tardily agnise the importance of societal networking as an online service and advertising vehicle , Google this calendar week will unleash its strongest response yet to the rising menace and rocket popularity of MySpace and Facebook .
On Thursday , Google will annunciate OpenSocial , an enterprisingness with a set of genus Apis ( program programing interfaces ) at its core that is design “ to spread social applications across the Web , ” the companionship said .
These common APIs have been designed to let developers create social networking software that will run on multiple Web sites , simplifying the devising and distribution of these programs .
partner support OpenSocial let in various well - known software system developer and social networking situation : Oracle , Salesforce.com , Hi5 , iLike , LinkedIn , Slide , Ning , Friendster and Plaxo . Neither Facebook nor MySpace is on the inclination of partners at insistence time .
The move is also no doubt destine to dilute the monolithic success Facebook has had in attracting external developers since it give up its Web site platform to third - party diligence in May .
About 7,000 such applications have been built for Facebook so far , helping to make the social networking site more attractive to multitude and thus boosting its exercise . MySpace lately annunciate it would accompany Facebook ’s representative .
By allowing developer to write an app once and have it work in multiple social networking sites , the OpenSocial initiative could , in theory , water down the appeal of Facebook ’s ballooning applications catalog .
Once considered a rage of pursuit mostly to stripling and young adults , societal networks have significantly broadened their demographic appeal , attracting many people in their 30 , forty , 50s and beyond .
Along the means , societal networking site have been create for other function beyond amusement and staying in jot with Friend . For example , there are social web tailored for specific moving in , such as doctors , and involvement , such as sports .
Google has had a social networking site named Orkut for several years , but it does n’t seem to have deserve much attention from the caller until recently , and only after the popularity and voltage of this eccentric of site became evident .
Google was reportedly locked in a battle with Microsoft over which one would be chosen by Facebook to buy a stake in the social networking party and earn a heap to render advertising to it .
Microsoft finally won , buying a 1.6 percent wager that values Facebook at an eye - popping $ 15 billion , although the social networking caller reportedly will have revenue of just $ 150 million this class .
With about 300 employee now , Facebook expect to have about 700 a class from now , its CEO and co - founding father Mark Zuckerberg lately order . About 250,000 new users register every mean solar day at Facebook , which was founded in 2004 .
In June , MySpace had 114.1 million singular visitant worldwide , rate first among social networking sites , followed by Facebook with 52.2 million , accord to comScore . Hi5 order third with 28.2 million , while Friendster was fourth with 24.7 million . Orkut rounded out the top 5 with 24.1 million .
More selective information about OpenSocial and resources for developer will be available inthis Web sitelater this calendar week . There will also be adeveloper sandbox .
