Open Social is not Social Network Portability

I’ve been struggling since OpenSocial was announced last week to figure out how to put into words what exactly I felt was missing. I feel like I’m seeing lots of people reacting to the announcement describing what they want OpenSocial to be, not what it actually is.

(People I’m reading on this include my colleague Sebastian Wohlrapp, Marc Andreessen, Josh Catone, and Jeremiah Owyang – of course there are a gazillion others as well).

Did I miss something somewhere in the API documentation or the Campfire Video? (It has been a busy few weeks, and I would be happy to be wrong).

As I see it, in short: Open Social is not Social Network Portability. It’s social network widget portability.
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