Close
  • Latest News
  • Cybersecurity
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Mobile
  • Networking
  • Storage
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
Read Down
Sign in
Close
Welcome!Log into your account
Forgot your password?
Read Down
Password recovery
Recover your password
Close
Search
Menu
Search
  • Latest News
  • Cybersecurity
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Mobile
  • Networking
  • Storage
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
More
    Home Applications
    • Applications
    • Development

    Google, MySpace, Yahoo Form OpenSocial Foundation

    By
    Clint Boulton
    -
    March 25, 2008
    Share
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Linkedin

      Yahoo joined Google and MySpace in launching the OpenSocial Foundation, marking Yahoo’s support for the open set of APIs created to fuel interoperability between social applications.

      Launched March 25, the OpenSocial Foundation will be an independent, nonprofit group with an intellectual property and governance framework. Related assets along those lines will be assigned to the group by July 1. Engineers from Yahoo, MySpace and Google will work with OpenSocial developers to advance the specification through the new foundation.

      OpenSocial is a stake in the ground for sharing information and data bits between the disparate walled gardens known as social networks. Prior to the effort, applications built for MySpace couldn’t work on another social network because of the different code bases.

      If programmers build applications with the OpenSocial APIs, which are available under an open-source Creative Commons copyright license, those applications could theoretically run on any social site supporting OpenSocial without requiring duplicate work from developers.

      Thanks to Yahoo’s new support for OpenSocial, programmers writing applications or developing platforms based on the specification could connect with more people than previously possible.

      Yahoo, in a high-stakes battle to avoid being acquired by Microsoft for roughly $42 billion, boasts more than 500 million users worldwide thanks to its Web mail and instant messaging applications. The search company, which had been rumored to be joining OpenSocial for several weeks, is not a surprise newcomer to the effort.

      The company has been vocal in its support of open-source technologies, specifications and Web applications, embracing the OpenID spec for single sign-on portability, as well as distributed computing standards such as Hadoop.

      If programmers can leverage the Yahoo user base with OpenSocial software and social networks, the effort would gain some serious momentum against more proprietary efforts such as Facebook, which has not joined OpenSocial.

      It is not clear whether Microsoft, which March 25 unveiled an API to allow Facebook, Bebo, Hi5, Tagged and LinkedIn to let users move their contacts between the various services, will join OpenSocial if it acquires Yahoo.

      Google, MySpace and several social sites launched OpenSocial Nov. 1. To this point, adoption of OpenSocial has been slow, and some users who tested the spec’s APIs complained that they are buggy or broken.

      However, MySpace recently launched its MySpace Developer Platform on OpenSocial APIs. Orkut has also started making OpenSocial applications available to its users; Hi5 will do so at the end of March.

      Those interested in learning more about the foundation can go to its Web site here. Also, an open-source reference implementation called Shindig is being created and developed as a project in the Apache Software Foundation incubator.

      Other members of the OpenSocial community include Engage.com, Friendster, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, Ning, Oracle, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji and Viadeo.

      Avatar
      Clint Boulton

      MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

      Android

      Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro: Durability for Tough...

      Chris Preimesberger - December 5, 2020 0
      Have you ever dropped your phone, winced and felt the pain as it hit the sidewalk? Either the screen splintered like a windshield being...
      Read more
      Cloud

      Why Data Security Will Face Even Harsher...

      Chris Preimesberger - December 1, 2020 0
      Who would know more about details of the hacking process than an actual former career hacker? And who wants to understand all they can...
      Read more
      Cybersecurity

      How Veritas Is Shining a Light Into...

      eWEEK EDITORS - September 25, 2020 0
      Protecting data has always been one of the most important tasks in all of IT, yet as more companies become data companies at the...
      Read more
      Big Data and Analytics

      How NVIDIA A100 Station Brings Data Center...

      Zeus Kerravala - November 18, 2020 0
      There’s little debate that graphics processor unit manufacturer NVIDIA is the de facto standard when it comes to providing silicon to power machine learning...
      Read more
      Apple

      Why iPhone 12 Pro Makes Sense for...

      Wayne Rash - November 26, 2020 0
      If you’ve been watching the Apple commercials for the past three weeks, you already know what the company thinks will happen if you buy...
      Read more
      eWeek


      Contact Us | About | Sitemap

      Facebook
      Linkedin
      RSS
      Twitter
      Youtube

      Property of TechnologyAdvice.
      Terms of Service | Privacy Notice | Advertise | California - Do Not Sell My Information

      © 2021 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

      Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.

      ×