OpenSocial

What is OpenSocial?

OpenSocial is a set of common APIs for building social applications across many websites. OpenSocial consists of both JavaScript APIs and Google Data APIs.

How does OpenSocial help?

The existence of this single programming model helps both developers and websites. First, developers only have to learn the APIs once in order to build applications that work with any OpenSocial-enabled website. Second, because any website can implement OpenSocial, developers have a broad distribution network to reach users. Websites also benefit by engaging a much larger pool of third party developers than they could without a standard set of APIs.

Is this Google's social network?

No, Google just providing some technologies so the web as a whole can become more social, because that's clearly what users are interested in. Google products, like Orkut, are only one of the number of websites implementing OpenSocial. This is an effort which we hope will benefit the entire web community.

	OpenSocial		What is OpenSocial? OpenSocial is a set of common APIs for building social applications across many websites. OpenSocial consists of both JavaScript APIs and Google Data APIs. How does OpenSocial help? The existence of this single programming model helps both developers and websites. First, developers only have to learn the APIs once in order to build applications that work with any OpenSocial-enabled website. Second, because any website can implement OpenSocial, developers have a broad distribution network to reach users. Websites also benefit by engaging a much larger pool of third party developers than they could without a standard set of APIs. Is this Google's social network? No, Google just providing some technologies so the web as a whole can become more social, because that's clearly what users are interested in. Google products, like Orkut, are only one of the number of websites implementing OpenSocial. This is an effort which we hope will benefit the entire web community.