iGoogle transmogrifies into a Social Network
Just read Hints of iGoogle Turning Into Its Own Social Network on TechCrunch. That’s cool!
“Any developer who builds an OpenSocial app, for instance, can make it work as a widget (er, gadget) on iGoogle. So far, it’s been more of a personal home page. But now iGoogle is taking another step towards becoming a full-fledged social network in its own right.
It is a tiny step, but could be indicative of the direction iGoogle is going to take. Google has opened up a sandbox for developers where they can try building some new types of iGoogle apps not available to the general iGoogle user population. Most significantly, they can add activity streams (i.e., updates) and friends lists in new navigation panes on the page. Any change in a third-party iGoogle widget will be able to be reflected in the updates pane. (This has actually been a long time coming, since adding activity streams was always part of the OpenSocial plan). And they can also play around with larger “canvas” pages that users can click through to from each widget for a full-page experience. How very Facebook of them.”
Some Background: OpenSocial is a set of common application programming interfaces (APIs) for web-based social network applications, developed by Google. Applications implementing the OpenSocial APIs will be interoperable with any social network system that supports them, including features on sites such as Hi5.com, Viadeo, MySpace, Friendster, orkut and Yahoo!.
OpenSocial is commonly described as a more open cross-platform alternative to Facebook Platform. After launching Facebook Platform in late May 2007, the fast-growing Facebook has been widely reported as a challenger to Google in establishing and leveraging a ubiquitous web operating system. Compared to Facebook, which is ranked second by page views worldwide, Google’s social network orkut is ranked sixth for the same month, with more than half its members living in India. Reports on competition between the two companies increased with Facebook scheduling an announcement of an online advertising initiative (named Facebook Ads) the day after Google’s social networking announcement was originally scheduled. The intiative includes ad serving and targeting programs (named Facebook Social Ads and Facebook Insights, respectively) in competition with Google’s market-leading AdSense and AdWords programs.
Next Steps:
- Sign up for the iGoogle Sandbox
- Read the iGoogle Developer’s Guide
- Check out iGoogle Gadgets FAQ
- Get Started with iGoogle Sandbox
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