Alex Iskold headlines, Thank You Google for Open Social (Or, Why Open Social Really Matters), and begins,
When Google and others ganged up on Facebook a few weeks ago, to many of us, Open Social looked like a marketing move. The news came suspiciously close to Facebook’s ad platform announcement and after a close look, the API looked very raw. Most participants just announced their support without having any concrete implementation.
Yet, Open Social is not a fluke and neither it is an accident. It is an important step in the evolution of social and open web, a step that we have seen taken before in other circumstances. It is called commoditization. By creating an exchange of gadgets and social information Google and Co. declared that the era of social silos is over. In this post we look at the details of the open social API, discuss its adoption and look into the future of the social web.
He goes on to give details.
I still think Open Social is also a marketing move. The timing alone was too propitious for it not to be. But still, even if Google is zigging to Facebook’s zag, it’s potentially a good zig, if Alex is right.
[Later...] Dave says it’s not true.
