Google Forming Social Networking Alliance To Defeat Facebook

Google and some of the Web’s leading social networks are teaming up to take on the new kid on the block — Facebook. On Thursday, an alliance of companies led by Google plans to begin introducing a common set of standards to allow software developers to write programs for Google’s social network, Orkut, as well as others, including LinkedIn, hi5, Friendster, Plaxo and Ning. The group’s platform, which is called OpenSocial, is “compatible across all the companies,” that person said. The alliance includes business software makers Salesforce.com and Oracle, who are moving to let third-party programmers write applications that can be accessed by their customers. Google wants to create an easy way for developers to create an application that works on all social networks. And if they pull it off, they’ll be in the center, controlling the network. By teaming with others, Google hopes to create a rival platform that could have broad appeal to developers. A person briefed on the plans said the sites in the alliance had a combined 100 million users, more than double the size of Facebook. For Google, the effort could breathe new life into Orkut, which is popular in Brazil and other countries, but not in the United States. While the move could also help some rival social networks, Google could benefit from their success, in part, by helping to sell advertising on those sites.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/31/technology/31google.html?_r=2&ref=business&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-googles-opensocial-designed-to-blunt-facebooks-growth-while-building-up/

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/10/30/details-revealed-google-opensocial-to-be-common-apis-for-building-social-apps/