Google on Monday announced plans to release a new set of prebuilt code modules named "Friend Connect".  The tools allow developers to add prebuilt modules which handle user registration, message posting, and third party applications (widgets).  The modules are built using OpenSocial APIs.  David Glazer says that Friend Connect along with "OpenID, OAuth, OpenSocial, and the data access APIs published by Facebook, Google, MySpace" will help to simplify and standardize social network.

Forrester Research analyst Charlene Li lauded the move in a blog post.  Li states, "These standards specifically deal with identity (OpenID), data access rights (OAuth), and social applications (OpenSocial). These are all standards that have emerged in the past six months and are laying the foundation for open social networks. Friend Connect is Google's way to make these new standards more accessible to Web site owners who don't have legions of developers at the ready."

Google's move follows closely with MySpace’s announcement that it was finally allowing users to share their data with other sites.  Google and MySpace will likely interact on their new projects, possibly tying friend connect to MySpace.  MySpace also joined the DataPortability Project as part of its new commitment to openness.  Google is a long-standing member of the project.

Not to be left out of the fun, Facebook debuted its new Facebook Connect Platform.  The new platform, which Dave Morin, senior platform manager at Facebook writes about in a blog post, allows users to "'connect' their Facebook identity, friends and privacy to any site."

While the efforts of MySpace, Facebook, and Google remain in their infancy, they will likely make an increasingly big difference on the online landscape in coming months.  The moves follow a strong push by developers to adopt open standards such as OpenID and OAuth.  John McCrea, VP of marketing at Plaxo describes the effort stating, "Last summer, a bunch of us started really calling attention to the reemergence of the walled-garden model and the need to be mindful that the future of the Web really needs to be an open one.  A lot of people thought we were tilting at windmills, but beginning in January, in the post-Scoblegate environment, a lot of companies came on board."

"Scoblegate" was a January debacle for Facebook, in which user Robert Scobble got kicked off the site temporarily for trying to export his friends list of 5,000 friends to Plaxo.  The move was blasted by the blogging community.  McCrea says the incident great influenced Google, Facebook, and Myspace.  Says McCrea, "In 2007, everyone got really excited about widgetizing applications and bolting them onto Facebook's social graph.  A lot of what we're seeing now is flipping that model by widgetizing the social graph and bolting it onto to any Web page."

McCrea says the future of the web is free.  He states emphatically, "The future platform for social will not belong to any one company but will be the Web itself."