If OpenSocial doesn’t even address that problem then they’re still two steps behind.

The proof is in the pudding. My point is that it’s not about the size of the networks (which is what the press says), the openness of the data (which is what O’Reilly) says, but distribution.

If OpenSocial can pull it of *then* we have a real fight on our hands. Right now it’s a bunch of nothing.

“The OpenSocial People data API hasn’t been released yet; this document is a preview of the developer’s guide that we’ll publish when we release the data API. All of the details are subject to change, but this preview should give you a general idea of what the API will be like.”

And as O’Reilly pointed out, this is like moving an inch in the direction of real data portability.

Stop spreading FUD about OpenSocial because you can do just that with it, it’s called the “People Data API”:

http://code.google.com/apis/opensocial/docs/gdata/people/developers_guide_protocol.html

MySpace had to come out with some sort of viable API. Google jumpstarted them on that. Smaller, niche social networks (the kind that Ning can help you build) benefit from having a simple way to connect to other networks. Google jumpstarted that. That’s all neat. If it doesn’t end up as N slightly different implementations of OpenSocial on N different social networks, with N different data policies. Ok, that’s a risk, but let’s assume that doesn’t happen. In the long term, that provides a challenge for a Facebook, but that challenge was coming one way or another anyways. In tech, walled gardens tend to evolve over time towards open systems (vendor-owned network protocols to TCP/IP; app vendor-owned data transport protocols -> HTTP). Facebook needs to be aware of this and work with this curve, rather than, oh, fighting it tooth and nail to some breaking point. But that’s a long term challenge that starts with OpenSocial. And they have a partner in Microsoft who has proven adept enough at navigating that type of challenge. This isn’t the first time “everyone else” has jumped into a consortium with Microsoft on the other side.

Facebook users are not going to a) run away b) stop attracting their friends as new users just because someone released a new API. Facebook has not been succeeding because the world lacks a cross-platform social networking application API. Facebook has been growing because they provide a good service. As long as they continue to improve like they have in the last year, they have a bright future. More than 99% of Facebook users won’t know what OpenSocial is. They’ll only know whether they like the Facebook experience and whether their friends are there.

As a Facebook user, I’m not going to run out and get myself a MySpace account on account of OpenSocial. As a Facebook developer, I am going to clean up a couple things in my code to make things a little less Facebook centric except at the view layer, in preparation for a more open social world. After that, we’ll see what the future holds, but who didn’t think Facebook would face strong competitive moves from the likes of MySpace and Google in any event?

Yes, I understand Google is trying to outflank Facebook by playing the “meta” game. But, as O’Reilly pointed out, there’s no data portability between networks so right now the most generous thing one could say about OpenSocial is that it’s some sort of JVM for social platforms.

As far as developers are concerned they’re going to be developing for verticals. Really, of course, this effectively means MySpace, since that’s like 90% of OpenSocial’s userbase.

We’ll see how this plays out — I’m not convinced.

The entire Internet itself is a social network — yet, it’s ironic that the WordPress blog in which you, well, Blog — can be linked in through OpenSocial — and you make an attempt to pigeon-hole the development as something even remotely equivalent to Facebook?

I’m sorry, but I can’t help but laugh.