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Developers who have created applications for Facebook’s platform can now bring them over to social network Friendster. This means that Friendster supports both Facebook’s code and OpenSocial, the standard created by Google for social-network widgets.

“Friendster’s support of both the Facebook and OpenSocial platforms is a big win for business and individual developers, as well as for Friendster users,” David Jones, vice president of global marketing for Friendster, said in a release. “For the developers that have invested resources in developing and launching a Facebook app, Friendster has now made it very easy for them to ‘port’ these applications to Friendster…For Web 2.0 companies that have developed apps using Facebook and OpenSocial APIs, they now have the flexibility to choose between approaches when launching applications on Friendster.”

Another social network, Bebo, now owned by AOL, announced that it would implement support for Facebook’s platform late last year. Friendster marketing director Jeff Roberto told CNET News that Friendster entered into a licensing agreement with Facebook, which has since made most of its developer platform open source.

Could another social network do the same? Probably. “With an open platform, it’s quite possible that others will embrace it,” Roberto said.

Long before Facebook was a household word, Friendster was the first big social-networking site to take off in the U.S. But in 2004, plagued by technical problems, Friendster lost significant ground to MySpace (now owned by News Corp.) and later Facebook.

Since then, it’s had quite a reincarnation. Friendster estimates that 78 percent of its 80 million users, concentrated primarily in Asian countries like the Philippines, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia, do not use Facebook. If so, it would be to a developer’s advantage to make an app available on both platforms.

In August, Friendster raised $20 million in venture funding and hired former Google employee Richard Kimber as CEO. Last December, it debuted its developer platform, and in September released OpenSocial support.

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Friendster announces support for Facebook apps

On November 1, 2007, Google launched OpenSocial, a set of APIs that leverage JavaScript and HTML for creating applications that access friends and update feeds from any compliant social network. Nearly ten months later, Google is touting the maturation of the OpenSocial specification and growing developer and user adoption.

At this juncture OpenSocial version 0.7 has an addressable market of more than 300 million social network users, including the social networks that have delivered OpenSocial applications or are actively developing them, according to Joe Kraus, Google director of product management. Friendster, which claims 75 million users including 55 million in Asia, recently unleashed OpenSocial for its developer community. Hi5 has over 1,800 OpenSocial-compliant applications and 66 million installations, according to platform architect Paul Linder. Hi5 has nearly 60 million users, with 80 percent outside the U.S., according to comScore.

Overall, Kraus said that there are more than 4,500 OpenSocial applications and 150 million installs. In comparison, Facebook, which has so far eschewed OpenSocial, has more than 30,000 applications and 700 million installs.

“We expect to reach 500 million OpenSocial users by the end of the quarter. It’s also very international, as social networking is a global phenomenon,” Kraus said.

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(Credit: Google)

The latest version of OpenSocial, 0.8, adds a number of new features that extend beyond its original JavaScript roots. “When we launched OpenSocial JavaScript was the center, but the community wants more choice. We agreed upon a RESTful API that gives access to the social bits and is already implemented in Apache Shindig and deployed by hi5 in beta,” Kraus said. The OpenSocial RESTful API specification defines how servers, mobile devices, and desktop computers interact with OpenSocial containers without the need for JavaScript or direct user interaction.

“Hi5 launched with OpenSocial very early–January 1, 2008–and we ended up building the system, which had a lot of undefined pieces,” Linder said. “We had a lot of custom work with the REST endpoint so that applications could contact our server directly. As time went by all participants came up with one-offs, but now we are bringing it all together in the community with common types of solutions for these problems. Standardizing on a single specification will allow application developers to write code once and it will work on all different containers. We are already seeing others build on REST specification. Plaxo, for example, has enabled privacy-enabled exchange of contact info.”

In addition, the OpenSocial community is working on compliance tools, such as an application that determines the level of compliance for a container.

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(Credit: Google)

The 0.9 version of OpenSocial will add templates and markup, making it easier to develop the user experience dimension for an application. “Templates and markup are now in discussion on public mailing lists, but we believe we are pretty close,” Kraus said. Regarding when OpenSocial is deserving of a version 1.0 designation, Kraus said that the “community will make the call.”

The community Kraus speaks of is the group of about 350 developers participating in the main discussion around the evolution of the open-source OpenSocial specification and reference implementation. Google obviously has major clout in the evolution of OpenSocial, but Kraus noted that just 10 percent of the major participants are from Google.

To further untether OpenSocial from its origins, Google has also proposed an OpenSocial Foundation, which would be a steward for ensuring the OpenSocial specification stays open and intellectual property and patent non-assertions are handled so that developers feel safe about using the code, Kraus said. An announcement about the OpenSocial Foundation is expected “really soon,” Kraus added.

Google clearly has a vested interest in seeing OpenSocial succeed. As Google’s Vic Gundotra explained at the November 2007 launch, OpenSocial makes good economic sense. “The more applications, the more usage. More users means more searches. And, more searches means more revenue for Google. The goal is to grow the overall market, not just to increase market share.” Having the an open source community behind it will make Google’s economic mission much easier.

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The OpenSocial roadmap

Brush off your Monty Python and the Holy Grail references: although long forgotten by social-media junkies in the United States, Friendster is not dead yet. The pioneering social network announced on Tuesday that it has raked in $20 million in venture funding led by IDG Ventures and has hired Richard Kimber as its new CEO.

Kimber was hired from Google, of all places, where he served as the regional managing director in Southeast Asia. That’s key for Friendster, which has seen most of its recent growth in the Asia-Pacific region to the point where it’s now the #1 social network in countries like Singapore as well as the Asian leader overall, per ComScore. In response, Friendster has been translating the site into different Asian languages and focusing on growth there rather than trying to patch things up in the U.S.

He takes over from Kent Lindstrom, who will remain on Friendster’s payroll after serving as CEO since early 2006. Founder Jonathan Abrams left amid the site’s U.S. decline, and now runs an invitation start-up called Socializr.

“Friendster is growing at an enormous rate in Asia-Pacific and is clearly leading the competition. I believe this is partly because the Internet is transforming the lives of everyone, and it will probably become one of the greatest liberators of our time,” Kimber said in a statement that was arguably tinged with mild political undertones. “I look forward to growing our business further as we continue our global growth and strong focus on Asia.”

Indeed, to fuel that growth, the company has raised $20 million. IDG Ventures was joined in the round by all of Friendster’s previous investors: Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures, and the Founders Fund (which also invested in Facebook). The last money the company raised was $10 million just under two years ago.

Friendster has over 75 million members to date.

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Friendster gets $20 million, ex-Googler as CEO

The 4th Annual Social Networking Conference started today in beautiful San Francisco and naturally, this blog’s Bay Area correspondent was there to take in some panels on my favorite topic — social networking for the enterprise. The show was also running a concurrent track on the ever growing world of mobile social networking.

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Social Networking Conference: Keynotes & Opening Remarks

The 4th Annual Social Networking Conference started today in beautiful San Francisco and naturally, this blog’s Bay Area correspondent was there to take in some panels on my favorite topic — social networking for the enterprise. The show was also running a concurrent track on the ever growing world of mobile social networking.

Continued here:
Social Networking Conference: Keynotes & Opening Remarks