Vinny Lingham's Blog - Latest Comments in Open Social : The FaceBook Killer?

Re: Open Social : The FaceBook Killer?

John — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 07:10:05 -0000

How has the open social network progressed so farm, any thoughts?

Re: Open Social : The FaceBook Killer?

Gordon Choi — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 02:43:25 -0000

Vinny, even since hearing about Open Social I have been wanting to see your comments / thoughts about this new adventure of Google into social networking sites.

Re: Open Social : The FaceBook Killer?

Vinny Lingham — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 09:22:18 -0000

Anand - I really think that Facebook have lost the edge on their developer platform with Open Social - the news just keeps getting better - even MySpace has joined - Facebook will have to follow suit, and then Microsoft arguably did overpay - remember that there are other investors following Microsoft's valuation - that was part of Facebook's plan - and I think the may be reconsidering the valuation.

Re: Open Social : The FaceBook Killer?

Chui — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 00:06:59 -0000

The loser is actually Microsoft, who has been trying to persuade users to come back to Windows, which used to be a platform, if anyone remembers. Windows was supplanted by the browser, and now giant APIs which use HTML and javascript. This is going to make it even harder for rich client apps to gain traction.

Re: Open Social : The FaceBook Killer?

Anand — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 18:01:29 -0000

Hi Vinny
You cannot call Microsoft a loser here. MS has been around for quite a long time to know how competitors attack. For one, the 1.6 percent stake cannot be extrapolated to be called a $15 billion valuation. MS has secured an advertising deal with Facebook.

Now, look at this advertising deal from the point of this news: http://www.techmeme.com/071030/p68#a071030p68

Facebook could be launching a Social ad network that can be even matching up with Adsense..Nobody can be sure how large that can go, but the blogosphere now calls it a $100 billion company!

That's not it..FB is also coming up with other things like Facebook Music, etc..(http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/10/31/more-facebook-music-rumors/)

So, I think merely launching OpenSocial is not going to get FB cowed down..All this being said, I am an open admirer of Google, and would love to see it win this battle!

Re: Open Social : The FaceBook Killer?

Mike Mothner — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 13:02:20 -0000

OpenSocial may help keep Facebook on its toes, but beyond that, I do not believe that it will pose much threat to Facebook's current level of growth and popularity, especially with the $240 million investment by Microsoft. However, Vinny makes a very good point that one benefit of OpenSocial may be that it will force Facebook to adopt more open standards.

Re: Open Social : The FaceBook Killer?

Vinny Lingham — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 18:11:34 -0000

Ryan - I think it's a great idea and that the need to adopt it for the sake of developers like us, but realistically, it's not going to happen any time soon, because they don't need to right now.

Re: Open Social : The FaceBook Killer?

Ryan Holder — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 18:06:43 -0000

You have given away the fact you were up late last night watching Alien vs Predator :)

Do you think Facebook has got to big to adopt a "if you cant beat them, then join them" attitude. Not that I am saying they are going to lose.

Would it be so bad for them to support this idea and be the top social network on the system.