Social Networking "standard" announced: OpenSocial

Google and MySpace announced yesterday the release of an "OpenSocial" architecture that allows developers to write social networking application once, and have them work across numerous SN sites, even your own blog.  From the press release:

“MySpace, the world’s largest social network, and Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced that they are joining forces to launch OpenSocial— a set of common APIs for building social applications across the web. The partnership spearheads an initiative to standardize and simplify the development of social applications. Today’s announcement underscores MySpace’s commitment to supporting standards that foster innovation in an increasingly social Web.”

OpenSocial partners include MySpace, Hi5, Orkut, LinkedIn, Plaxo and others representing hundreds of thousands of unique visitors per month.  This is a big deal for Facebook.  Look at this chart comparing the potential aggregate visits from the OpenSocial partnership versus Facebook:

What does this mean for you?  All the information about your favorite books and movie, photos, Zombies, friends lists, etc., will replicate through the OpenSocial network.  Enter it in LinkedIn and it will show up on your Orkut profile as well.  You'll apparently be able to drop widgets on your web page or blog to display the same information.

Interestingly, the first place I saw the news breaking of the official release was through Twitter, as Robert Scoble was live tweeting from the press conference.

via Techcrunch and again,  Mashable and a elsewhere