Well guys…

We have read about browser wars (Netscape vs Microsoft Internet Explorer) in the late 1990s, then Search Engine wars (Google vs Microsoft vs Yahoo! vs Ask vs others) and now the latest buzz is about the internet application platforms.

And its an easy guess that its gonna end up with ‘Platform Wars‘. Facebook Platform is now very popular. OpenSocial launched as a community project, with few initial partners sometime early November 2007. Bebo which has recently launched its own platform will also support OpenSocial soon. Google’s Orkut, MySpace, Hi5, Ning, Plaxo, Xanga, LinkedIn, Flixter, Hyves.nl, etc have joined hands. As a part of the OpenSocial project, I’ve got the latest info that the OpenSocial code will be a stable project in another couple of months. I can easily notice that the mailing list is already filled with questions related to gadget/app development. Earlier this week, we even had an Apache member dropping into the list, to check whats so interesting about the Shindig project thats already thats already being a high traffic mailing list on Apache. (Shindig is a part of OpenSocial efforts). Google also has a ful-time team of engineers working on the Apache Shindig project to fasten up the stable release.

This surely is going to turn into *big business*. There’s already an industry for Facebook Apps. And now that its a Google-hatched community project, it might burst out. A few months back, all I could find on project listing sites were “…need facebook application to….”. And now its filled with OpenSocial app requests. People and businesses are already getting ready to launch their apps as soon as the OpenSocial is stable. Makes sense to be prepared. And all they need is a site that supports OpenSocial in production environment(public release), which none of the sites do yet. Also to mention, OpenSocial is just an extended version of Google Gadgets (thats been opensourced now). Its all the same syntax. So getting a Google Gadget running in an OpenSocial environment ain’t tough. Maybe only a few code changes or none.

So if you are an entrepreneur, watch out! Social Apps industry pays off well, if anything is done the right way. If you are an app developer or planning to develop one, here’s the secret to develop something successful: *Develop something unique. Make something tha people might want to use everyday* The usage of a fun app may be temporary but if its a utility app done well, its a sure success. It will not be very soon until all the applications we use turn-out to be social. Google has already introduced personalised profile pages for users on Youtube and this shows signs that they are really trying to build a network around video buffs.

Before signing off… I’m also tempted to mention that there’s one indian startup too coming up with an integration of OpenSocial. Regret that I can’t give away too many details as I am too involved with it (but will surely keep you informed).