Google Gives Up On “Open Social” Idea, Closes API(marketingland.com)
marketingland.com
Google Gives Up On “Open Social” Idea, Closes API
http://marketingland.com/google-gives-up-open-social-api-3982
5 comments
It's possible. I did try to make it clear that the Social Graph API isn't the same as OpenSocial. But since OpenSocial is all about an open API for sharing social data....
Google gave me a statement saying they are separate things, which I added, but it still wasn't clear how this may or may not be impacting OpenSocial. So, I asked again.
It's been two hours now, so if it was a crystal clear answer, I'd have expected to heard. My guess is that they are more interrelated, but as I said, hope to get more clarification.
Google gave me a statement saying they are separate things, which I added, but it still wasn't clear how this may or may not be impacting OpenSocial. So, I asked again.
It's been two hours now, so if it was a crystal clear answer, I'd have expected to heard. My guess is that they are more interrelated, but as I said, hope to get more clarification.
Two hours, eh? Maybe they were hoping you would skim through the API docs...
Social Graph API: http://code.google.com/apis/socialgraph/docs/api.html
OpenSocial FAQ: http://code.google.com/apis/opensocial/faq.html
OpenSocial Specs: http://docs.opensocial.org/display/OSD/Specs
Snark aside, OpenSocial is a gadget and container specification built around the Google Gadgets spec. The Social Graph API is a service to let you query information about connections between web pages.
I've written some Google Gadgets (OpenSocial apps) and took a quick look through the Social Graph API spec (a much simpler spec). I sure don't see any connection between them. What's the connection that you see?
Social Graph API: http://code.google.com/apis/socialgraph/docs/api.html
OpenSocial FAQ: http://code.google.com/apis/opensocial/faq.html
OpenSocial Specs: http://docs.opensocial.org/display/OSD/Specs
Snark aside, OpenSocial is a gadget and container specification built around the Google Gadgets spec. The Social Graph API is a service to let you query information about connections between web pages.
I've written some Google Gadgets (OpenSocial apps) and took a quick look through the Social Graph API spec (a much simpler spec). I sure don't see any connection between them. What's the connection that you see?
I've corrected the story with a new headline and lead. OpenSocial is continuing.
Two hours is an incredibly long time for Google to respond to something like that, where there's story out in error. It's a long time to respond period. I know, because I'm in contact with them all the time. That's typically a sign they don't quite know what to say.
Clearly, that wasn't the case here. I did look at the OpenSocial site, and a few of the pages within it. There did seem to be a possible connection between the two. Despite my initial language that did qualify things, it was still too strong.
Excuses aside, and as Kevin Marks notes elsewhere in comments here, the OpenSocial idea was initially put out there as some type of way that Google would unite the web to help share social information for developers to use -- to pull in profile info, friend info and activities. And it wasn't positioned as just some type of social gadget building tool.
That's what it seems to have devolved into. Just curious from anyone, is Google feeding Google+ information into OpenSocial?
The connection I was seeing was now that Google has its own social network, and its own set of social signals, it seemed less interested in potentially ensuring there was an ecosystem of sharing everyone's social signals out there.
Two hours is an incredibly long time for Google to respond to something like that, where there's story out in error. It's a long time to respond period. I know, because I'm in contact with them all the time. That's typically a sign they don't quite know what to say.
Clearly, that wasn't the case here. I did look at the OpenSocial site, and a few of the pages within it. There did seem to be a possible connection between the two. Despite my initial language that did qualify things, it was still too strong.
Excuses aside, and as Kevin Marks notes elsewhere in comments here, the OpenSocial idea was initially put out there as some type of way that Google would unite the web to help share social information for developers to use -- to pull in profile info, friend info and activities. And it wasn't positioned as just some type of social gadget building tool.
That's what it seems to have devolved into. Just curious from anyone, is Google feeding Google+ information into OpenSocial?
The connection I was seeing was now that Google has its own social network, and its own set of social signals, it seemed less interested in potentially ensuring there was an ecosystem of sharing everyone's social signals out there.
the old social search that actually crawled the web used the information from the Social Graph API - see what it has for you here:
http://www.google.com/s2/search/social
Looks like this is Google betting purely on an owned graph via Google+
http://www.google.com/s2/search/social
Looks like this is Google betting purely on an owned graph via Google+
They're shutting down the (cool but forgotten & neglected) Social Graph API that Brad Fitzpatrick created when he moved over to Google. It has the word "social" in its name, I guess.
That said it wouldn't be completely unexpected if they dropped OpenSocial from my.google.com. What do the Google+ games use?