Harbinger of a Healthy Social Operating System?

When Facebook announced their open platform back in May, they urged their partners to refrain from using the words “MySpace” or “social network” in reference to the launch. Why the selectively tight lips? My best guess is that they were trying to establish themselves as the thought leaders in defining the Social Operating System; in the crowded SN space, follower has become a dirty word.

Unfortunately for Facebook (but fortunately for the developer community), MySpace now appears primed to flesh out the still incipient “Social OS” concept themselves.

Read/WriteWeb details MySpace’s plans in their recap of yesterday’s Web 2.0 Summit. The agenda starts innocuously enough: a catalog of available widgets and tools, industry standard APIs coming within a few months, an opt-in beta program for end users, and the rise of a widgetocracy– in which users can vote their favorite apps to the top of the pile.

Ok, fine…
It’s the next step concerns me: “MySpace will formally introduce the best widgets into the community, with what they term highly developed integration.”

Ehm? Does this sound eerily like another famous MS to anyone else?
Right… the “Ya’ll Create…We’ll Tweak and Take Credit” Model.

Not to be overly pessimistic and paranoid… There are certainly bright spots in this that even a doubting Jayne can’t downplay. Not incidentally, it’s the social aspect of it all that has me eying that shiny lining. Go figure, eh?

Case in point: As Richard MacManus of R/WW writes of the commingling of “geeks and media,” I can’t help but get giddy.

MacManus describes the Summit’s gala social event:

At tonight’s party it was a strange experience seeing geeks with glasses (I was one of them) mixing with trendy and beautiful people. a.k.a. technology mixing with media. Perhaps that’s a sign of things to come with the MySpace platform.

Jouissance v.2.0, oui? As long as MySpace keeps social issues in the forefront of their Social OS roll-out plan, I’ll attempt to hush my paranoia. Sounds like a given… but I’m not yet convinced.

[tags]The Web Outside, Read/WriteWeb, Richard Macmanus, Social Operating System, social networking, widgets, open platform, MySpace, Facebook[/tags]