Tech & Biz

Google Goes Toe-to-Toe With Facebook

by Rob Walker | October 31, 2007 at 10:13 am

684 views | 10 Recommendations | 1 comment

Well it was bound to happen sooner or later, and in this case it looks to be sooner. Instead of buying in and trying to take a piece of facebook's pie, internet giant Google is poised to take a giant chunk of the market.

Will facebook go the way of myspace after Google weighs in?

The project is set to launch on Nov. 1.

Google opens up social networking

Google has launched a system that will allow developers to create applications for a variety of social networks.

Developers currently have to customise their designs for a particular site with many partnering with the hugely popular Facebook.

Google's OpenSocial system will allow a wider distribution for tools like Facebook's music recommendation service iLike and its Top Friends application.

It has long been reported that Google has big ambitions in social networking.

Last week it missed out on the chance to buy a stake in Facebook with the founders choosing instead to do a deal with Microsoft.

We'll see where this goes, and how good it is. I know I'd like something that aggregated all my social browsers.

[q
url="http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2007/10/31/google-open-social.html"]Google
plans to launch an open development platform for social networking site
applications on Nov. 1, the New York Times and several other sources
reported Wednesday.
The project, called OpenSocial, will introduce a
common application programming interface developers can use to create
applications that will work on any participating social network site.
OpenSocial is expected to launch at a party at Google's Mountain View,
Calif., headquarters on Thursday.[/q]

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Jordan Yerman

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 11:07 on October 31st, 2007

I see Facebook as a big data farm, to be sold eventually to the highest bidder. In light of that, I wonder why Google needs to bother, since their other acquisitions give them just as deep a glimpse into users' online habits and relationships.