Kevin Marks, one of the leading voices on Google-backed OpenSocial and Friend Connect, has left the Mountain View, Calif.-based search engine, he announced on his blog. With his exit, Google might have lost one of its most visible evangelists. Kevin, who in the past worked at Technorati, is one of the smartest guys I have met, and I have often tapped into his expertise on many things social. It is not clear what Kevin’s next gig will be. On his blog he writes:
I’ll still be working on web standards through the groups above, the Open Web Foundation, the Open Rights Group, and more. Professionally, I’ll be coding, writing and speaking on the social web via several new projects.
In his exit post, Kevin didn’t really say why he was leaving the company. I wonder if it has something to do with Google’s inability to totally grok the social web. ;-) OpenSocial was launched with much fanfare but seems to be lagging behind Facebook and its Facebook Connect effort.
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