Search giant Google has announced that it is to launch an application development platform designed to break down the barriers between proprietary social networks.

OpenSocial will allow developers to build applications that run within social networks – such as Facebook extensions or ‘widgets’ – that interoperate with any other social network that adopts the standard.

So far, social networking sites including LinkedIn, Friendster and MySpace have signed up, as well as business IT providers Salesforce.com and Oracle, suggesting that both companies believe the social network can be a legitimate platform for business applications.

OpenSocial is essentially a set of application programme interfaces (APIs) that define and control the key data elements of an application. By opening them up, Google allows developers to include the personal details that users input to social networking sites in their applications.

Six months ago, Facebook, the UK’s fastest growing social network, opened its APIs to developers. The sea of additional functionality that was subsequently available on Facebook as a result has been suggested as a key contributor to the site’s runaway success.

But Facebook’s APIs only work for its own site. Google hopes that OpenSocial – by establishing a standard for social application development – will allow both the web to be ‘more open’, and developers to have a wider potential audience for their software.

A company spokesperson said that OpenSocial was designed to benefit the web, not Google in particular. However, should the platform take off, it would probably drive some users to Orkut, Google’s own social network that, inexplicably, never really took off anywhere but Brazil.

Last week, it was announced that Microsoft had bought a 1.6% equity stake in Facebook for $240 million. This gives the social networking site a theoretical total value of $15 billion – just short of the value of the Ford Motor Company.

The rapid adoption of social networking sites has proved a powerful draw for both Microsoft and Google as they jostle for leadership of the web.

Further reading

Microsoft buys stake in Facebook

The social side of enterprise search Enterprise search facilities in the future will scarcely use Google-like interfaces at all.

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