Google’s Open Social Platform

Google has announced the launch of the “Open Social” application initaitive which will allow developers to write application that can work across various social networking such as Linkedin, friendster, Google’s own Orkut. 

This announcement is regarded by analysts as a defensive move towards Facebook’s mammoth growth in the past few month since it allowed developers to write applications to be used on its site.

The initiative was strengthened further when MySpace announced that it too will be joining the “Open Social” initiative.  Google’s decision to back this initiative stems from various factors namely:

• Google arch rival Microsoft is the sole supplier of contextual ads on Facebook

• Microsoft recently bought a %1.6 share in Facebook valuing the social networking giant at $15 billion

• Google realises the importance of social networking for the future of search. 

• Google cannot afford to be left behind in this crucial race 

 Google’s move is a smart one but is it too little too late?  Time will tell…