Interesting strategic move by Google by creating a layer above the social networking solutions out there. As opposed to simply opening up the API of its own social networking tool, Google has created an alliance around three requests -- user profile, list of friends, and user events. What they perceived as the need was an operating system that would allows developers to create applications that run across the existing social networking products and not just another open API. Users can continue to use their existing social networking software but enjoy the benefits of interoperation. As opposed to creating all possible APIs they have strarted with three. This coalition has 100 million member, which is double that of Facebook. Why did Google do this when it does not preferentially support their own product? It makes sense because this interoperability will increase traffic and value creation within this space. More traffic means more queries and more queries mean more ads to serve and that is good for Google. The choice of participants is also complementary -- LinkedIn, Hi5, Friendster, Xing, Plaxo, iLike, Flixster, RockYou, and Slide and Ning. On the product side -- Oracle, and Salesforce.com. See an interesting post on this topic by
Marc Andreessen.