Google opens doors to social networking

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Google Inc will offer Internet developers an open system to create applications across Web sites, a move that could challenge the features behind the explosive popularity of social network Facebook.

The OpenSocial system offered by Google, which lost out last week to rival Microsoft Corp in securing an investment in Facebook, gives developers standardized tools to write applications and embed them in many sites.

This will eliminate the need for small startups or even one-person shops to customize their programs for each site.

It also has the potential to lure developers mostly allied with Facebook by allowing their applications to find a home on many other Web sites.

"This is about making the Web more social; how do you have your friends go along with you to any site on the Web?" Joe Kraus, Google director of product management, said in an interview on Tuesday.

In May, Facebook opened its site to outside developers whose programs let users do everything from comparing favorite books to buying friends a virtual cocktail or mapping travels around the world.

Thousands of applications have since been attached to the site and are credited with helping Facebook -- valued at about $15 billion after the Microsoft investment -- to increase its user base to more than 48 million.

UNLEASHING A CHALLENGE

Google said it has signed on about a dozen partners so far, including social network LinkedIn for business professionals, its own Orkut network and Friendster. The sites combined reach about 100 million people, the company said.

Developers who are testing the program include key companies behind Facebook applications, such as music recommendation service iLike and Slide, which created the "Top Friends" ranking application.

Industry blogs have speculated for nearly a month that Web search leader Google was seeking to unleash a major challenge to Facebook, which is due to announce its own new advertising strategy on November 6.

Google has also discussed a partnership with Facebook as it competes more closely with Microsoft for drawing Web audiences and advertisers.

Developers briefed on Google's OpenSocial said it will help them seek the widest distribution possible for their applications, some of which are already used by millions of people on social networks.

"For months we've been approached by other Web sites that want us to build iLike widgets for them and we've been unable to build it for them," said iLike Chief Executive Ali Partovi.

"The benefit OpenSocial offers us is we can essentially ... syndicate what we do to other social networks."

Kraus said Google would not take a cut from partners using the OpenSocial platform. Developers and the new sites they are working with would reach their own agreements on how to share advertising or other revenue from the applications.

Other partners include business software makers Salesforce.com and Oracle Corp, as well as Ning, which lets users create their own social networks, and social site hi5.

Google is not alone in seeking out developers. News Corp's MySpace, the world's largest social network, has also announced plans to open its site to outside applications.

"We think that the level of effort required to take an existing Facebook application and turn it into an OpenSocial application will be relatively trivial," said Ning co-founder Marc Andreesen said in an interview.

The Google move may also highlight some underlying tensions within the Facebook model, as program writers may prove to be no more loyal to a particular site than any Internet user.

"It doesn't make any sense for us to limit our exposure to a subset of users," said Slide founder and CEO Max Levchin.

"We are very committed to actually catering to as many platforms as there are."