OpenSocial

Today at Graphing Social Patterns, executives from hi5, AOL, MySpace and imeem provided updates on their OpenSocial platform usage. Patrick Chanezon from Google opened by explaining that Chinese service OpenPNE out of China and StudiVZ out of Germany are the two newest OpenSocial providers. He also shared some updated stats:

-- 19 days in production
-- 275 million users
-- 66 million installs
-- 2,000 applications built on OpenSocial
-- 20,000 developers
-- 10 million daily app users

AOL

The AOL OpenSocial discussion was brief as the panel was almost out of time but the discussion focused on the third-party and advertising aspects.

imeem

imeem focused on music and showed off some basic OpenSocial goodies you could build on imeem. Apparently you can access the entire music library on imeem using OpenSocial.

MySpace

MySpace came out of the gate boasting how large they are and noted they are twice as large as the nearest competitor (without naming Facebook). The pitch was simple, "want to reach the largest OpenSocial community? Build on MySpace." Staggering stat: 12% of all Internet minutes are spent on MySpace! The MySpace guy wouldn't answer my question about the costs associated with being a "featured app" - said something about being a developer and not a business guy. I don't buy it for a minute mister!

hi5

For some reason, the hi5 guy decided to open by putting on a gray shirt - he said that all business people wear blue shirts and khaki pants (luckily he didn't take his pants off!) - the stunt didn't seem to get much of a reaction from the audience. It felt like hi5 was the little engine that could from his presentation. They do have very strong adoption of the OpenSocial apps by their community.

Geared primarily at the youth of Europe, social networking site Netlog has announced that it has joined Google's OpenSocial program. Check out the details of their OpenSocial implementation.

Netlog plans to focus on localization of OpenSocial apps and unlike most of the other OpenSocial providers, will offer their apps in multiple languages. Netlog will actively help developers to localize their applications in various European languages. They are also going to focus on apps that add advertising stating, "The development of quality applications, in combination with advertising and Netlog's unique credit eco-system, offers an unprecedented opportunity for companies to engage directly with their customers."

Netlog reports 35 million members, 4 billion monthly pageviews and 25 million unique monthly visitors. I don't know much about Netlog and checking with two of my European connections, they haven't heard of it either.

This follows yesterday's news that AOL has joined OpenSocial.

Social network hi5 is out today with some initial stats since the launch of their developer platform and OpenSocial integration. OpenSocial is the Google program to allow developers to create applications that can basically work anywhere with only minor tweaks. The platform officially launched on March 31 and so far there are over 400 new OpenSocial applications running on hi5. In the last two months, 6,000 developers have signed up to develop OpenSocial apps for hi5.

The other stats the company provided include:

• Top apps achieving unprecedented traction, with faster adoption rates than other social networks; hi5 Platform averaging 1M app installs daily
• Half of hi5’s active users engaged with three or more apps installed; most popular apps involve friend interactions, individual/cultural expression and fun

OpenSocial has been quiet on the blog front lately but as the platforms grow that utilize OpenSocial, we will see more developer chatter and more services utilizing the OpenSocial framework. On a side note, somehow hi5 was left out of the SAI Top 25.

This morning Yahoo, Google and MySpace announced the launch of the OpenSocial Foundation. There is a call scheduled for 1pm Eastern to discuss the news. Below are our live call notes - newest notes at the top. We will note once the call has concluded.

view the live notes »

Yahoo has announced this morning that they have joined the OpenSocial Movement, created and run by Google. I don't get it - Yahoo was just starting to appear to have some legs as they are fighting the Microsoft takeover and yet they throw in the cards and join Google?

The new crew has also announced plans to create the OpenSocial Foundation. From Yahoo, "The OpenSocial Foundation will be an independent non-profit entity with a formal intellectual property and governance framework; related assets will be assigned to the new organization by July 1, 2008. The foundation will provide transparency and operational guidelines around technology, documentation, intellectual property, and other issues related to the evolution of the OpenSocial platform, while also ensuring all stakeholders share influence over its future direction."

Caroline McCarthy at CNET was able to grab a quote from Facebook. Facebook is not part of OpenSocial as they created their own developer platform last year.

"As the largest contributor to the memecached system, Facebook has long been a leader and supporter of open source initiatives but will not join the foundation," a statement from the company read. "The company will continue to evaluate partnership opportunities that will benefit the 300,000 Facebook Platform developers while improving the Facebook user experience."

There is a call scheduled at 1pm today to discuss the announcement and as (almost) always, we will cover the call live. Be here at 1pm Eastern for the goodies.

MySpace will be launching their new developer platform on Tuesday morning. Intially the developer site will include sample code, forums, guidebooks along with a developer blog will be available.

There are three APIs available immediately: OpenSocial with MySpace Extensions, REST API and a variety of Action Scripts. The idea with the action scripts is simple - they are premade functions that you can tie into widgets within MySpace. Unlike the Facebook platform, the MySpace Platform won't launch with any premium partners; instead everyone gets a fair shot at success (or as fair as possible).

Adam Ostrow from Mashable has additional details regarding the launch and the privacy options and revenue model that MySpace will utilize. He notes regarding the revenue model, "In terms of monetization, the revenue share hinted at last week won't be available initially. Instead, developers will be able to control 100% of ads on their "canvas page," where most of the main functions of applications will live. In the future, developers will be able to utilize the same tools currently being beta tested by MySpace, which allow advertisers to place "hyper targeted ads" based on user's profile characteristics."

On the privacy side, Ostrow notes, "On the privacy side, we now know that MySpace will be applying the same privacy controls users currently have for their profiles to applications, meaning that apps will have access only to data that user's have already made available." There will also be a sanitization process to verify that no hanky panky will take place regarding the JavaScript code inside the apps.

Since the MySpace Platform is built on OpenSocial, applications will be able to be magically transferred over to other OpenSocial partners including Bebo, hi5, and LinkedIn. This could make the MySpace Platform very attractive to developers. If I see one poke application on Tuesday, all bets are off.

Social networking site hi5 has launched two new music apps today using OpenSocial through partnerships with iLike and Qloud. hi5 claims more than 70 million worldwide registered members (of course no idea on active) and also notes that these are the first apps using OpenSocial on hi5.

The iLike music application will enable hi5 users to post songs and videos on their profiles. The Qloud My Music application will also now be available to the international hi5 population. By installing the My Music application, users can immediately see and legally play entire songs and videos from their complete iTunes libraries within their hi5 profile.

“We are thrilled to offer artists and fans the ability to connect on hi5, a massive social networking site,” said Ali Partovi, CEO of iLike. “Artists can now post songs and videos once via iLike’s Universal Artist Dashboard and reach a potential additional audience of more than 70 million music fans.”

I can only assume that as OpenSocial apps are built on the various social networking platforms, that we will see more and more press releases.

LendingClub, the p2p social finance company, has announced the "company’s commitment" to build applications to support OpenSocial. LendingClub started as a Facebook application, moved into the wide open Internet and now moves to provide their application across the OpenSocial framework.

Distribution rarely hurts and LendingClub does a good job of staying in the spotlight by keeping up with the latest social offerings. Everyone on to the Google bus!

Press release quote, “Lending Club gives people the opportunity to leverage their existing social-network relationships at the time they really need them, whether it’s to finance a new business opportunity or profit from attractive investments,” said Renaud Laplanche, founder and CEO of Lending Club. “We’re taking the lead by building the first affinity-based social finance application across all the Google OpenSocial network partners and empowering people to leverage their existing networks online to bypass the banks and get better rates by borrowing and lending directly within communities they trust.”

Check out our previous LendingClub coverage along with our interview with CEO Renaud Laplanche.

Last week we had the announcement by Google of a new "open" social networking platform called OpenSocial. Here are some quick bits on the new platform:

• It's Google's Platform - is that good or bad? Depends on who you ask.
• OpenSocial could provide visibility to those Web apps that are small to medium sized. It will also provide a new stream of apps from independent Web developers.
• Jeremiah has an excellent in-depth article on how to explain OpenSocial to a corporate executive. His version is the one-hour meeting version. Here is the elevator ride to the 45th floor version: "OpenSocial is a method to incorporate one social network into another (i.e. Friendster into MySpace). It's managed by Google and unfortunately doesn't solve the problem of having a login for each social network. Any Web developer can also create Google widgets that can be plugged into OpenSocial. It's exciting!"
• You know that these social networks will want to monetize their usage of OpenSocial. What happens when an advertisement appears in the Ning embed on MySpace that conflicts with MySpace (e.g. ad for Facebook on MySpace).
• Richard wonders if Facebook will join OpenSocial. My guess is that they won't join but this might force Facebook to build an open platform of their own. I can't imagine MS/Zuckerberg joining now.
• I wonder if Microsoft or Yahoo created this platform would everyone join?
• There is no user integration - so what's the reason behind using this? If I have to login for each network, why not just go to those individual networks?
• How many users really use multiple networks? Perhaps a smattering of geeks but mainstream? C'mon, let's be real here.
• What does the analytics look like for OpenSocial? I can't find anyone discussing this aspect and it's the one that is most interesting to me.
• Do users have to "install" the apps like on Facebook? From the reading materials it seems the answer is no. Which is better for the apps take rates.

We are potentially gearing up for a Facebook vs. Rest of Internet war. What will this provide for Internet consumers? I am guessing more apps of varying quality quicker. Will OpenSocial change the Internet? I am not sold yet.

Mike has a story this morning about the first OpenSocial application h4ck3d in minutes. He notes, "A developer who goes by the alias “theharmonyguy” and describes himself as “just an amateur” claims to have compromised the RockYou OpenSocial application on Plaxo called emote (see the Plaxo blog for details on the application). Specifically, he claims to have added a number of emoticons to Plaxo VP Marketing John McCrea’s profile within 45 minutes of it launching."

Valleywag also has an interesting post about OpenSocial as a PR scam including, "OpenSocial should really be called OpenWidget. Why? Because app users on one social network still can't interact with users on another. The "social graph" -- or list of friends -- of one website won't connect with others through OpenSocial. This will limit the viral growth of applications as well as their usefulness on smaller networks.". And Marshall wonders if this will really be a huge disappointment.

FYI, I have received 31 emails since the OpenSocial launch asking for my opinion. I am working on my thoughts and will have them posted on Sunday. Side note, not even an official logo to associate with OS? Blech.