If you're looking to Google for a solution then I think you're looking in the wrong direction. Just look at the latest crop of anti-competitive complaints against them -- like Yelp for one.
Well, at least for now they are the underdog, so it would be in their interest to be more open in the "social" space.
The Yelp case, whatever you may think about it, is in a completely different realm.
Yelp complaining about anticompetitive practices by Google is about as hypocritical as you can get.