Facebook: Google’s Cutting Us!

By Lindsay Blakely

Will Facebook join forces with Google (GOOG) and embrace OpenSocial, it’s open standard for creating the new “social web?”

It turns out the popular social network hasn’t even been asked. “Despite reports, Facebook has still not been briefed on OpenSocial,” Brandee Barker, Facebook spokesperson, said this afternoon. “When we have had a chance to understand the technology, then Facebook will evaluate participation relative to the benefits to its 50 million users and 100,000 platform developers.”

Earlier this week, Google had given the impression that it had tried to enlist Facebook in its coalition. In an interview with us on Tuesday night, Joe Kraus, project manager for OpenSocial was asked if Facebook had been invited to participate. “I can’t talk specifically about who we have and have not approached,” Kraus replied. “Obviously, we would love to have them participate.”

So let’s get this straight: Google would love to have Facebook join OpenSocial, but never bothered to ask? That’s not very social, guys.

–Josh Quittner contributed to this post.

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Filed under Facebook, Google

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Relax. Obviously google wasnt going to talk to facebook about OpenSocial… they were in negotions with Microsoft over advertising. If they talked to facebook microsoft would of known about it. Now that microsoft wasted their money i bet google will try to be friends with facebook. Google is by far the biggest, least evil company in the world. Thats an incredibley hard task for any large company.

Posted By Vinny, San Diego CA : November 5, 2007 8:03 pm

“Early signs of being evil?”

Google has been evil all along. There was a time when Google was that bastion of free public information, that darling upstart willing and capable of challenging the closed “walled gardens” of Microsoft and Apple, etc. (themselves not immune to evil as well). But Google isn’t an innocent kid anymore; it has morphed into a multi-tentacled beast with an insatiable diet for more market share, more money, more control. Indeed, Google has become the very thing that it supposedly tried to take on.

But the saddest thing about all this isn’t just that Google is getting bigger and more menacing, it’s that it has managed to cleverly hide this fact. Greed no knows bounds.

Posted By Robert Eccles, Fairbanks, AK : November 4, 2007 3:49 pm

Google is getting too big too fast and becoming extremely arrogant. Facebook is a great social tool and Google needs to have Facebook involved if OpenSocial has any chance of success.

Posted By Vu Tran, London, UK : November 3, 2007 7:54 am

It’s appears this ‘open’ movement is just lip-service publicity.

Nowadays ‘open’ means an end-around publicity stunt meant to put a laggard company who has been out competed on higher ground than their ‘monopolistic’ competitors.

Sorry, but for all the 20% time of their work Google’s employees supposedly spend on being creative they sure are as lame and as boring as a blank sheet of white paper.

It has to be humiliating to Google to have buy more of ‘their’ innovation than Microsoft does…HaHaHaHaHa

Posted By Billy, Topeka, KS : November 2, 2007 7:13 pm

Google is just envious Facebook because they beat out their pathetic Orkut in terms of popularity and usability.

Posted By Mary, Mountain View, CA : November 2, 2007 5:15 pm

So, Google would like FB to participate in the after-party. Early signs of being evil?

Posted By Hari Kasa, Chennai, India : November 2, 2007 3:28 am

Appears Google is behaving like Microsoft. Lets “work together” means stall-stall-stall, spin-spin-spin until they can get ther own version out the door. Advice to Facebook – don’t wait on Google.

Posted By Bryan Haynie, Lubbock : November 1, 2007 9:10 pm

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