Standardising Social Networks

Google has invested a great deal into Open Social -- a common API for developing "social applications" -- enabling groups of people to interact with multiple Web sites, and exchange data with people. A number of applications are now making use of the Open Social API. Many appear to be applications that one can use alongside FaceBook, and one in particular, developed by NewsGator talks of "Social Sites 2.0"! Many of these rely on the use of RSS feeds (with RSS readers and writers) as a means to exchange/share data between sites. A concept also popular with Yahoo Pipes. Interesting to see how Open Social is taking off, and providing the basis for a new type of distributed application.