A programming interface (API) for social networking sites from Google. Introduced in 2007, it was created to allow social networking applications to run on more than one site. Google's Orkut along with MySpace, Friendster and hi5 were the first sites to support the OpenSocial interface.
An Open Platform
OpenSocial was designed to provide an alternative to the Facebook Platform, which let people write applications for Facebook, but which would only run on Facebook. See Facebook.
An Open Platform
OpenSocial was designed to provide an alternative to the Facebook Platform, which let people write applications for Facebook, but which would only run on Facebook. See Facebook.
 | Reproduced with permission from Computer Desktop Encyclopedia. Copyright (c) 1981-2009 The Computer Language Company Inc. All rights reserved. |
Additional Resources
- Photos: Fete de Ning in San Francisco
- To celebrate the launch of OpenSocial apps on their site, Ning hosted an event at Terra in San Francisco. I hope you enjoy the photos! by Andrew Mager
- Blog posts 2009-09-18
- Zoho goes gadget happy; Brings apps to social networks
- Zoho goes gadget happy; Brings apps to social networksWhy?Would it be impertinent of me to ask WHY you'd want Zoho apps embedded within Facebook?Open Social is neat, but when I hear about apps you can take anywhere I find myself asking what the motivation is to do that. Is...
- Discussion threads 2009-04-16
- Google to turn iGoogle into a gaming platform?
- Yesterday I received an invitation for a press event at Google at the end of March. The event will revolve around iGoogle, and what "game publishers" are doing to get involved with the platform. Please join us on the night of March 25th as we give...
- Blog posts 2009-03-17
- Facebook Connect: The masses and the fishbowl
- Facebook Connect: The masses and the fishbowlWould prefer to see OpenSocial develping fasterA really interesting observation Larry.As CEO of a niche social network I have long been hoping for an initiative to make my sites easier to sign up to (since the week in may when Facebook Connect and Google...
- Discussion threads 2008-12-01
- LinkedIn apps arrive - another platform play
- LinkedIn has finally switched on its own OpenSocial-powered apps platform, which, on the surface at least, borrows quite a bit from Facebook. Unlike Facebook, however, apps are being heavily vetted by LinkedIn to ensure that they remain focused on helping members enhance their professional profile, as well as collaborate on...
- Blog posts 2008-10-29
- MySpace Data Availability at Lunch 2.0
- This afternoon, Fox Interactive Media invited the tech community to its new San Francisco headquarters for free food, and an opportunity to network. Max Engel, product manager for the Data Availability project, spoke with me briefly about the new...
- Blog posts 2008-08-14
- Is Facebook an open source hero or Microsoft clone?
- Neither. Facebook is a currently popular site with very personal information stuck in the crosshairs of dueling expectations. The Canadian Inquisition is, for all the heated rhetoric attached to it, not that big a deal. Canadian authorities want to use Facebook to set rules...
- Blog posts 2008-06-03
- fbOpen: Facebook open-sources its Platform
- Facebook has gone ahead and open-sourced major parts of the Facebook Platform, the means by which third-party developers write applications for the site. "This release is just a first step in providing you a look into Facebook Platform, and we hope you'll help us iterate on and...
- Blog posts 2008-06-02
- AOL support for OpenSocial; Too many friends?; Gears to power MySpace messaging; Obama prefers Facebook
- AOL support for OpenSocial; Too many friends?; Gears to power MySpace messaging; Obama prefers Facebook$47,000Isn't $47,000 surprisingly small?
- Discussion threads 2008-05-29
- AOL support for OpenSocial; Too many friends?; Gears to power MySpace messaging; Obama prefers Facebook
- The social web weekly: a quick-fire roundup of some of the news, announcements and conversations that have occurred throughout the week… AOL announces support for OpenSocial. These days we can no longer talk in terms of 'company x' joining Google's OpenSocial, since the standard for creating socially...
- Blog posts 2008-05-29
- Google bets future on improving Client, Connectivity, and Cloud
- On Wednesday morning, Vick Gundotra, Engineering VP at Google opened the Google I/O developer's conference in San Francisco. I jotted down a few (ok, a lot of) notes for this and other sessions that I'd like to share with you. This is not quite a transcript, but rather a paraphrasing...
- Blog posts 2008-05-29
- Live from Google I/O 2008
- An estimated 2500+ developers descended on Moscone West today as Google started its first (annual?) Google I/O conference in San Francisco. The two day conference drew folks from all over the world. While I was waiting in line for registration, I met a...
- Blog posts 2008-05-28
- Facebook to open source its developer platform?
- While it's not yet official, TechCrunch reports that Facebook is planning to open source its Facebook Platform, the means by which third-party developers can build applications for the social networking site. In a direct response to Google's 'combine and conquer strategy' with Open Social, Facebook will turn...
- Blog posts 2008-05-27
- Microsoft opens philosophical can of worms with Live Search Cashback
- Talk is bubbling up across the blogosphere, Gillmor Gang and Techmeme daily about social graph personal information. This may be among the most important discussions and topics of our time. How the "social mesh" works out now will affect our lives and businesses for a long time. It may even...
- Blog posts 2008-05-23
- OpenSocial: The Power of Social Networks in Your Applications
- OpenSocial, a set of Application Programming Interfaces APIs based on standard HTML and JavaScript, simplifies the creation of web-based applications that interact with social networks. Launched by Google in November 2007, the OpenSocial APIs are supported or in the process of being adopted by a number of different social networks,...
- White papers 2008-05-20
- Facebook bans Google's Friend Connect
- A few days ago, Google launched a new service called Friend Connect to help website owners make their stuff social without needing to do much work. This basically involves being able to host certain gadgets that use OpenSocial on a webpage by simply copy and pasting some code from...
- Blog posts 2008-05-16
- Google kicks off its Facebook ground war
- Updated: Google on Monday outlined its Google Friend Connect, a service that promises to insert social features into any application and any site. Sound familiar? It is. MySpace has its friend connect service and Facebook has its version. Add it up and you have...
- Blog posts 2008-05-12
- Official: Google's 'Friend Connect' brings social networking to the Long Tail
- In case you didn't think Google wanted to be a big player on the Social Web -- Orkut, Google Talk and shared items in Google Reader aside -- the search giant revealed an ambitious new strategy today: 'Friend Connect' is a platform designed to help the 'long tail' of sites...
- Blog posts 2008-05-12
- Marc Andreessen, past and present
- Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape and co-author of Mosaic, sits down with John Battelle, founder and chairman of Federated Media publishing at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. Andreessen talks about his current social-networking site Ning, and the impact of Facebook apps and Google's OpenSocial.
- Videos 2008-04-24
- Enterprise 2.0 industry matures as businesses grapple with its potential
- Some of the big IT news over the weekend was the announcement that Forrester predicts that the Enterprise 2.0 space will be a $4.6 billion industry within 5 years. ZDNet's Larry Dignan had the full breakdown yesterday on Forresters bullish outlook while Dennis Howlett immediately took umbrage with...
- Blog posts 2008-04-22
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