OpenSocial: The Business Potential
The search giant Google has joined forces with some of the major website institutions such as LinkedIn, Salesforce.com and Plaxo, as well as major social network sites like Friendster, Ning & Hi5 (and now MySpace). The OpenSocial collaboration has been seen as a way to mirror the success of Facebook widgets. OpenSocial has been designed to streamline the process of getting widgets and apps running across disparate websites.
OpenSocial apps leverage existing web technologies such as HTML and JavaScript so time to market for these apps is minimal making it an exciting area to explore for web developers looking for a new project.
There is huge potential in the viral marketing business areas for developers to leverage. There have already been some serious Facebook app successes from iLike, Flixter, and Slide. These guys have been quick to jump on board with OpenSocial which is in itself a good indication of the business benefits this collaboration could bring.
I don’t believe there have been too many shining examples of Social Media Apps to date so there is certainly room for a killer app that has the very real potential of being downloaded millions of times.
I hope this news gives some developers reading this inspiration to play around with the new technology. I am sure the Investors on board with Edge Venture will be very interested in hearing about your ideas.
