Anyone remember that 2002 Tom Cruise movie The Minority Report? One scene has Tom Cruise frantically running about the city. He eventually walks through some public area where there’s a slew of 3D hologram ads; and they all know his name and turn toward him, trying to sell whatever product they represent. This high-tech advertising is made possible because “in the future” humans have a tracking mechanism implanted in them. These implants can be detected and it seems that certain high-level information is publicly accessible to any system that can detect the implant. This publicly accessible information makes it possible for the ads to respond and adjust on-the-fly to someone just walking by.

Does this sound familiar? It should. It’s what every online advertising mechanism currently tries to do - customizing ads and content with what they know about the user viewing the content. The primary exception is that this ability has mostly been contained to the domain of the website, requiring a profile on that website. This ability to customize advertising to user profiles has been evolving for some time, from customizing ads based on searches (probably the most intelligent customization not requiring profiles) to ads, based on preferences and behaviors in online social networks.

So here comes what feels like another step towards that sci-fi future where no matter where you go or what you are doing, everyone seems to know who you are and how to sell to you.

Google has announced that today they will launch a new set of social networking APIs named OpenSocial. OpenSocial will provide a basic set of functions that will allow developers to access profile information and basic features from any social network that decides to accept the open invitation to play along. A band of existing networks have already backed the platform, including Plaxo, Ning, LinkedIn, Orkut and Friendster.

Google is taking the infamous Google approach to providing such tools:

Part 1) Magnanimously provide a solution that has the intent of making developer’s jobs easier (who currently find themselves having to add another social networking API to their tool belt on a regular basis)

Part 2) Create a more standardized social community so that ads can be delivered across more platforms to more people with more accuracy than ever before so that everyone can make more money (with Google at the center of that exchange)

I have to admit, it will be interesting to see this unravels as the product matures and the powers at be take sides.

Reference Links:

• A draft of the Google news release can be found at here at VentureBeat.
• TechCrunch does a good job of giving a high level summary of what the OpenSocial offering will include out of the gate.
• CNET has a nice article talking about how hairy this approach can get for Google.