Google Data » Elizabeth Yin

YiQi.com launched OpenSocial developer platform in China using Apache Shindig

Elizabeth Yin — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 16:47:00 +0000

On August 5th YiQi.com launched an OpenSocial developer platform in China based on Apache Shindig, which makes this the first OpenSocial implementation in China based on open source software!

The OpenSocial Developer Platform by YiQi.com is built on version 0.7 of the OpenSocial specification, making it easy for existing OpenSocial applications to run out-of-the box and reach all YiQi users. We welcome all app developers to join us as developer partners. Please visit YiQi's developer page for more details.

Open standards and platforms such as OpenSocial provide a lot of reusable resources and rich applications to satisfy a wide range of user interests. To help our users get started using apps, we have bundled some basic OpenSocial applications together and made them easy to install. We encourage users and developers to test out these apps and keep checking back for new additions.

We look forward to working closely with international partners to bring OpenSocial into the Chinese social networking market, and we welcome partnering opportunities with all service providers who are interested in deep integrations.

Here is the post in Chinese:

八月五日一起网迈出开放第一步，成为中国第一个利用Apache Shindig开源项目完整支持OpenSocial标准的开放平台！

一起网开放平台，目前已完全支持OpenSocial标准，全球基于OpenSocial标准的应用可直接为一起网用户提供服务，将开发者接入成本降至最低。欢迎开发者参与！有意合作的朋友，请来访一起网站，在"我家"中点击左侧"个性应用"旁的编辑按钮，选择"成为开发者"。

标准平台提供了国内外巨大的既有资源，开放平台将成为一起网丰富应用服务、满足用户个性需求的主要途径。为了提供最初用户体验，我们暂时添加了一些基于OpenSocial的开放应用，大家可以在"我家"中点击左侧"个性应用"旁的编辑按钮，将服务添加到"家"中试用。

我们在此表示 1,愿意为国际服务提供商进入中国市场搭建一个基于OpenSocial平台的途径;2,愿意与国际服务提供商深度合作.

Posted by Xie Wen 谢文, CEO YiQi.com 一起网

OpenThread: First OpenSocial Developer Event by SocialMedia.com

Elizabeth Yin — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 00:01:00 +0000

SocialMedia.com is hosting a new event for application developers called "OpenThread" on August 15th. OpenThread is about stimulating community and conversation amongst developers around OpenSocial and its partner sites. The event is intended for current OpenSocial developers and programmers who are new to the platform.

OpenThread will be a mix of discussion followed by socializing. The discussion will feature OpenSocial representatives and developers speaking about the platform. Bring your questions about how to get started developing, and get ready to hear tips and tricks from companies currently working with OpenSocial. All of this will be followed by an "OpenBar" social event where developers can sip drinks and connect in real life.

The event is free, but we're limiting this to 150 developers due to space constraints, so please sign-up ahead of time to reserve your spot. OpenThread should be a great event to network and learn more about OpenSocial.

Where: SocialMedia: Pier 38, San Francisco, CA
When: August 15th, 5pm - 9pm

Itinerary:

5:00 - 5:30 Sign In

5:30 - 5:45 Introduction and Brief History of OpenSocial and Containers

5:45 - 6:00 Tutorial on building your first app (Hello World!) - MySpace demo

6:00 - 6:45 Panel with MySpace and other OpenSocial developers (How did you start?, What are the pros and cons?) - Linus Liang (CLZ Concepts), David King (Lil Green Patch), Kenneth Walton (Klicknation)

6:45 - 7:00 Application Hosting

7:00 - 9:00 OpenBar

Please RSVP directly at http://blog.socialmedia.com/openthread.

Posted by Nick Gonzalez, SocialMedia.com

Summary of Global OpenSocial Survey

Elizabeth Yin — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 18:54:00 +0000

Posted by Shawn Shen, Developer Programs

A few weeks ago we posted a survey to collect feedback from the community to help improve the OpenSocial ecosystem. We are very grateful for all the responses and also appreciate your continued involvement in shaping OpenSocial. I'd like to share a brief summary of our findings.

Preferred Timeline & Location of Future OpenSocial events

Across the globe more than 65% of respondents prefer OpenSocial events sooner than later (i.e. July through October '08; see graph).

All regions are well represented with these regional preferences: North America (45%), Asia-Pacific (45%), Europe/the Middle East/Africa (34%) and South America (21%). This is not surprising, as there have been a wide variety of OpenSocial hackathons and events in the US, UK, the Netherlands, Argentina, Brazil, Japan, China, and in Korea. Google, too, recently had a very successful Beijing Hackathon, hot on the heels of Google Developer Day China. This month, we also held OpenSocial codelabs and seminars in Japan, Taiwan, Australia, Mexico, and Brazil, with many more planned in September & October as part of Google Developer Days 2008). So stay tuned worldwide for many more events from the larger OpenSocial community.

Preferred Event Formats

More than 70% of the respondents are interested in a general OpenSocial summit or summit combined with a hackathon (see graph), indicating developers' preference for active engagement in and frequent updates about OpenSocial's evolution.

Popular Containers

Early adopters that are in either full production or sandbox, namely hi5, MySpace, orkut and iGoogle, made this list, though the list is augmented by 13 other containers, showing the breadth of OpenSocial's reach.

Preferred Language

95% of the respondents use JavaScript while 56% and 31% prefer PHP and Java respectively, with Ruby and Python not far behind.

Documentation

While 54% of the respondents were either satisfied or very satisfied with OpenSocial documentation, 28% reported being "not sure" and 19% felt dissatisfied, which indicates there remains room for continued improvement in detailed API documentation, production-ready sample code, feature specific tutorials, Shindig documentation, cross-container reference, and wiki-enabled content sharing. We are currently rolling out OpenSocial wiki resources, and we will provide more updates as we continue to improve our documentation.

An extra hand

More than 80% of the respondents use the OpenSocial group for help, and more than 50% receive help from the orkut developer forum while 19%, 14% and 13% of the respondents also use hi5, iGoogle, and MySpace forums respectively.

Once again, in pursuing our common goal to make the web more open and social, I'd like to thank the developer community for your continued support, unbounded energy and unrelenting enthusiasm, as evidenced in this comment from a developer in Korea, "Go! Go! Go! Opensocial!"

Social sessions from Google I/O now online

Elizabeth Yin — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 00:13:00 +0000

Posted by Kevin Marks, Developer Advocate

A couple of weeks ago, Google's developer conference Google I/O was held in San Francisco and 3,000 developers came to listen, talk and hack together. If you couldn't make it, or if you came but found that two sessions you wanted to see were on at the same time, you can now see video and slides of many of the presentations at the Google I/O site.

Here's the full list of Social sessions:

AOL Announces Support for OpenSocial

Elizabeth Yin — Wed, 28 May 2008 23:42:00 +0000

Posted by Eric Staats, Principal Software Engineer, AOL

During the "Meet the Containers" session at Google's I/O developer gathering today, AOL announced its plans to support OpenSocial, beginning with the adoption of Gadgets on myAOL.com. Over the next few months, we will implement the Gadget specification on myAOL, and eventually we will support OpenSocial across our products and platforms.

By using this single widget application framework, AOL will take a significant step toward becoming a more open service, making it easier for developers to leverage our APIs to enhance AOL products and services with creative new applications, and ultimately leading to a better experience for millions of users.

As I discussed in my presentation, adopting Gadgets as our widget format within myAOL is the first step in adopting OpenSocial across AOL products and services. Gadgets will allow us to offer developers more opportunities to bring their ideas to myAOL, while keeping our users safer. Additionally, Gadgets will make it easier for application developers to create new tools and widgets for myAOL that will also be available to AOL users across the web at large on any OpenSocial enabled container.

We're excited to work toward supporting Gadgets and OpenSocial across AOL's many products, platforms and services. By working with Google and other leaders in the industry to create products based on a more open, uniform standard, AOL and AOL users will be able to safely take advantage of a wide variety of new applications within our products that have been built by developers around the world.

imeem launches support for OpenSocial sandbox

Elizabeth Yin — Thu, 15 May 2008 18:27:00 +0000

Posted by Chris Schalk, Google Developer Advocate

At yesterday's OpenSocial Summit, imeem (www.imeem.com) announced that it has launched as a new OpenSocial container. imeem is the 3rd largest and one of the fastest growing social networks in the U.S., with over 24 million unique user visits per month. The site enables users to discover, interact and express themselves with all types of online media. Through the Media Platform, imeem now provides OpenSocial developers access to its extensive library of music, videos, and photos for their applications, which can be accessed using imeem's extension of OpenSocial.

We are happy to welcome imeem and its community to the OpenSocial application development platform. For more information, please visit imeem's OpenSocial developer site.

A Different Kind of OpenSocial Container

Elizabeth Yin — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 22:17:00 +0000

Posted by Jonathan Terleski, User Experience Team

Whether you're an applications developer or a container developer, OpenSocial enables you to create new and innovative experiences for your users. Today, I'd like to show you one of the ways we've been thinking about the user experience of a container like orkut.

You've probably noticed that with many social platforms, you need to install an application before using it. This can involve making decisions about sharing information with the app, the app posting activities on your behalf, and the app having real-estate on your profile. Often, this happens before you've even had a chance to use the application.

In this video, we've imagined a different kind of container: one that lets users interact with applications without installing them. This allows users to make educated decisions about what their applications can access and how their applications will behave. The lower the barrier to using an application, the more applications people will try. The more applications people try, the more likely they are to find something they truly enjoy. And when someone truly enjoys an application and does invite his/her friends, that invitation will carry with it extraordinary value and significance for users and developers alike.

Again, this is just a mock-up of what a few applications running in orkut could look like:

For a higher-quality, but larger version, click here.

With OpenSocial, it's possible to create environments where applications can spread because they provide great user experiences. The metric for success would be not the number of installs an application receives, but user engagement and happiness. Environments that focus on more than viral growth cultivate healthy, organic growth and usage. This contributes to the long-term sustainability of social platforms for both users and developers.

To that end, you'll notice there are a number of functions in the OpenSocial API starting with "request" (e.g. requestShareApp, requestSendMessage). These functions define an agreement between the applications developer and the host container that allows the container to optionally prompt the user for more input, or simply deny the request. While each container will be able to define its own policy, we encourage apps developers and containers to take advantage of these functions to create an "install-free" user experience.

Social platforms are quickly evolving, and what we've shown you here today isn't necessarily what you'll see in orkut tomorrow. It's a look at a few of the things we're thinking about here at the Googleplex. I'm excited to hear your feedback and thoughts on the discussion board.

Launch Plan Update Clarified

Elizabeth Yin — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 18:09:00 +0000

Posted by Amar Gandhi, Group Product Manager

We listen to your concerns and read your emails carefully. We have received a number of inquiries regarding this launch and would like to clarify what we're trying to achieve.

1) Why the testing period?

We apologize for the delay in the orkut developer platform launch. Based on your feedback from your recent experience in the orkut sandbox, we want to ensure we're launching a robust platform that can provide users with the best experience when using your apps. To achieve this, we will be deploying a few apps to a few users--hence the testing period. We appreciate your feedback on the platform and your patience.

2) Apps on orkut next week

There've been a lot of questions around the apps that will be included in orkut next week.
We'd like to emphasize this is not the launch of our developer platform. It is merely a testing period. As such, the apps that have been selected for this testing period will only be available to fewer than 1% of English speaking orkut users. This testing period will have no effect on all other orkut users, and the apps that will be tested in the coming weeks will not have an advantage over those that will be deployed at launch. Leveling the playing field for all developers is a top priority, and we will do everything we can to make sure this happens.

3) What are the details of the launch plan moving forward?

While we are testing our platform, we will continue reviewing your apps and will continue providing feedback on them. When the platform is ready to be opened to all orkut users, the same launch strategy we set forth previously will still apply. Apps that were submitted and approved before Feb 16th will be deployed at launch. Apps that were submitted thereafter will be reviewed and deployed post-launch on a rolling basis until we are able to take submissions in orkut without the whitelisting process. Feel free to use this extra time to rev on your app as you see fit. Remember, here are the guidelines for launch--they still apply, but our launch date has just been pushed out.

Thank you for all the time, resources, and good faith you have placed with the orkut developer platform. Please write to us if you have additional questions or concerns.

Google Technology User Group on OpenSocial, March 5th

Elizabeth Yin — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 06:21:00 +0000

Posted by Elizabeth Yin, Developer Programs

On Wednesday, March 5, the Google Technology User Group (not officially affiliated with Google Inc.) will be holding a gathering at the Googleplex in Mountain View from 6pm to 8:30pm.

This gathering will be geared towards people who want a high-level overview of OpenSocial. With hi5, we'll cover some brief OpenSocial updates, walk through some code, and finish with a couple of demos. Most importantly, get ready to mingle and discuss ideas for social apps with fellow developers.

We look forward to seeing you. Please feel free to check out more details and RSVP.

OpenSocial website: now with more video

Elizabeth Yin — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 00:06:00 +0000

Posted by Dan Holevoet, Developer Programs

We know that some of you enjoy watching movies more than reading through complex documentation, so we're happy to announce a set of OpenSocial videos to get you the information you need to write great applications. Last week, Lane and I poured blood, sweat, tears, and a little bit of powder makeup into these videos (thankfully the blood, sweat and tears were edited out). I'll walk you through the five sections of the OpenSocial tutorial, and Lane will let you know where to go to get help writing great OpenSocial applications.

Orkut is looking for a few good apps…

Elizabeth Yin — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 09:57:00 +0000

Posted by Arne Roomann-Kurrik, Developer Programs

In case you missed it, Orkut has started accepting submissions for inclusion into its application directory. The directory will go live for Orkut's user-facing launch, coming up at the end of February. If you've got an OpenSocial application that you would like listed, please fill out this form. (If you've already submitted your application, don't worry, we still have your information)

Orkut wants as many high quality applications available at launch as possible, but malware, adware, and gadgets that don't meet the Orkut terms of service are going to be filtered out through a review process. We want to make sure the user experience is great!

The review process for the directory will occur right up until and through launch. If you submit before Saturday, February 16th, the Orkut team will be able to give you direct feedback on your application, allowing you time to make any needed changes. If you submit on or after the 16th, reviews will be on a first come, first served basis: the team will try to cover as many submissions as possible, but cannot guarantee that your application will be reviewed for the initial list.

After launch, applications will be added to the directory daily so there'll still be plenty of opportunities to get your applications reviewed and listed, even if you don't get in during the first round.

In order to be accepted into the directory, submitted applications must:

Function correctly. No 404s or broken links.
Be social OR self-expressive.
Not reveal personal data, like email (which is not delivered by the API).
Follow the Orkut terms of service. No violent or illegal content, nudity, or hate speech.

Developers are encouraged to make their applications look polished. Using standard colors, fonts, and elements, as well as setting metadata such as icon and description will go a long way. If you're looking for more ways to spruce up your application to be more successful, then the OpenSocial best practices article should give you some ideas.

Keep in mind that the linked article lists suggestions, not requirements. The review process is not intended to act as "social application fashion police" - your application will not be judged based on its purpose or intended audience. If you write something polished, there's a good chance it'll get in, so surprise us with your creativity! We're looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

Good luck and happy coding!

Introducing an OpenSocial codelab with the Silicon Valley Web Builders

Elizabeth Yin — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 01:23:00 +0000

Posted by Dan Holevoet, Developer Programs

This week's Silicon Valley Web Builder (SVWB) hackathon attracted a group of developers of different levels of experience in building social applications and set them on a course to create applications with OpenSocial. After some introductions, they group got its hands dirty by working through a "codelab." At the end of the night, groups demoed the apps they built during the hackathon.

The event also featured a demo of hi5's OpenSocial container running an application from KlickNation that had been recently built for OpenSocial. It turns out they only spent about 20 hours to get it running on hi5, and porting the hi5 version to orkut took only 20 minutes.

Check out this photo gallery for a look at some photos and "screenshots" from the event.

MySpace delivers for developers

Elizabeth Yin — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 18:06:00 +0000

Posted by Peter Chane, Group Business Product Manager, OpenSocial

It’s a big week for OpenSocial – MySpace has launched the MySpace Developer Platform. Congratulations, guys – you’re bringing more than 100 million users around the world within easy reach of the creativity and inspiration of social app developers.

The MySpace Developer Platform, which is live now at http://developer.myspace.com, uses the OpenSocial APIs to give application developers the data and functionality they need to run their apps on MySpace. They can build for any OpenSocial container, such as hi5 or orkut, and have easy access to MySpace users also.

MySpace also used the OpenSocial extension mechanism to ensure that developers can access MySpace-specific features, such as its “Heroes” section on user profiles. All of you containers out there, take note – whether you have unique profile fields, media types, or another special feature, the OpenSocial APIs can accommodate it so apps can help you deliver your complete experience.

Using OpenSocial, hi5 Makes Music with iLike & Qloud

Elizabeth Yin — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 02:07:00 +0000

Posted by Peter Chane, Group Product Manager

Starting yesterday, hi5 began rolling out two new music applications from iLike and Qloud. hi5's 70 million registered users will be able to use the iLike and Qloud applications to play their favorite songs and share music from hundreds of thousands of artists, among other music-related activities. These are the first applications using OpenSocial to go live on hi5 and were developed and launched within a three-week timeframe.

The new music applications iLike and Qloud created for hi5 using OpenSocial illustrate how OpenSocial is a win-win-win: hi5 is able to present new services and site features to its users rapidly; iLike and Qloud get exposure to millions of new music fans, and most importantly, hi5 users gain cool, online applications. We look forward to hearing about your OpenSocial applications.

Promote Your OpenSocial Meetup on our Calendar

Elizabeth Yin — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 00:04:00 +0000

Posted by Elizabeth Yin, Developer Programs

Many people have asked us to help promote their OpenSocial events; for example, Jesse Stay, co-founder of the Utah Social Media Developers Garage, recently asked if we could help him get the word out about his meetup.

We've now made it easier for developers to promote their events and find others in their area with our new Developer Events calendar. If you are organizing a meeting on OpenSocial or other developer topics, please feel free to add it.

OpenSocial Interviews

Elizabeth Yin — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 16:51:00 +0000

Posted by Stephanie Liu, Developer Programs

You've probably seen the Campfire One video (or caught the highlights) with some of the demos, but you may have missed our in-studio interviews. I recently got to sit down with a bunch of developers who have been working with OpenSocial -- check out the playlist on YouTube or in the embedded player down below. Big thanks to Shelfari, E-junkie, Ning, Flixster, Plaxo, iLike, FotoFlexer, LinkedIn, Hi5, Qloud, Bleacher Report, Slide, RockYou, Oberon, Chronus, and Hungry Machine for nurturing their inner diva and stepping in front of the camera to talk to me and demo their websites and gadgets.

Videos, Presentations, and Code Introduction from OpenSocial Campfire One Available

Elizabeth Yin — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 01:46:00 +0000

Posted by Elizabeth Yin, Developer Programs

Many of you have expressed an interest in having the raw materials presented at Campfire One on November 1st. To that end, we've now posted the following:

Higher quality video files of Campfire One, split up into 6 parts for ease of viewing and sharing (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 )
The actual presentation displayed during the event
The source code behind David Glazer's "10 minutes to an OpenSocial app"

Additionally, we've posted more video files on developing with OpenSocial. As always, keep the comments coming. Thanks!

OpenSocial at meetup next week

Elizabeth Yin — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 22:36:00 +0000

Posted by Patrick Chanezon, Developer Advocate

Lawrence Sinclair and Sudha Jamthe recently asked us to host a Facebook Application Development Meetup to discuss OpenSocial, a common set of APIs that enables social application development. We're happy to tell you that it's going to happen at Google on November 19th at 7pm. Dave McClure, of 500 hats, will emcee the evening. The event is free, but you need to register to attend.

Some topics that will be covered include:
- an overview of OpenSocial APIs
- the differences between OpenSocial and F8
- 5 sample social apps with their code
- a look at some OpenSocial apps in different sites, including in hi5, Ning, orkut, and/or Plaxo

We look forward to seeing you next week.

hi5, Ning, and Plaxo sandboxes go live

Elizabeth Yin — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 17:47:00 +0000

Posted by: Elizabeth Yin, Developer Programs

We're excited to see that hi5, Ning, and Plaxo have OpenSocial sandboxes up and running live, which means that an application can now run on multiple websites. For example, previously, Songs iLike could run on the Orkut platform, but as of last week, it can run on hi5, Ning, Orkut, and Plaxo. To get the details on each of these containers, check these links out:

Hi5: http://www.hi5networks.com/developer/2007/11/hi5-opensocial.html
Ning: http://opensocial.ning.com/
Plaxo: http://pulse.plaxo.com/pulse/gadgets/
orkut: http://code.google.com/apis/orkut/

Many websites are actively working on adding OpenSocial support; stay tuned for more updates.

Campfire One: taking social applications to new frontiers

Elizabeth Yin — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 00:41:00 +0000

Posted by Elizabeth Yin, Developer Programs

I like social networking--it's really fun. But beyond the entertainment value, the demos at Campfire One (our launch event for OpenSocial that took place yesterday) just blew me away. Demo after demo showed me that OpenSocial makes developing social applications easy (in both programming applications and in gaining users) and has also catalyzed new contexts for the use of social applications.

The evening started out with consumer social applications. We saw Slide demonstrate its popular FunWall application in Hi5's social networking website. OpenSocial enabled Slide to create an integrated experience; for example, it appears that the FunWall application is part of Hi5, as users can seamlessly pull photos from friends' albums and edit them, but if Slide were to change just a bit of its CSS, they would be able to provide the same seamless experience in Orkut, which would mean making the application easily available on multiple websites.

Next, we saw Flixster demonstrate their movie application on Ning, which allows groups to create their own social networks. Last night they featured Tu Diabetes, a social network for people living with or affected by diabetes. Using OpenSocial, Ning was able to incorporate interactive social applications for the social networking groups they host. Tu Diabetes could integrate Flixster into their group, but beyond the 1500+ members of Tu Diabetes, Flixster can also offer their application to be integrated with the other 113,000+ social networking groups on Ning plus all other sites adopting OpenSocial. Flixster only has to write its application once to gain a potentially large user base.

What is really novel, though, is the ability to extend social networking into a business context. To this end, Theikos demonstrated its networking application applied in Salesforce's website. By using OpenSocial, Theikos could create an application that allows Salesforce users to view their co-workers' connections and the strength of those relationships to better target key decision-makers.

In fact, Viadeo, a business social network, says it believes that OpenSocial will soon become necessary, as business applications require very specialized knowledge, and no single social networking site can build out so many of these applications across verticals alone.

And then a surprise at the end: back to consumer! Flixster returned to demonstrate its application on MySpace. The company was given just 36 hours to try to get its application to work in the MySpace container, which has adopted the OpenSocial SDK. They successfully completed the integration in just a few hours and it worked. Wow.

Although those present at Campfire One were an intimate group, I was amazed to see the range of demos. They revealed just how easy OpenSocial is in creating useful social applications, and I look forward to these new social applications as I peruse the web.