Those whippersnappers at Google never rest! Google is introducing a new Web standard called OpenSocial designed to allow developers to build Web-based social applications that has made Facebook such an engaging site for developers and users alike.
Over time, social networks will organically grow to encompass any defined community online: families, schools, churches, clubs, groups, and businesses. Now if we could only connect socially face to face away from the computer screen, only then will our social networks be much more rewarding with the richness of personal relationships.
Marc Andreessen has a screen cast and screenshots at his blog http://blog.pmarca.com. Marc Andreessen co-founded Netscape Communications and is also a co-founder of Ning, a company that lets people build their own online networks.
In a nutshell, Open Social is an open web API that can be supported by two kinds of developers:
"Containers" -- social networking systems like Ning, Orkut, LinkedIn, Hi5, and Friendster, and...
"Apps" -- applications that want to be embedded within containers -- for example, the kinds of applications built by iLike, Flixster, Rockyou, and Slide.
This is the exact same concept as the Facebook platform, with two huge differences:
With the Facebook platform, only Facebook itself can be a "container" -- "apps" can only run within Facebook itself. In contrast, with Open Social, any social network can be an Open Social container and allow Open Social apps to run within it.
With the Facebook platform, app developers build to Facebook-proprietary languages and APIs such as FBML (Facebook Markup Language) and FQL (Facebook Query Language) -- those languages and APIs don't work anywhere other than Facebook -- and then the apps can only run within Facebook. In contrast, with Open Social, app developers can build to standard HTML and Javascript, and their apps can then run in any Open Social container.