OpenSocial’s birthday today

OpenSocial Reach chart
Originally uploaded by Kevin Marks

Just over a year ago, we launched OpenSocial to the web, with a few example applications and a lot of potential. Now, a year on, over 600 million social network users can use OpenSocial applications in their preferred social network sites.
Then, applications had to be embedded in sites as gadgets, which makes the social context clear for users, but means developers have to write some Javascript, and can only run code when the user is looking at the site.
With OpenSocial 0.8 rolling out, the REST APIs mean that developers can integrate with social sites using server-side code directly, potentially delegating user registration, profiles and friend relationships to an already-trusted social site, and feeding activity updates back into them.
To do this, we are building an Open Stack, based on OpenID, XRDS-Simple, OAuth, PortableContacts and OpenSocial. By composing open standards in this way, we can make each one more valuable. The advantages of OpenID over email login in itself are not that obvious to users, but if the OpenID can be used to bring in your profile and contacts data - with your permission via OAuth - suddenly the added value is clear to users and developers alike. This connection was one of the exciting discussions at the Internet Identity Workshop this week - here's a video of myself, Steve Gillmor, David Recordon and Cliff Gerrish talking about it.