Google halts SN walled gardens with OpenSocial

Update2: Looks like MySpace and Bebo have joined up.Pressures on for FB.

Update1: screencast here

We knew it was coming - but this to me seems a clever play by Google.

OpenSocial = "a set of common APIs for building social applications across the web".

Taking the better elements of Facebook's Developer platform concept (for facebook apps) but making it non-proprietary (no FBML), open (get your widget /app working in multiple social networks with no porting) and allowing developers to share/store data on Google's servers (thus solving scaling issues for 3rd party applications ) seems like a strong proposition.

Adding major parnters to the OpenSocial initiative for launch : SixApart, Orkut, LinkedIn, Hi5, Friendster, Salesforce.com, Oracle, Ning, iLike, Flixster, RockYou, Plaxo and Slide + the use of standard Javascript and XHTML technologies virtually **guarantees** the platform a running start and developer adoption but ... the familiar security/privacy issues arise again ... will you be able to get data out of Google's platform ? (or is this just a bigger walled garden?) and do 3rd parties want to store rich user data on Google's platform potentially allowing Google access to it..?

Interesting commentary here and here. The big question will Facebook and MySpace sign up ?

From a mobile perspective Google are agressively pushing forward in mobile **and** social networking areas (reference Zingku/Jaiku posts) - it is inevitable they will bring the two together for their take on MOSOSO ... this platform is another step along the way...