Yesterday, I was giving OpenSocial a hard time. I even referenced one of my sources who called the new OpenSocial partners a “coalition of the willing.” Later in the day, Hitwise went and produced statistics comparing Facebook to the combination of OpenSocial partners in terms of their U.S. traffic. A quick look at the graph below confirms that Facebook indeed dwarfs all of the partners. If MySpace was included in the chart I am confident that you would see a similar dwarfing of the OpenSocial alliance.
These statistics skew the global picture though. On a global scale, I would guess that an aggregate of the OpenSocial partners is comparable to Facebook in traffic. Additionally, the OpenSocial movement is a pretty revolutionary one. Never before (as far as I know) has such a disperse group of organizations teamed up to adopt a single standard. Additionally, this standard is well designed given that Google architects are the masterminds behind it.
A quick look at the OpenSocial screenshots confirms that OpenSocial is indeed a powerful standard. Rapid integration into a diverse set of social networks is powerful in theory. The primary problem is that the largest social networks are not adopting these standards. If the OpenSocial partners can increase their rate of expansion beyond Facebook and MySpace, they may actually have a shot. Until then, the OpenSocial partners may remain a coalition of the willing.
Nick – you should check out quantcast or comscore numbers in order to make this post fair to the Open Social movement. BTW, at the end of the day this is a moot point. For the 5000+ apps that have gone nowhere will move to the Open Social shortly. At the end of the day, you have to think through what developers are looking for. Should they try to increase traction on an app thats goign nowhere or pay RockYou on FB to grow or take another shot by launching in Open Social. I bet its the latter.
Comment by gogol — November 1, 2007 @ 6:32 am
Nick – you should check out quantcast or comscore numbers in order to make this post fair to the Open Social movement. BTW, at the end of the day this is a moot point. For the 5000+ apps that have gone nowhere will move to the Open Social shortly. At the end of the day, you have to think through what developers are looking for. Should they try to increase traction on an app thats goign nowhere or pay RockYou on FB to grow or take another shot by launching in Open Social. I bet its the latter.
Comment by gogol — November 1, 2007 @ 10:32 am
[...] morning I wrote about OpenSocial in fact being a coalition of the willing based on Hitwise statistics. According to Silicon Alley Insider that’s all about to change [...]
Pingback by MySpace Joining OpenSocial? - The Unofficial Facebook Blog — November 1, 2007 @ 2:25 pm
[...] Written by Om Malik Tuesday, November 6, 2007 at 1:55 AM PT | No comments Google (GOOG) announced its OpenSocial strategy last week, starting with some of the smaller (albeit fast-growing) social networks, and quickly ensnaring MySpace (NWS), Bebo and a bunch of other companies to join its efforts. Neil O’Neill, the brilliant young man who writes the AllFacebook blog, described it as a coalition of the willing. [...]
Pingback by Why Is Google Afraid of Facebook? « GigaOM — November 6, 2007 @ 5:55 am
[...] Why Is Google Afraid of Facebook? « GigaOM Google (GOOG) announced its OpenSocial strategy last week, starting with some of the smaller (albeit fast-growing) social networks, and quickly ensnaring MySpace (NWS), Bebo and a bunch of other companies to join its efforts. Nick O’Neill, the brilliant young man who writes the AllFacebook blog, described it as a coalition of the willing. [...]
Pingback by Why Is Google Afraid of Facebook? « GigaOM « Fremontman’s Weblog — November 6, 2007 @ 11:48 am