Google has Facebook in its sights again, after Orkut ripped off the News feed from Facebook we are now witnessing a team up of all the major social networks to adopt Google's new OpenSocial API. The only difference is this time it could be a head shot for Facebook.

Facebook has grown into a billion dollar company faster than any of its competitors, by allowing developers to use its API to integrate games, quiz's, apps and a whole lot of interactive features and functions into the website itself.
John McCrea, vice president of marketing at Plaxo, one of Google's partners in deploying OpenSocial, said, “Facebook is trying to build a proprietary web platform. Those of us that believe in openness saw that as a threat to the open web."

Although I am not sure if they really believe that Facebook would be the next Microsoft online, but most of the social network sites have decided to adopt OpenSocial, is it in fear of Facebooks growing power? What changes would we see with a site like Paypal going open social I wonder. What can we expect? A whole lot of developers loosing focus on Facebook and building apps on the OpenSocial API which will give them a much bigger audience now with even Myspace joining Google's Open Social. Here's a list of all Google's Open Social Partners.

What is Open Social?

OpenSocial provides a common set of APIs for social applications across multiple websites. With standard JavaScript and HTML, developers can create apps that access a social network's friends and update feeds.

Common APIs means you have less to learn to build for multiple websites. OpenSocial is currently being developed by Google in conjunction with members of the web community. The ultimate goal is for any social website to be able to implement the APIs and host 3rd party social applications.

Orkut has opened a limited sandbox that you can use to start building apps using the Open Social APIs in order for developers to get started immediately.

“The killer apps of the web, email, instant messaging and blogging, have enabled us to communicate with our friends, family, and the rest of the world on a large scale. But there is a newer characteristic of the web that has been emerging: to become social. The first wave of killer apps allowed us to communicate with the world at scale. The next wave is about connecting us and our online activities with our friends,” taken from the Open Social blog, the web is better when it's social, Amar Gandhi and Peter Chane, Group Product Managers, OpenSocial.

The Open Social Demo Google gave the Social Networks



There are already a couple of applications ready for the Open Social Api, some of the ones that are doing really well on Facebook, the Flixster app for example. The other apps can be viewed in the community on Google's Open Social Page.

Resources:

Google Aims to Break Open the Closed World of Social Networking

Facebook vs. OpenSocial: seconds out, round one (and 1989 razor cheese)

Google launches open APIs for social networks

Did Google bluff Microsoft into over paying for Facebook?

MySpace, Bebo Join OpenSocial Club, Facebook Looking Isolated