Google's OpenSocial initiative to establish common, standard APIs (application programming interfaces) for creating
social-networking applications is still in its early days. But its impact for
end users, developers, Web site owners, social-network operators and even business
application vendors could be huge in the long run.

In a recent chat with IDG News Service, Scott McMullan, Google Apps partner
lead in Google's Enterprise division, described OpenSocial as an attempt to
simplify the lives of developers by addressing what the vendor considers is
a 'balkanization' of social-networking APIs.

McMullan also articulated how OpenSocial's scope goes far beyond the creation
of applications for social-networking sites, saying its core set of common APIs
is intended also for the creation of social features and capabilities within
Web sites in general and within business software.

Below is an edited transcript of the interview.

IDG News Service: Regarding the "balkanization" of APIs in
general on the Web, do you plan to extend OpenSocial so that it contains open
APIs for other types of Web applications -- not just social-networking ones,
but for things like maps, where different vendors, like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft,
have their own set of APIs?

Scott McMullan: In general, one could argue that any time you have two
APIs that do similar things you've got this inherent problem. I'm not sure if
OpenSocial is going to [address] that larger problem, but certainly this is
the context where we thought we could make an impact.

IDGNS: Google has said that the scope of OpenSocial APIs isn't limited
to social-networking sites, that OpenSocial can be used for creating social-networking
features or components in Web sites in general and also in business applications.

McMullan: Yes. Take, for example, Salesforce.com as an application whose
goal is to coordinate a team of people to sell stuff. Sales is a quite socially
driven activity. ... You have this group of people all coordinating [their efforts]
to sell, and all within this one Salesforce.com application. It's a business
application that has kind of an implicit social network to it. ... So you see
how it would make sense to bring these social features more explicitly to Salesforce
or any other application that has that similar dynamic.

IDGNS: Is OpenSocial a solution in search of a problem? Are developers
really clamoring for something like this? How many social-networking sites are
out there today for which you can or would want to write applications? There
don't seem to be that many APIs for social-networking sites out there.

McMullan: There are a lot of social-networking sites. There's a long
tail of them. There are a lot of big ones and small ones. In addition, my personal
perspective is that the social nature of a

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