I’ve been so heads down getting Sac Kings and Bell Canada out the door and our ‘RadioMini‘ SNS up as well, I haven’t had time to focus on OpenSocial.

I knew once it was prematurely announced,. that the Nov. 1st announcement was more about stealing thunder from Facebook Ads and laying the groundwork for Android.  So that said to me “we have time” for OpenSocial”.

But unfortunately other developers - didn’t realize that - and have been pouring resources and time into a premautely launched standard platform.  Ouch.

So now that Eric Shonfeld (thanks Eric) has poiinted to this status page - dated 11/30 - I’d like to take some time addressing many of these outdstanding issues - to make my views clear.  Patrick Chanezon will be part of a panel I’m doing next week in Paris for LeWeb3 - so I’ll address these same issues to Patrick - there.

1.  Profiles - profiles will never be standardized.  Ask Dare Obasanjo if Microsoft will change anything for OpenSocial.  Or how ’bout Yahoo? And I severely doubt MySpace would either.  So my I suggest a ‘mapping’ technique - like the technique we discussed at our DataSharingSummit?  It’s technically possible to have a ‘3rd party’ source map/convert profiles between systems - so folks can continue to use what they have - yet enable movement of profile records, data and social graphs between systems. Give up the notion of dictating one UBER schema.  It ain’t gonna happen.

2. Data APIs - yes that would be nice.  But even more - what I’d like to see are policy and intentions stated in public.  Will MySpace and Bebo - specifically - open up their userbases and allow their users to export their data and social graphs. Yes or no?  Will they support the Bill of Rights of Users of Social Media?  Just how onerous will these TOSs gonna be?  I think once its clear what the ‘containers’ intentions are - creating a comprehensive set of DataAPIs will be simpler.  But right now - given the state of OpenSocial - it’s just not clear how far each container will go towards true openness.  That’s a question for Chris DeWolfe to answer.

3.  App Directories (and a namespace clearing house), security, UI guidelines, safe trips back home and figuring out how Gadgets SPECIFICALLY work are all good things to refine and implement. I just wish there wasn’t this tarnish of sliminess all over OpenSocial - now that Google’s timing has become apparent.  Yes - it’s great to have OpenSocial.  But how cool would it have been to wait til the thing actually was finished and lots of great examples were working? Turns out Facebook got a lump in there anyway - right?  So why they’d have to go and shoot their wad too soon? Just doesn’t make sense!  Cause the fuse is burning - and if this all isn’t resolved and OpenSocial moves onto a stable, Ver 1 - like by Feb. - it’s fucked.

4.  OpenSocial’s relationship to OpenID, OpenID2, oAuth and RSS? It would be nice for Google to explain how it sees OpenSocial fitting into the larger universe of open social networking.  Why it chooses to use GData instead of XML-RPC and why it doesn’t “play ball with others” - would all be nice to know and resolved. Getting OpenSocial to work with JSON is a good step - but leaving out RSS is a mistake.  While you’re at it - figure out how to support SixApart’s Update stream- as well!  Only by PLAYING WITH OTHER STANDARDS can Google really build trust and credibility for the long haul.

5. Write Once, run anywhere.  :-)  Now I hate to brag, but readers of this blog know I love to gloat and that concept was invented by my company - MacroMind - back in 1985.  Its great to see the notion continue as this technique is the only thing that makes sense for software developers.  But you really DO have to get it to work right - and I know of no other way to do that - then to use a few, helpful souls to be guinea pigs to work out the kinks!  Go dudes and dudesses - go!

5.  Timing - YO young dudesand dudesses. CHILL!  Go back to what you were doing!  Google is a huge company, there’s a lot of work to do - and you’ll have plenty of time to be “first” once the APIs are frozen and everything is in place. I’d say mid-February would be safe.  That gives you 8 weeks to:

- buy X-Mas presents

- get laid

- go to a few parties

- get back to what you were doing before

- party down some more

- enjoy X-Mas and New Years

- make love to your loved one

- party down some MORE

- start off the new year chanting this mantra “I will not let big companies dictate to me” - and -  “I will stop swallowing red pills!”  Those should be your new year’s resolution!

and before you know it - it’ll be February, and time to worry about OpenSocial. But not now - it’s too early.

For the open distributed inter-connected mesh to work - we need OpenSocial - yes - but we also need OpenID2 and a bunch of other standards which Google and Facebook AREN’T going to invent and shove down your throats.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 8th, 2007 at 3:43 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.