Google Data » Mark Weitzel https://googledata.org Everything Google: News, Products, Services, Content, Culture Thu, 19 Mar 2015 12:00:08 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.7.5 OpenSocial 1.1 Published! https://googledata.org/uncategorized/opensocial-1-1-published-2/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=opensocial-1-1-published-2 https://googledata.org/uncategorized/opensocial-1-1-published-2/#comments Fri, 19 Nov 2010 03:05:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=6250f3bd8a105b171769081dcf2997be OpenSocial Foundation is pleased to announce the community has approved the publication of version 1.1 of the specification.

In addition to general clarifications, this release now defines the API that enable gadgets to communicate with each other via a pub/sub mechanism. In addition to the API, the specification also defines metadata that an application can include that specifies the events it is able to publish and subscribe. This enables OpenSocial providers to leverage this metadata in tools and advanced container capability.

Using this new API and metadata, developers of OpenSocial applications (gadgets), can create highly interactive mashups where components are not just assembled on the glass, but integrated with each other. This capability is especially important in enterprise settings where OpenSocial is being increasingly utilized as key Internet technology.

Congratulations to the community on another great release!

Published by Mark Weitzel, President, OpenSocial Foundation
]]> https://googledata.org/uncategorized/opensocial-1-1-published-2/feed/ 0 OpenSocial 1.1 Published! https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/opensocial-1-1-published/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=opensocial-1-1-published https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/opensocial-1-1-published/#comments Fri, 19 Nov 2010 03:05:00 +0000 OpenSocial Foundation is pleased to announce the community has approved the publication of version 1.1 of the specification.

In addition to general clarifications, this release now defines the API that enable gadgets to communicate with each other via a pub/sub mechanism. In addition to the API, the specification also defines metadata that an application can include that specifies the events it is able to publish and subscribe. This enables OpenSocial providers to leverage this metadata in tools and advanced container capability.

Using this new API and metadata, developers of OpenSocial applications (gadgets), can create highly interactive mashups where components are not just assembled on the glass, but integrated with each other. This capability is especially important in enterprise settings where OpenSocial is being increasingly utilized as key Internet technology.

Congratulations to the community on another great release!

Published by Mark Weitzel, President, OpenSocial Foundation
]]> https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/opensocial-1-1-published/feed/ 0 Get Involved! Two new OpenSocial workgroups! https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/get-involved-two-new-opensocial-workgroups-2/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=get-involved-two-new-opensocial-workgroups-2 https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/get-involved-two-new-opensocial-workgroups-2/#comments Thu, 21 Oct 2010 18:52:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=b0583b4964d1330523c593a7701c2719 OpenSocial, I'm pleased to announce the formation of two new Foundation sponsored workgroups (officially called Board Advisory Committees), that will focus on two areas of great importance; alignment with key open source and standards efforts, and interoperability.

OpenSocial has grown organically over the last few years, expanding from traditional social networks like MySpace into community oriented sites such as the Nature Network (see the earlier blog post). OpenSocial has even moved into the enterprise with offerings from Cisco, Liferay, and others all supporting the standard. Now, we are seeing the formation of application market places, e.g. Jive Apps Market, based on OpenSocial Technology.

As our community grows into this diverse ecosystem of containers and application providers, it becomes essential that our you have multiple ways to get involved and be recognized for your hard work. To help foster this community interaction the Foundation's Board has established two new Advisory Committees, a.k.a, workgroups.


The Open Standards and Open Source Alignment Advisory Committee
The availability of a production quality reference framework and implementation is a fundamental enabler of open standards. As many of the open source projects continue to grow, and as OpenSocial continues to add new capability, it becomes important to ensure that we have the ability to quickly implement these innovative new features, without sacrificing the ability to incrementally build upon and maintain core capability. Here are some of the things this workgroup will tackle:
  • Keep the community, and the Board, abreast of key open source projects, notably, Apache Shindig
  • Work across open source projects to coordinate release cycles of the specification with implementations
  • Ensure an accurate, up-to-date set of examples and documentation that are consistent with the specification
  • Recommend alignment with key industry standards and specification efforts, e.g. Activity Streams, One Social Web, and others as appropriate
  • Participate in the definition of the OpenSocial vision
  • Recommend to Board on where resource investments should be made to the benefit of the entire community, so that Board members and Officers can work within their organizations and the community to secure the allocation of resources

The Interop & Enterprise Advisory Committee
One of the stated missions of OpenSocial is to provide a common programming model that allows a social application developer to write their application once, and have it run in a wide variety of containers. We've taken a very positive first step, but as a community, we've got to do better if we are to make this vision real. In addition, vendors have added their own capabilities that deviate from the specification. We will need to work with those vendors get them to invest their valuable resources into OpenSocial and bring their enhancements back to the community via the standard and open source. The purpose of this workgroup is to have a focused set of people responsible for spearheading this effort. Here's some of what will be on the plate of people who work on this important team:
  • Ensure updated and accurate compliance test suites
  • Plan, supervise, and manage interop events on a regular basis
  • Actively recruit key industry participants (containers and app vendors) to participate in the events
  • Recommend and propose changes to the specification to improve interoperability
  • Define interop scenarios based upon real world aggregation experience across multiple domains, e.g. enterprise, education, retail, games, etc...
  • Recommend and propose changes to the development process to ensure the ability to keep pace with innovation in the industry, early prototyping, transparent development, and, of course, interop
  • Establish strategy for alignment with key industry interoperability efforts, e.g. SWAT0

We've already gotten off to a good start! Paul Lindner has volunteered to lead the work group on Open Source and Open Standards alignment.With his leadership of Shindig, this is a great fit. But Paul can't do it alone. WE NEED YOU to be successful!

These are great opportunities to get involved and help advance the OpenSocial technology and grow our community! If you are interested, please contact me or one of the Foundation Officers or Board Members directly, or post to the OpenSocial community discussion group.

Thanks!

Posted by Mark Weitzel, President, OpenSocial Foundation



]]> https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/get-involved-two-new-opensocial-workgroups-2/feed/ 0 Get Involved! Two new OpenSocial workgroups! https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/get-involved-two-new-opensocial-workgroups/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=get-involved-two-new-opensocial-workgroups https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/get-involved-two-new-opensocial-workgroups/#comments Thu, 21 Oct 2010 18:52:00 +0000 OpenSocial, I'm pleased to announce the formation of two new Foundation sponsored workgroups (officially called Board Advisory Committees), that will focus on two areas of great importance; alignment with key open source and standards efforts, and interoperability.

OpenSocial has grown organically over the last few years, expanding from traditional social networks like MySpace into community oriented sites such as the Nature Network (see the earlier blog post). OpenSocial has even moved into the enterprise with offerings from Cisco, Liferay, and others all supporting the standard. Now, we are seeing the formation of application market places, e.g. Jive Apps Market, based on OpenSocial Technology.

As our community grows into this diverse ecosystem of containers and application providers, it becomes essential that our you have multiple ways to get involved and be recognized for your hard work. To help foster this community interaction the Foundation's Board has established two new Advisory Committees, a.k.a, workgroups.


The Open Standards and Open Source Alignment Advisory Committee
The availability of a production quality reference framework and implementation is a fundamental enabler of open standards. As many of the open source projects continue to grow, and as OpenSocial continues to add new capability, it becomes important to ensure that we have the ability to quickly implement these innovative new features, without sacrificing the ability to incrementally build upon and maintain core capability. Here are some of the things this workgroup will tackle:
  • Keep the community, and the Board, abreast of key open source projects, notably, Apache Shindig
  • Work across open source projects to coordinate release cycles of the specification with implementations
  • Ensure an accurate, up-to-date set of examples and documentation that are consistent with the specification
  • Recommend alignment with key industry standards and specification efforts, e.g. Activity Streams, One Social Web, and others as appropriate
  • Participate in the definition of the OpenSocial vision
  • Recommend to Board on where resource investments should be made to the benefit of the entire community, so that Board members and Officers can work within their organizations and the community to secure the allocation of resources

The Interop & Enterprise Advisory Committee
One of the stated missions of OpenSocial is to provide a common programming model that allows a social application developer to write their application once, and have it run in a wide variety of containers. We've taken a very positive first step, but as a community, we've got to do better if we are to make this vision real. In addition, vendors have added their own capabilities that deviate from the specification. We will need to work with those vendors get them to invest their valuable resources into OpenSocial and bring their enhancements back to the community via the standard and open source. The purpose of this workgroup is to have a focused set of people responsible for spearheading this effort. Here's some of what will be on the plate of people who work on this important team:
  • Ensure updated and accurate compliance test suites
  • Plan, supervise, and manage interop events on a regular basis
  • Actively recruit key industry participants (containers and app vendors) to participate in the events
  • Recommend and propose changes to the specification to improve interoperability
  • Define interop scenarios based upon real world aggregation experience across multiple domains, e.g. enterprise, education, retail, games, etc...
  • Recommend and propose changes to the development process to ensure the ability to keep pace with innovation in the industry, early prototyping, transparent development, and, of course, interop
  • Establish strategy for alignment with key industry interoperability efforts, e.g. SWAT0

We've already gotten off to a good start! Paul Lindner has volunteered to lead the work group on Open Source and Open Standards alignment.With his leadership of Shindig, this is a great fit. But Paul can't do it alone. WE NEED YOU to be successful!

These are great opportunities to get involved and help advance the OpenSocial technology and grow our community! If you are interested, please contact me or one of the Foundation Officers or Board Members directly, or post to the OpenSocial community discussion group.

Thanks!

Posted by Mark Weitzel, President, OpenSocial Foundation



]]> https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/get-involved-two-new-opensocial-workgroups/feed/ 0 First Enterprise OpenSocial “Interop-fest” November 4, 2010 https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/first-enterprise-opensocial-%e2%80%9cinterop-fest%e2%80%9d-november-4-2010-2/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=first-enterprise-opensocial-%25e2%2580%259cinterop-fest%25e2%2580%259d-november-4-2010-2 https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/first-enterprise-opensocial-%e2%80%9cinterop-fest%e2%80%9d-november-4-2010-2/#comments Wed, 20 Oct 2010 12:52:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=aa41dc69d58f6b1e6ad2a62256c85170 Enterprise OpenSocial “interop-fest” will be held Novevmber 4, 2010, at SAP in Palo Alto, CA. This event will consist of enterprise vendors such as Atlassian, Cisco, IBM, Jive, Liferay, and others coming together to “get their hands dirty” proving interoperability of OpenSocial. This will include using the gadgets from different vendors deployed across a variety of containers, inter-gadget communication via the new pub-sub feature in the forthcoming OpenSocial 1.1 spec, and a first pass at leveraging the proposed Enterprise extensions.

The working page for the event is on the OpenSocial wiki and logistics are included in the eventbrite invitation. All are welcome to attend, but please keep in mind that this is a working session and you will be expected to contribute. Space is limited, so please RSVP so our hosts at SAP can get an accurate count. We are working on remote connectivity as well and will post those details on the wiki as they become available.

Thank you in advance to SAP for hosting the event.

Posted by Mark Weitzel, President, OpenSocial Foundation
]]> https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/first-enterprise-opensocial-%e2%80%9cinterop-fest%e2%80%9d-november-4-2010-2/feed/ 0 First Enterprise OpenSocial “Interop-fest” November 4, 2010 https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/first-enterprise-opensocial-%e2%80%9cinterop-fest%e2%80%9d-november-4-2010/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=first-enterprise-opensocial-%25e2%2580%259cinterop-fest%25e2%2580%259d-november-4-2010 https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/first-enterprise-opensocial-%e2%80%9cinterop-fest%e2%80%9d-november-4-2010/#comments Wed, 20 Oct 2010 12:52:00 +0000 Enterprise OpenSocial “interop-fest” will be held Novevmber 4, 2010, at SAP in Palo Alto, CA. This event will consist of enterprise vendors such as Atlassian, Cisco, IBM, Jive, Liferay, and others coming together to “get their hands dirty” proving interoperability of OpenSocial. This will include using the gadgets from different vendors deployed across a variety of containers, inter-gadget communication via the new pub-sub feature in the forthcoming OpenSocial 1.1 spec, and a first pass at leveraging the proposed Enterprise extensions.

The working page for the event is on the OpenSocial wiki and logistics are included in the eventbrite invitation. All are welcome to attend, but please keep in mind that this is a working session and you will be expected to contribute. Space is limited, so please RSVP so our hosts at SAP can get an accurate count. We are working on remote connectivity as well and will post those details on the wiki as they become available.

Thank you in advance to SAP for hosting the event.

Posted by Mark Weitzel, President, OpenSocial Foundation
]]> https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/first-enterprise-opensocial-%e2%80%9cinterop-fest%e2%80%9d-november-4-2010/feed/ 0 First European OpenSocial event in Utrecht, The Netherlands https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/first-european-opensocial-event-in-utrecht-the-netherlands/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=first-european-opensocial-event-in-utrecht-the-netherlands https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/first-european-opensocial-event-in-utrecht-the-netherlands/#comments Tue, 12 Oct 2010 22:33:00 +0000 OpenSocial Foundation and SURFnet are excited to announce the OpenSocial Europe Summit and OpenSocial in Education Industry Spotlight event, to be held in Utrecht, the Netherlands, on Monday, Dec. 6 and Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2010. Please RSVP if you plan to attend

The event will focus on the use of the OpenSocial, its technologies and implementations, and will have a special concentration on the use of OpenSocial in Research and Education. This two day event is the first OpenSocial Summit held in Europe, and the first to include an industry specific spotlight.

Day one will feature prominent speakers from the OpenSocial community who will present and demonstrate the nuts and bolts of the specification, including what's new in version 1.1, best practices for building social applications, and the emerging use of OpenSocial within the Enterprise. There will also be technical sessions on understanding Apache Shindig, the open source reference framework for OpenSocial. The first day will conclude with a broad outline of where the community is heading with future releases and a call to action to get involved.

The second day is dedicated to the use of OpenSocial in Research and Education. This will consist of both interactive workshops and presentations. Several industry experts from the Research and Educational sector will discuss their experiences using OpenSocial in their solutions. For example, SURFnet will present its project on implementing a new Collaboration Infrastructure and will demonstrate how OpenSocial plays an important role in this infrastructure by it enabling group centric collaboration in an open, platform independent way.

We’ve setup a wiki page where we will be posting the agenda. While we will do our best to accommodate all who wish to attend, please keep in mind that space is limited. Stay tuned to this blog, the OpenSococial Community list, and the wiki for RSVP information and further details.

The OpenSocial Foundation would like to thank SURFnet for their efforts in organizing and hosting this event.

Posted by Mark Weitzel, President, OpenSocial Foundation


SURFnet is the National Research & Education Network (NREN) organization in The Netherlands. SURFnet develops and provides innovative services for education and research in the field of a hybrid network infrastructure, trusted identity and a pioneering collaboration environment. SURFnet provides access to these services to over one million users in higher education and research in The Netherlands. SURFnet is part of SURF, the collaborative organization for higher education institutions and research institutes, which are together working on breakthrough innovations in ICT. More information on SURFNnet and the Collaboration Infrastructure project.
]]> https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/first-european-opensocial-event-in-utrecht-the-netherlands/feed/ 0 Eureka! Lockheed Martin contributes OpenSocial platform to open source https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/eureka-lockheed-martin-contributes-opensocial-platform-to-open-source/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=eureka-lockheed-martin-contributes-opensocial-platform-to-open-source https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/eureka-lockheed-martin-contributes-opensocial-platform-to-open-source/#comments Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:36:00 +0000 Lockheed Martin Corporation recently announced the release of its first open source software initiative around social media called Eureka Streams. Eureka Streams is a social media platform that integrates activity streams and OpenSocial apps. Lockheed Martin has spent the past several years growing a strategy of Social Software within the Enterprise to bring widely distributed employees together. Eureka Streams takes that vision further by incorporating what works well on the internet and builds a platform based on open standards to expand social media even further.

Eureka Streams, initially built internally, is now being made available
under the Apache License as open source. Shindig version 1.1 (beta)
integration provides the framework to offer the OpenSocial 0.9
features, creating a user focused OpenSocial gadget container that can
access the user profiles and activity data created within the tool.
The UI has been developed using Google Web Toolkit to provide a
flexible JavaScript front end developed in Java.

Eureka Streams is currently released to open source at version
0.9. The team has placed a heavy focus on user interaction,
performance, and scalability to this point, but is shifting their
focus to the developer and looking for support from the open source
community.

For more information and to learn how to get started, please visit the Eureka Streams web site.

Posted on behalf of Steve Terlecki, Lockheed Martin Corp, by Mark Weitzel, President, OpenSocial Foundation

]]> https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/eureka-lockheed-martin-contributes-opensocial-platform-to-open-source/feed/ 0 Nature chooses OpenSocial https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/nature-chooses-opensocial/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=nature-chooses-opensocial https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/nature-chooses-opensocial/#comments Fri, 16 Jul 2010 01:34:00 +0000



We’d like to share a little bit about why we adopted the OpenSocial platform for our new online service, called Workbench (http://network.nature.com/workbench), but first we should probably fill in some details about who we are.

Founded in 1869 as a vehicle for reporting the grand results of scientific work and discovery, Nature (www.nature.com) is one of the most distinguished scientific publishers in the world. Nature exists to be a scientific communications company, and back in 1869 the best way to achieve that goal was to publish a periodical. Nowadays, if you were to start with that mission you would most likely start on the Internet.

Nature Network (http://network.nature.com/) is our domain-specific network for researchers. Our intention with Nature Network is to not only provide a platform where scientists can create an online presence and interact with each other, but also to bring interesting information and functionality to scientists. There are a few advantages to having a domain-specific network over a generic network. First of all, it allows the emergence of community norms, i.e. tone of voice, that are fit for that specific community. Also, by creating and hosting our own network, we have the chance to connect the research literature with the social activity around that literature. We have started, for example, to link our academic papers to blog posts that mention those papers, and we have many plans going forward to extend these kinds of connections.

While working on upgrading our site over the last year, we decided to build in an API and so became interested in OpenSocial. Obviously, since Nature Network promotes social connections, OpenSocial was a contender straight away. We wanted to be able to host interesting functionality on our site and the gadget specification is perfect for that.

Our redevelopment process happened in Java, and again that was a great fit with the Shindig project. Being able to see an active developer community around the standard and around the reference implementation was also a major factor in our decision. Our developers found it easy to integrate Shindig with the code that we were creating and they did this quickly as an early prototype. Seeing our wireframes turn into a live demo was a great moment - it was at the point that we took the decision to go with OpenSocial.

We are planning to open our gadget platform and API to external developers so that all the exciting activity that is happening within Nature Network finds its way to anyone who is interested.

To summarise, we wanted to be able to create an API and offer gadgets to our users. OpenSocial provided a great answer to both of those needs. As we continue to evolve and add capability to the Workbench, we are planning to open our gadget platform and API to external developers so that we can build an ecosystem based on open standards around all the exciting activity that is happening within Nature Network. The ongoing development and great documentation that exists have given us confidence in the project and we are excited by the direction that OpenSocial is heading.

Please feel free to drop us a note with your questions. Contact us via e-mail, network at nature.com.
Nature Network Team

Nature Network is the professional networking website for scientists around the world. It’s an online meeting place where you and your colleagues can gather, share and discuss ideas, and keep in touch. It’s also where you can consult the community for answers to scientific questions or offer your expertise to help others. Additionally, using the Workbench, you can collate your online scientific tools together in a customizable workspace, allowing you to group your most important tools and information in the way that works best for you.


Posted on behalf of the Nature Network Team by Mark Weitzel, Secretary, OpenSocial Foundation

]]> https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/nature-chooses-opensocial/feed/ 0 The votes are in! https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/the-votes-are-in/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-votes-are-in https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/the-votes-are-in/#comments Thu, 17 Jun 2010 00:35:00 +0000
For those of you looking to get involved with OpenSocial, there are many opportunities outside the board, including:
  • wiki.opensocial.org: Contribute to documenting best practices and articles on the new OpenSocial community wiki
  • Get Started Building Apps: Brainstorm, check out a few tutorials, and get programming
  • Help build OpenSocial 1.1: Participate in the on-going evolution of OpenSocial's technical specification by contributing to the next version of the specification

See you on the forums!

Posted on behalf of the OpenSocial Foundation by Mark Weitzel (Secretary)
]]> https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/the-votes-are-in/feed/ 0 The polls are closed!! https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/the-polls-are-closed/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-polls-are-closed https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/the-polls-are-closed/#comments Wed, 16 Jun 2010 10:00:00 +0000
This is just a quick note to let you know that the election for the two OpenSocial Board Community Representatives is now officially closed. We will be tallying up the ballots and posting the results shortly.

I would like to thank all of our nominees for being willing to commit their time and effort to OpenSocial, as well as all of those who took the time to vote. Finally, I owe one last thank you to Ryan Boyd of Google who went above and beyond to helped make everything happen behind the scenes.

Posted on behalf of the OpenSocial Foundation by Mark Weitzel (Secretary)


]]> https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/the-polls-are-closed/feed/ 0 Rock the Vote: Community Representatives election is open! https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/rock-the-vote-community-representatives-election-is-open/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rock-the-vote-community-representatives-election-is-open https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/rock-the-vote-community-representatives-election-is-open/#comments Wed, 02 Jun 2010 22:09:00 +0000
The election for the OpenSocial Foundation's community board representatives is now open. If you previously applied for membership, you should have received an email directing you to submit your ballot. The election will close at 11:59 PM PDT on Tuesday, June 15, 2010. You can find information on each person on the candidate info page.

Two of these candidates will be elected by the community to serve on the OpenSocial Foundation's Board of Directors. As a reminder, the role of the OpenSocial Foundation is to promote the OpenSocial specification, and to help ensure that it remains freely implementable by all, in perpetuity. You can find more information about the foundation by visiting the OpenSocial Foundation FAQ.

If you have not submitted a membership application to the OpenSocial Foundation, and would like to have your voice heard in this election you still may do so. To be eligible to vote in the current election, you must submit the OpenSocial Foundation membership application (it's free) by 11:59 PM PDT on Tuesday, June 8, 2010.

If you have any questions or comments about the election please visit the OpenSocial community forum.

Posted by Mark Weitzel, on behalf of the OpenSocial Foundation

]]> https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/rock-the-vote-community-representatives-election-is-open/feed/ 0 Board Nominations Close Tuesday, June 1! https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/board-nominations-close-tuesday-june-1/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=board-nominations-close-tuesday-june-1 https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/board-nominations-close-tuesday-june-1/#comments Fri, 28 May 2010 20:50:00 +0000 Greetings!

Just a quick reminder for everyone.

Nominations for the OpenSocial Board of Directors community seats are underway and will close on Tuesday, June 1, 2010. Please use the on-line form to nominate someone.

We are looking forward to working with the community and to another great year for OpenSocial.

Posted on behalf of the OpenSocial Foundation by Mark Weitzel
]]> https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/board-nominations-close-tuesday-june-1/feed/ 0 OpenSocial State of the Union 2010 Recap https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/opensocial-state-of-the-union-2010-recap/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=opensocial-state-of-the-union-2010-recap https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/opensocial-state-of-the-union-2010-recap/#comments Mon, 24 May 2010 21:20:00 +0000

On behalf of the OpenSocial Foundation, I would like to thank everyone that attended the State of the Union event. A special thank you to the wonderful team at MySpace for arranging and hosting this event. With the participation of about a hundred at he event, I am confident we can move the standard forward.

If you missed it, you can check out the slides for the event. Here a quick summary of some of the key topics we discussed:

  • We have new Board members and great energy (Welcome Cody Simms from Yahoo! and Jason Gary from IBM). Also, please take advantage of the 2 community seats available. Nominations are open and any member of the OpenSocial Foundation is welcome to participate.
  • It is exciting to see OpenSocial adoption outside of “traditional” Social networks and into domain specific networks and even major enterprise vendors.
  • We seek your help in giving our foundation’s pages/navigation an uplift. Feel free to jump in and add your ideas.
  • OpenSocial 1.0 next--Here's what's on tap: improvements to the existing OAuth implementation, inter-gadget communication, and views for Mobile devices. We also need to pay attention to the development & spec process. Our goal is to get prototypes and spec patches in now, followed by a tight, well controlled, editing cycle.
  • The board is excited about engaging OpenSocial’s worldwide community. We are looking to sponsor events outside the U.S. and will be working on figuring this out over the next few weeks.

Here are some more details below about the event. Please feel add your thoughts & suggestions as comments to this blog post.

The event started off with introductions of the Foundation Board members and officers. Cody Simms is Yahoo!’s corporate designate. IBM is a new corporate member and has designated Jason Gary as their representatives. Welcome Cody and Jason. The complete list of your Foundation Officers and Board Members is in the FAQs.

In addition to new corporate members of the OpenSocial Foundation Board, there are two community seats available. Anyone is able to serve on the board. The only requirement to nominate or hold the position is that you must be a member of the OpenSocial Foundation. There are no membership fees to join OpenSocial. All you need to do is fill out a simple on-line membership application.

It’s been an exciting year and a half for OpenSocial! We’ve seen continued adoption of the specification as new containers come on line. Perhaps what is more interesting is that we are starting to see OpenSocial adoption outside of “traditional” social networks. This includes adoption by enterprise vendors such as Jive, Atlassian, and IBM.

Before getting into the heart of the discussion, we reviewed our current Web presence. Right now, we’ve got information buried on existing pages, scattered across different sites, and in general, have an inconsistent way of engaging our members. As a result, we are going to start looking at how to clean this up. Please post a note to the community group list if you’d like to help with this effort. There’s also a wiki page to capture your ideas.

Looking ahead for the remainder of this year and into next, we’ve got some exciting things starting to happen. First of all, we agreed on the scope and timeline for “OpenSocial 1.0 next”. There were three areas that we’d like to start working on for the next version of the spec; improvements to the existing OAuth implementation, inter-gadget communication, and views for Mobile devices. There’s already some code for intergadget communication in Shindig, and the team from Mixi has put together a good starting point for Mobile.

We will be following the development process and incorporating the extensions mechanism that we outlined last year. This means that we should be able to accept patches to the spec and prototypes now! Our goal is to get prototypes and spec patches in now, followed by a tight, well controlled, editing cycle. Ideally, this gives us time to try out the prototypes now, rather than actually developing and prototyping the new features at the same time we are writing the spec. The specification process and extension process will be updated in the next few days to reflect these ideas.

It is also worth noting is that we’d like to get as many of these prototypes as possible into Shindig so it’s easy for people to try them out. Paul Linder and the Shindig community has done a great job over the last few months of refactoring and organizing the code to make this much easier. Thanks to Paul and the Shindig committers!

One of the original goals of OpenSocial was to create a community that could rapidly prototype new ideas. With the development process, the extensions mechanism, and Shindig, we’ve got all the pieces in place to do just that. An example of this is the work that has been done to provide a prototype of the ActivityStrea.ms specification.

But we don’t want to stop there! A number of new and exciting ideas in the social Web space are emerging, and as a community, we should be prototyping them as quickly as possible to understand their impact to OpenSocial. Examples of these include Salmon, Pubsubhubbub, Web Finger, and OAuth 2.0. Let’s get prototypes going now so that when these specs become final, it’s easy for us to provide an open source implementation and a clean path into OpenSocial spec. This way, we can move the entire industry forward—together—faster.

So far, most (if not all), of the ‘official’ OpenSocial Foundation sponsored events have been located in the United States. One of our goals for this year is to change that. A number of members have expressed interest in having events in Asia and Europe. This is a great way for our community to engage the large number of world wide container providers and businesses that are successfully implementing OpenSocial. The Board is very excited about reaching out to our worldwide membership and is looking forward to helping the community make this happen.

Thank you, once again, to the team at MySpace. There were great to work with and put on a fantastic event. I would also like to thank our community. It’s because of you that we had a great event.

Now let’s get prototyping!

Posted by Mark Weitzel, on behalf of the OpenSocial Foundation

]]> https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/opensocial-state-of-the-union-2010-recap/feed/ 0 OpenSocial State of the Union & 1.0 Release Celebration! https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/opensocial-state-of-the-union-1-0-release-celebration/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=opensocial-state-of-the-union-1-0-release-celebration https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/opensocial-state-of-the-union-1-0-release-celebration/#comments Fri, 23 Apr 2010 00:05:00 +0000

The OpenSocial Foundation cordially invites you to come and meet the developers and community leaders that are driving OpenSocial. This is your chance to learn more about what the various OpenSocial providers are doing and get involved in shaping the next version of the specification.

Oh, and now that OpenSocial 1.0 has been released, it’s time to celebrate! We’ll have a happy hour immediately following the State of the Union with lots of tasty food and cold beverages.

The State of the Union & 1.0 Release celebration will take place on May 18th from 1 – 6pm PDT. Our good friends at MySpace have graciously agreed to host event in their San Francisco offices. We hope to see you there!

Please RSVP at http://opensocial.eventbrite.com/

Posted by Dave Peck & Mark Weitzel on behalf of the OpenSocial Foundation





]]> https://googledata.org/google-opensocial/opensocial-state-of-the-union-1-0-release-celebration/feed/ 0