“Please tell me you guys aren’t getting in bed with Google. I actually find myself rooting for annoying-ass Fuckerberg because of this Open Syphilis shit.”
—e-mail from a friend
I’ve had a number of people who know what I do as a day job ask me what I think about Google’s OpenSocial initiative. Maybe it’s because they know I’m so opinionated and they just want to hear me go off.
What’s strange is how few of those actually involved with the project have asked me what I thought (Answer: none of them). They know that I’m not a photographer, or a socialite, or “they guy who does Lunch 2.0” and yet they’ve been strangely silent before, during, and after the announcement. It turned out I only found out about this at all, because of people who know me only as a photographer, socialite (laugh!), and “the guy who does Lunch 2.0.”
Now I won’t go out to state my opinion about OpenSocial beyond the question: You parlayed my friendship for this? I guess you can guess what I think about OpenSocial from that.
Chalk this up to another incessant reminder of why I hate the high school antics of the Valley. Had any of them bothered to ask me about this, here is a tip I could have given them: when you make a list, there are much bigger companies in the Valley than Facebook that are going to be disappointed they weren’t invited to the party.
Slick move, ace!
I alluded to this bitterly in a previous post, but to further highlight the absurdity of the who was and wasn’t invited to the “Open”(laugh!)Social, I was talking to another friend:
“They leaked this well in advance to the ‘largest social network in Holland.’ In Holland??? Can you believe?”
D—: “Haha. I sort of like the Dutch. They sort of sound like Germans but act nicer.”
“The only thing I know about the Dutch is that they’re awfully tall.”
D—: “Maybe it’s to keep their heads above sea level.”
Ahh, trust my friends to put everything in perspective.
(After that conversation he sent me this to cheer me up.)
Someone points out that this article sounds like I care I didn’t get invited to a some social party. (Hehe. That people think first about me as a social person rather than me as an engineer is amusing.) If there is one thing that pushes my buttons it’s hypocrisy. So to (over-)explain:
– “OpenSocial” isn’t a party, it’s a PR event wrapped as an engineering web 2.0-“platform” API thing a la Facebook f8.
– If you stick any more buzzwords in it, it’s going to need a dictionary to go along with the press release.
– It was designed by Google to exclude Facebook and Microsoft. As more companies came on, other companies excluded. That’s what happens when you make a list.
– That’s not called “co-opetition”, it’s called “competition.” It’s decidedly un-Valley.
– There is no small amount of irony that you are exclusive and call yourself “Open.”
– That’s why as time goes on more and more news sites are going to call you out on this, starting with Valleywag.
– OpenSocial. Big in Brazil.
– Enjoy all that Portuguese spam, guys. I’m sure your customer support peeps will be lovin’ it.
– I don’t care about whether or not Tagged was invited. I care that as an engineer who works in social networking and web development and is pretty damn good at my job, certain people deliberately didn’t tell me about its existence.
– This when they know I’ll find out anyway through my social friends.
– As an engineer, I share things with my PHP developing friends about how we scale and how I architect things. Facebook engineers do the same with me. So do others in the PHP Community. We make a lot of mistakes and learn from them. The fact that our companies compete has nothing to do with the fact that without shared knowledge we’re all doomed. That’s why it’s a “community.”
Web 2.0 is not a community; it’s a clique.
(I’m with my friend on this. I’m rooting for “Fuckerberg” too. Though to be honest, I sort of like Zuckerberg.)
Sorry, OpenSocial is closed.
I wonder if anyone working on Open Social realized the irony in calling themselves “Open” and “Social?”
Probably not. They were having too much fun sitting in front of a campfire singing songs to notice.
Typical.
Coincidentally, the last time I sang songs in a campfire, it was in evangelical summer camp.
“Oh you can’t get to heaven~~~
In a red canoe~~~…