---
title: "Google’s Kevin Marks Introduces “The Social Cloud”"
date: 2008-02-12
author: "Richard MacManus"
categories:
  - name: "ReadWriteWeb"
    url: "/category/readwriteweb.md"
tags:
  - name: "2008"
    url: "/tag/2008.md"
---

# Google’s Kevin Marks Introduces “The Social Cloud”

![](https://web.archive.org/web/20090318070430im_/http://www.readwriteweb.com/images/social_cloud_small.jpg)Interesting [video presentation](https://web.archive.org/web/20090318070430/http://epeus.blogspot.com/2008/02/social-cloud.html) from Kevin Marks, Google’s main evangelist for the [OpenSocial](https://web.archive.org/web/20090318070430/http://www.readwriteweb.com/tag/opensocial) project. Marks explains more about the theory behind OpenSocial, in what he calls “the social cloud”. This seems to be a variation of the [Social Graph concept](https://web.archive.org/web/20090318070430/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/social_graph_concepts_and_issues.php), which Alex Iskold analyzed for ReadWriteWeb last September. See also Sarah Perez’s post today on [a new search engine called Delver](https://web.archive.org/web/20090318070430/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/delver_reinvents_search.php), which “leverages the social graph to map out a user’s social connections.”

We’re seeing more and more products that utilize the social graph, and so Marks’ explanation is a useful primer on the concepts behind them.

Video from [LIFT](https://web.archive.org/web/20090318070430/http://www.nouvo.ch/liftvideo)

Related: [ReadWriteTalk interview with Kevin Marks](https://web.archive.org/web/20090318070430/http://readwritetalk.com/2007/12/18/kevin-marks-developer-advocate-google-opensocial/), Dec 07; and Alex Iskold’s analysis of [Why Open Social Really Matters](https://web.archive.org/web/20090318070430/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/why_open_social_matters.php).

*Originally published on ReadWriteWeb ([archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20020204040018/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/social_cloud.php))*