OpenSocial, What will you build ?

Last night, I had the privilege of sitting around a campfire at the Google campus (and literally roasting marshmallows) with other internet leaders like Ning, LinkedIn and hi5 to support the launch of Google OpenSocial APIs  (official Google OpenSocial blog ), a set of common APIs that let developers create applications that run across any OpenSocial-compatible site .

As one of the initial OpenSocial "containers" or host sites, salesforce.com has been working closely with Google and our partners Theikos and Appirio to roll out an initial set of tools, reference code and demos on ADN to allow developers to build social apps for the enterprise using the Force.com platform  and OpenSocial APIs. We’ve also open-sourced the Apex container code  as a Google Code project so the entire developer community can contribute improvements to it over time.

The knock against traditional social networking applications is that the value is limited to personal relationships and use cases. But with OpenSocial, developers now have new ways to bring the power of social applications to the business world, particularly salesforce.com users. This extends the work (Resource Center) we’ve done over the past year with Google with their Enterprise, GData, Gears and Gadgets teams – this added capability will spark a whole new category of apps that leverage the Force.com and Google platforms. As always, let us know what you’re building and how we can help!