Google pulls down their pants and exposes a huge PR Department
Google announced today their OpenSocial APIs reportedly located at this address http://code.google.com/apis/opensocial. As of this writing, there isn't anything there yet. But when there is it will be huge?
All joking aside, Google does a lot of great work for open source and does give back to the community. For that, I definitely respect them.
Let's dig in to the business motivation for your startup using these APIs: You can write an application once and use it with many social networks - like LinkedIn, hi5, Ning, Friendster and Plaxo.
But the big question is... who cares? I haven't used Friendster since 2004. Plaxo is great for backing up my contacts, but I dont trust them. Ning is pointless, and LinkedIn always wants you to pay to get any value. The other social networks I couldn't care about. The only two relevant social networks for my market (the American market) are Facebook and Myspace.
So, google... either you've got a trick up your sleeve - like enabling me to host my profile on Topstartup and use your API to feed into to all of these social networks, or you wont make a big impact.
If anyone can do it, google, you can. Why not release something real before setting the PR drones in motion?