When Google’s OpenSocial was considered a collection of social networking outsiders, the smart money seemed to favor its competitors, Facebook and MySpace. But now that MySpace has partnered with OpenSocial, we’re left to wonder whether Facebook will join, as well.
Facebook’s rising popularity is on its side – people are more likely to follow a social network than some loose collection of apps, and the average user may never even become aware that OpenSocial exists. At the same time, OpenSocial is absolutely dominant in a number-of-users sense; MySpace alone has more members than Facebook.
From an objective standpoint, then, one would have to admit that joining OpenSocial might benefit Facebook more than opposing it. Facebook doesn’t stand to gain as much as some of the organization’s smaller members, but it might not gain anything by standing alone.
Still, Facebook appears to be undecided. According to Eric Savitz, a Google rep hinted that the social network had been invited to join OpenSocial. But on Facebook’s behalf, Brandee Barker stated, “Despite reports, Facebook has still not been briefed on OpenSocial. When we have had a chance to understand the technology, then Facebook will evaluate participation relative to the benefits to its 50 million users and 100,000 platform developers.”
If things go one way, we may see an unprecedented amount of cooperation between competing companies. In the other direction, there’s a possible war between Facebook and the rest of the social networking world.
