OpenSocial Archive

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.