Mele’s Musings

Yahoo joins Google’s OpenSocial platform

Creating utility across differ social networks makes a lot of sense – or is it just another way the big kids will continue to crush the small kids?

photo: tendankara library

Article excerpt:  Yahoo Inc. said Tuesday that it was joining rival Google Inc.’s initiative for creating photo-sharing and other social tools that work across the Web. News Corp.’s MySpace earlier pledged support, and the three companies announced Tuesday that they were forming a nonprofit organization, the OpenSocial Foundation, to ensure that the platform remains neutral and viable. The idea behind the Google-initiated OpenSocial platform is to create a common coding standard for the applications so they work on hundreds of Web sites. The applications could permit chats, games, media sharing and more.  forbes.com

Musing: Does it make sense to have one platform?  Ultimately, yes.  Interoperability and portability are extremely valuable to consumers, and they will gravitate to the easiest solution.  Flash is a great example – it works on all browsers, and therefore is ubiquitous.  The social apps that are portable and transferable will become ubiquitous as well, and social networks that do not embrace this will become also-rans, in my opinion.  In the Darwinian world of digital media, the one that more easily reproduces itself will be the one that wins.