OAuth and OpenSocial

We’d be remiss not to make a mention of the new OpenSocial APIs that came out this week and how they do and don’t relate to OAuth.

There actually isn’t too much to report as Google is using AuthSub for the API at the moment, but, according to ReadWriteWeb, Google’s Kevin Marks said, At the moment, it is delegated to the containers. Clearly this needs to work better. We are looking at OAuth.

As Google (and others) has been involved in the development of the OAuth spec, we’d love to see Google and other service providers consider using OAuth for OpenSocial applications (and efforts are already underway to combine them); it was designed with this kind of widespread use in mind and with these kind of applications at their center. After all the work that’s gone into OAuth so far, from various industry leaders and grassroots developers, it’s the perfect timing, with Final Draft 5 out, to put OAuth into production.