Yahoo, MySpace and Google have launched OpenSocial Foundation, a non-profit private organization that promotes the development of open and extensible specifications for social networking APIs.
OpenSocial Foundation is a clear example of how the “flatting” process of the world is developing in a very fast way and involving the social networking. Thanks to new technologies and to internet the world has been transformed from round into flat, encouraging the cooperation among people who live even in the most remote places of the planet and allowing them to interact and to work at the same projects.
The concept of community that shares the same tools and that is capable of implementing and standardizing them is a fundamental point that all companies must take into account if they want to keep their leading role in the current economic scenery.

OpenSocial Foundation is a non-profit organization created by Google, Yahoo! and MySpace to “ensure the neutrality and longevity of OpenSocial as an open, community-governed specification for building social applications across the web” as reported in a press release on Yahoo! website. OpenSocial was launched the last autumn to help web developers to create a unified system of applications, available for any site of social network.

Joe Kraus, director of product development at Google, has commented this initiative during the OpenSocial.org conference call in this way: “If you want to go fast go alone, if you want to go far, go together.” OpenSocial is about going far.

Sharing and cooperation are the keywords of our society and economy, that lately have started a flatting process, according to Thomas L. Friedman’s book “The world is flat”(edited by Farrar, Straus & Giroux).

Where does Friedman’s thought about the so called “flatting process” come from?

The concept of a flat world has been conceived after a close analysis of some forces, that Friedman calls “flatteners”, such as uploading, outsourcing, insourcing and so on. This flatteners have leveled the global playing field and allowed the world to became flat, i.e. with no barriers among the countries. They have allowed companies and people to ccross the national borders and to cooperate in spite of the big distances.

The tools that until yesterday were owned only by few ‘superior’ people, thanks to internet and new technologies, have been made accessible to everyone, even to the most remote places of the world.

The flatting process has had a strong influence on the web sphere and on the software field because it has allowed the growth of a developer community that in a flat world can remotely cooperate in the same tools and applications, improve and standardize them.

In this way it has been created a work flow that enables the interaction not only among the companies but also among people. Every person with the right infrastructure and an internet connection can take part in this flatting process cpersonally ontributing to realize it and to transform the flow of creativity and innovation.

The OpenSocial Foundation seems then to fully represent this flatting dynamics, involving the web sphere of social networking by boosting a universal standard on a global scale for the developers who work for the social media.

During the Opensocial.org conference call the contributors have precised about this important point: “Engineers from all three founding entities will work on the project, they say. All specifications are available under a creative commons copyright license.
Ideally, this will encourage developers to implement the OpenSocial spec without fear that Google will squash their efforts. Once the foundation is created, it will obtain similar covenants from all contributors to ensure the level playing field.”

Engineers and web developers of the partner companies will be able to work on the same APIs and then to create a standard product available for the web.

Opensource, cooperation and sharing represent the new concepts that the companies must take into account in order to keep their leading role in the current economic scenery.

In the light of this speech it’s important to understand why Facebook and MSN have decided not to take part in this project and the consequences of their choice.

Their refusal to be part of the OpenSocial Foundation and Facebook’s choice to support Windows Live Contact APIs has drawn a clear boundary line that divides definitely them from the web evolution.

This concept is underlined by Ciaopeople CEO Gianluca Cozzolino in a comment on Google Italia Blog: “MSN doesn’t take part in the OpenSocial Foundation, but supports the Windows Api Contacts project. Probably MSN has made this choice under the influence of the modest sum of 240 million dollars paid-up, a few months ago, for the acquisition of 1,6% of Mark Zuckerberg’s social network, the innovative Facebook. So the point is that on one hand there are Facebook and Microsoft, and on the other hand there are Google, Myspace, Yahoo, Hi5, Orkut, Friendster, Linkedin…”

The war between Google and Microsoft seems to go on, but the latter seems to fight against overwhelming odds, because most of social networks have chosen to support the Mountain view company.

In a flat world where the vertical structure has been replaced with a horizonta one, sharing and open source are fundamental for the development and evolution.

Simona Fiore
Qbr Magazine Staff

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