Googe announces OpenSocial to compete with Facebook and Myspace

This week, Google made a huge move in the chess game it has been playing with Microsoft and Facebook. The search engine giant hopes to challenge the popular networking site, for control of the application friendly social networking nitch. Their platform is called OpenSocial and Google promises it will provide a common platform for developers to use in writing programs able to run on various social network sites.

The only problem is the sites Google is banking on are currently each struggling for their share of social networking atttention. They include Google's own Orkut, hi5 Networks, LinkedIn, Ning, Friendster, and others, representing a total of 100 million people. Other parties involved in the deal are Salesforce.com and Oracle.

Speculation on both sides has resulted in varied predictions. Those who have spent the past few years with their jaws dropped as they watch Google's stock soar are willing to put their money on anything Google puts their mind to. Others though, are skeptical that anyone can shake the strong hold on the market the Facebook and MySpace currently hold.

Non-Profits Online asked our communications specialists and web guru friends what they thought and almost every one explained that until Google offers something that is truly new for the average user, they will have trouble competing.

Google's announcement comes just one week after losing a bidding war for a piece of Facebook to Microsoft. Some seem to wonder if Google wasn’t purposefully driving up the price tag for Microsoft hoping to drain their allocated budget to compete in the market. To either company though the quarter of a billion dollar deal is pocket change.

We look forward to hearing what our readers think about Google’s chances for success.