Techie news, and Google has announced the launch of a new technology aimed at all those widget makers - the people and companies that make digital tools that can be used to enhance pages on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace.
Called OpenSocial, the idea of the new technology is that both widget makers and social networking sites adopt it, and as a result any one widget will work on any participating social network - currently widget makers need to make alternative versions for each network.
Social networks who will use OpenSocial at launch include Ning, Friendster, LinkedIn and Google's own Orkut. Widget makers RockYou, iLike, Flixter and Slide will also adopt it. OpenSocial compliant widgets will also become compatible with the Gmail and iGoogle platforms.
Although a sensible, consumer-friendly development in the world of widgets, Google's main motivation to launch OpenSocial is probably to give them an increased influence in the social networking space, where MySpace and Facebook still dominate. As previously reported, commentators reckon one of the reasons Microsoft recently invested $240 million into Facebook was to stop Google from making moves to acquire some or all of the social networking phenomenon.