Today Google will announce the details of Open Social (link should be live in a few hours) a set of web API's that will let developers write applications that plug into any participating social network (launch partners include Salesforce, LinkedIn, Ning, Hi5, Flixter, Friendster, Orkut, and others).

This announcement effectively does for the web what FaceBook's API platform did for their single social network, allowing developers to tap into:

• Profile Information (user data)
  
• Friends Information (social graph)
  
• Activities (things that happen, News Feed type stuff)
  

This announcement is huge for anyone that is currently developing a strategy for how your organization should leverage Social Networks. Jim Cashel recently noted in his Influence post, The Rise of Social Media that social networks are powerful web communications allies that every organization should be using. He challenges organizations to start now to formulate their strategies for reaching into these social networks to connect with their users. Well, smart organizations now have a technical tool at their disposal that will let a forward thinking strategy become real across many networks in short order.

Taken in conjunction with the recent API announcements from leading nonprofit eCRM vendors (Convio and Kintera), you can now realistically envision creating a single social networking application that integrates directly with your organization's CRM and plugs seamlessly into any Open Social participating network.

On the heels of Kinterra's Open Connect API launch, Convio has now officially launched their Convio Open Initiative. The initiative pulls together the interoperability work they've done in the past - their API, Connectors, and Extensions (more on those below) and ties it up in an "initiative" bow.

Unlike Kinterra's SOAP-based offering, Convio's API is REST-based. This will make the toolkit more usable for developers without heavier-lifting integration experience. According the announcement the API provides:

• Create New Constituent Records – allows organizations to create new records in the Constituent 360 database
  
• Fetch Constituent Records - allows organizations to request XML or JSON formatted biographical data for a constituent record stored in the Constituent 360 database
  
• Update Constituent Records - allows organizations to create and/or update constituent records in the Constituent 360 database
  
• Manage Group Membership and Subscriptions - allows organizations to manage constituent group memberships (add/remove) and interest category preferences (add/remove)
  

There is a footnote stating that not all of the functions will be fully "supported" until the next product release sometime later this year.

In addition to the RESTful API they're providing "connectors" and "extensions".

Connectors are a set of packaged integrations for specific industry's leading database systems (Salesforce.com, Blackbaud, MPower Systems MPX and Target Software Team Approach are mentioned on their site).

Extensions are essentially plugins for the Convio product that let organizations take advantage of the leading social media and networking sites of today. Extensions include a Facebook Application; and RSS feed creator (which is only available for the Convio CMS tool);

This is a great start, and we're already eager for the next versions to expose more of the Convio-managed content like Actions, Events, and Campaigns. That next level of openness would give Convio clients the freedom to present their message and member interaction in new ways, and should drive yet another way of innovation in online constituent engagement.

(thanks to Holly at the NTEN blog for the heads up)

YouTube is now offering designated "nonprofit channels" for 501(c)(3) organizations. The new service will let nonprofits have a bit more control of the channel's branding, an option to fundraise directly on the channel page with Google Checkout, and perhaps most importantly, will include nonprofit videos within the "Promoted Videos" areas throughout YouTube.

This last point could be of real value to most organizations, but YouTube has not provided any specifics on the frequency of rotation in these high-visibility areas.

Here are some example channels already using the service:

• Friends of the Earth
  
• The American Cancer Society
  
• Autism Speaks
  

Oh. And if you're one of the first 300 organizations to signup, you get a free Casio video camera.