Happy Halloween. I am (probably) going to Salem to view the masses of ridiculously complexly costumed folks drunkenly wandering the streets.
But the point of this short but sweet update is something Google had up its sleeve and recently displayed slyly, like a magician who knows damn well he has your card (link to Marc Andreesen's blog, which is worth reading if you can figure out how to navigate to his old pages. I think he has like 10 entries total.)
The gist of Google's gutsy move is that it has, with the consent of heavy hitters such as LinkedIn and Orkut, created an open API that can be used across many social networking sites. This is typical Google brilliance: many developers are afraid to develop apps for say, Facebook, due to fear that they will be trapped in a walled garden with no portability. Now one app can be written and ported to many social sites with very minimal modification. It is not perfectly cross-platform, however: Myspace and Yahoo have not deigned to sign on with this cabal of social climbers.
This is looking good for Google. And even better for any social networking app startups. Rock on, little friends.
UPDATE: Myspace is now among the Open Social consortium. The gods must be crazy.
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