Social software interesting times

panzerjohn is involved in the exciting stuff from Google about OpenSocial. I commented

"You know, I never thought this would happen. I've seen discussion about the Facebook walled garden, but I thought to have a social software equivalent which is like internet email as opposed to old-fashioned closed email systems just wouldn't fly. I thought that if Facebook added a thingy to their site which did a certain social software function, then everyone involved in the open standards would have to run around working out how to implement the thingy in the standards. But maybe although there are a rich number of things you can do (poke people, send gifts, write on walls etc.) the underlying functions, and most things that haven't been thought of yet, can be described in an API. Interesting times, in the good sense."