Launching the Google+ Platform

A couple of months ago, I mentioned how excited I was to reveal to family and friends what I’ve been working on at Google for the last year or so, Google+. Well, that was only partly true. What I’ve really been working on is the Google+ Platform, which we are finally starting to roll out today.

In many respects, today’s announcement is perhaps more exciting for myself and the team than it will be for some of you. The surface that we are launching today is small, just three methods focused on reading public data. That’s what we’re starting with. You won’t find the ability to post into the stream or +1 a post, or the ability to access a user’s circles. But what you will find is a small taste of what we’ve been working on for a long time. You’ll find a clean and simple API that should feel very natural because it follows RESTful designs and uses JSON data formats. You’ll find an API that uses industry standards like OAuth 2.0 and that is based on open formats like Activity Streams and Portable Contacts. You’ll find well-written documentation with in-line code samples and an in-line API explorer so you can play with every method, all hosted on our new Google Developers site that will redefine what it means to be Google developer. You’ll find an API that is relatively small, but one that is the start of something very, very big.

This is perhaps the most important project I’ve worked on in my professional life, and I’m incredibly proud of what we are beginning today. I’m excited to see what people will build with the API, and I’ll be sharing some of my own Google+ projects very soon.