Google’s GData: Portal is Nigh, APIs as Marketing Resource
I’ve seen surprisingly little written about Gdata over the past few days, both in my regular blog reads and in the main stream media (which I find out about from blogs :).
So it was great to see “Why Google is extending RSS” this morning in bloglines because it got me digging back into GData and discovering a wealth of GData posts in… of all places… Google blog search.
In “Why Google is extending RSS”, Richard McManus sums GData up as a path towards single-login entry that will “better integrate their increasing number of web applications.”
McManus referred to Google’s myriad applications as walled gardens, and cited GData as a way for users to cross through these walls. At the end of his post he wonders though, “if this points to less of a walled garden, or paradoxically more of one because Google is defining the protocol now.”
In my initial reading of GData, essentially summed up in the title of my sole GData post: “Google’s GData Paves Way for Multi-Media, Multi-Device API Development,” I didn’t dig much into the new protocol beyond quoting the GData mission statement and speculating on the possibilities for API development.
That’s mostly because I know f-all about protocols.
I’ve spent the majority of my time getting excited about what API developers are going to do with GData (in terms of new apps for maps and calendars and blogger etc…) in as much as Google states that “GData provides a way to expand the types of content that Google can make available through syndication; in particular, it lets you use the syndication mechanism to send queries and receive query results.”
But… what does it mean to RSS/Atom – and web users – that Google’s created its own syndication protocol?
In my early analysis, GData points to Google’s new walled portal and an explosion of apps that interact with this walled portal.
Here are my (early) thoughts on what GData means to marketers:
Now, more than ever, you must understand APIs as business/marketing resources for your company. Nike has. So has HBO’s Sopranos.
GData is about more than creative maps though – the possibility is there for calendar integrations (some are already happening) too. And possibly Blogger down the road.
You need folks on your staff who can develop for and with APIs. More specifically GData.
Ideally these folks will be excited and VERY creative at conceiving applications that encourage your prospects to engage with you and each other in ways that drive value.
GData Links:
GData Link Roundup
GData: The end of Google’s walled garden
GData is about more than Google Calendar integration
