Has Google’s OpenSocial arrived too late to stop social
networking sites joining the stampede of developers to Facebook’s platform?
Bebo, number one in the UK, Ireland and New Zealand and the
number three social networking site in the US, says its Open Application
Platform is a straight use of Facebook’s application programming interfaces, the advantage being that,
with the minimum of effort, developers of thousands of applications for
Facebook could now make them available on Bebo as well.
In an entry on its developer wiki, Facebook announced the
next step in the opening up of its platform, which began in May when outside
developers were allowed to introduce applications to its service.
“Facebook is now making its platform architecture available
as a model for other social sites,” it said.
Michael Birch, chief executive of Bebo, said at the launch of the Open Application Platform that he still
supported Google’s OpenSocial initiative for a shared platform architecture for
social networking sites, announced last month. But he had also been talking to
Facebook and his developers had been focused on making Bebo
Facebook-compatible.
He insisted Bebo would get round to adopting OpenSocial, but
it seems Facebook’s first-mover advantage has created a critical mass of
support from developers that could diminish Google’s efforts.
Facebook is giving away a major advantage in allowing its
rivals to mirror its arsenal of applications. This suggests it is both
confident of its leadership in innovation and worried about the threat of
Google amassing an axis of opposing social networking forces.
MySpace seems firmly in the Google camp, basing its new open
platform, due in the New Year, on OpenSocial. But it will be interesting to see
whether the smaller players review their commitment to OpenSocial now that Facebook has responded with this
giveaway.
For users, the benefits of the new interoperability between
Bebo and Facebook include them being able to interact and play with one
another.
Bunchball announced its Games and Avatars application,
allowing Bebo and Facebook members to play a range of games with one another,
while Webs.com said its popular WarBook game would be available to play across
the two networks.
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