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March 23, 2008

I'ma Get Open Source on Yo' Ass

Yahoo joins Google and builds a nonprofit to run OpenSocial so that the OpenSocial developers can have a freezone for exchanging "intellectual property assets" without a moola market. As the Associated Press stated on the Yahoo website, "the idea behind the Google-initiated OpenSocial platform is to create a common coding standard for the ['social tools'] applications so they work on hundreds of Web sites."

We decided to look up the meaning of "tools" to be confident of the richness in the breaking story. Using Yahoo's search engine, we kept coming up with entries like this exemplary one from Dictionary.com:

tool - noun: a person manipulated by another for the latter's own ends

No avoiding the thought that Yahoo would now be Google's tool; so we used Google's "Web Definition" search functon to see what happened. The search on "define tool" ripped in under two seconds to the most appropriate place we can think of, the socially open Urban Dictionary:

1. tool 4455 votes up, 517 votes down

One who lacks the mental capacity to know he is being used. A fool. A cretin. Characterized by low intelligence and/or self-steem.

3. tool 1708 votes up, 443 votes down

someone who is a complete idiot/ one who is used by other people, and usually dosen't even realize it/ someone who can't think for themselves/ an asshat.

People who wear huge logos on their shirts are tools.

This would be a good moment to mention that Google has given up its rights to the OpenSocial branding, as part of the deal. No fools in Gtown central.

Clearly you can be a tool without being a social tool; so how wack it is that three of the most powerful companies in the free world are aggregating the tools. This might make them social, but a better question is this: does going social on a social network make you a tool if you weren't one already?

The sports pages of the conventional business press can be expected to focus on that, backhandedly, in their ongoing coverage of the market strategy smackdown between the G force and MondoSoft. But of course, that's hardly the key story.

The key story will be the one that inevitably will break on the non-profit NPR when someone looking for a job at Google tries to sue Google for using their social site residue as an excuse to not hire them -- residue found on hundreds of websites thanks to the easy proliferation path of OpenSocial.

"So, Mr. Lovitz; how do you explain your involvement in this August 2007... occasion... at the Omega Hip VIP room?"

"Uhh... Acting!"

Posted by Malcolm Ryder at March 23, 2008 6:42 PM