partners include other social networks like Orkut, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Ning Hi5, Plaxo, Friendster, Viadeo, and Oracle while developers such as Flixster, iLike, RockYou and Slide have come into the fold.
What does all this mean? Well for one thing, the giants are none too happy with the up-and-comer that is gaining so much ground. Like any bully would, recruit other bullies and minions who don’t mind riding the coattail to wrestle the competition to the floor. This is in effect forcing Facebook into a corner – either you stand down or become part of us. Granted that programmers need to learn a new language (FBML) to develop for Facebook, but this has not slowed down the amount of applications developed for it. So why should they back down and comply with what the big boys are doing?
On one hand, you have developers complaining that they have to learn yet another markup language where the time spent and cost of maintaining the codes could be better spent on developing APIs that get distributed across a slew of hosts available. On the other hand, Facebook has captured even the most casual of web users and turned them into Facebook addicts.
You just can’t ignore a force like this just because someone else came up with a better idea or format along the way. Look at all the self-declared iPod killers in the market (ZUNE anyone?). All have tried and failed miserably. Sometimes it’s not just looking at who has the better features and the higher specs to drive a product. Facebook has done such a thing. And to convince these hardcore users to adopt something new or more innovative could prove to be an uphill battle. Last thing people want is to be overwhelmed with a new technology when they have just gotten comfortable with the existing one.
At this point, it is still a wait-and-see situation. You can’t completely rule out both ways as this trend is still in its infancy. Look at Netscape and what happened to it after Microsoft Internet Explorer came into the market. Anything goes in this age of digital battle for dominance.
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November 6th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
Facebook attracting general users cz of their simple way to represent a newspaper of the friends updates.. in a mannered way.. On the other hand friendster .. myspace.. they have been upgraded to web 2.0 .. but can you remember how much spam, hoax inside myspace itself.. wow.. well myspace and friendster not yet find a simpler way to show friends updates.. on the other hand i’ve tried multiply.com which provides unlimited storage with customizable interface.. and they also have a simple friends updates systems..
It should be a general practice for these companies to implement a standard of developing api so that developers don’t have to go through the hassle of learning up new things..