Google just can't help it...Google OpenSocial! (Part1)

Google has to have a share of the attention being drawn upon Social Networking Sites (SNS) such as Facebook. True, Google has Orkut, its own SNS, but that is not enough!

Google has over this past week launched Google OpenSocial which is an easy to use API based on Java and HTML allowing the development of third-party applications for sites such as Hi5 and LinkedIn. The good news (for Google) is that MySpace is also adopting Google OpenSocial, allowing the serving of third-party applications to its 200 million accounts.

Google OpenSocial is also good news for third-party developers such as Slide which were also present at the OpenSocial Campfire. Slide is basically a widget network serving widgets to 134 million unique viewers a month.

Below is my (very) simple Slide widget featuring a number of companies involved in the OpenSocial project.

Marketers and big brands may advertise and get their brands across using widget networks such as Slide's. Marketers will definitely seek to make good use of this extended network of widgets and applications, yet what about lonely $15 billion worth Facebook which managed to get a mention on today's Sunday Times of Malta and is currently the hot topic on the most popular marketing blogs and websites (the latter being far more important to 24 yr. old CEO Mark Elliot Zuckerberg)?

OpenSocial is definitely more attractive than Facebook's FBML (Facebook MarkUp Language), a mark-up language used to develop widgets but which restricts these applications to run only on Facebook. Should Facebook join the crowd?