Social networking gears up for business

Earlier this month Google launched OpenSocial, a set of developer tools to make it easier for users of web sites and applications to take social networking-type functionality with them wherever they go.

The launch reflects Google’s ambitions to be all things to all customers. Matt Glotzbach, the US enterprise director at Google, said his business unit is able to follow the innovative leads the firm makes in the consumer market, and then tailor them for its enterprise customers. “We are really just trying to bring good solutions to the business market. One of the benefits we have of being in Google is the constant innovation,” he added.

Glotzbach said that the firm continually assesses its applications, to gauge their potential to attract users in both the consumer and enterprise markets.
“It used to be that enterprise technology was at the cutting edge. Now the consumer market leads and we follow,” Glotzbach said. “All of our current applications are candidates [for corporate use], and we get asked all the time about enterprise versions of tools, such as Blogger and YouTube.”

One significant consumer-oriented technology that is currently attracting a lot of interest from enterprises is social networking. Google made further steps into this area with the launch of OpenSocial, a set of developer tools for creating applications that work across a range of sites and online tools.

At the launch, Jeff Huber, senior vice president of engineering at Google, said, “The web is fundamentally better when it is social, and we’re only just starting to see what’s possible when you bring social information into different contexts on the web.”

Huber added that OpenSocial would act as a catalyst for the further development of social networking technologies. “There’s a lot of innovation that will be spurred simply by creating a standard way for developers to run social applications in more places. With the input and iteration of the community, we hope OpenSocial will become a standard set of technologies for making the web more social,” he said.

The new set of APIs includes tools for managing newsfeeds, profile information, social information and activities.

Ovum analyst David Bradshaw predicted OpenSocial would have many benefits for Google, as well as its users. “It is providing the APIs which could make it the natural provider for advertising across these sites. However, more importantly, it is establishing itself as a developer of infrastructures that people can build on for the web,” he said. “Now users can carry their social networking tools from site to site, it is becoming even more pervasive ­ it is part of the infrastructure of everyone’s web.”

Bradshaw added that the functionality could also appeal to enterprises. “A set of tools that provides such things as real-time collaboration, presence information, would be useful to businesses, especially if you can use them as you jump between applications,” he explained.

Some applications have already been developed using OpenSocial, including a Flixster film-rating program, and a NY Times tool for sharing articles.

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