OpenSocial

AJAX World RIA Conference: Building AJAX Mashups with Google APIs

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 11:30:00 EDT

This session will cover how to integrate various Google APIs including Google's AJAX APIs including Maps, AJAX Search and Feed into superior AJAX mashups. The session also shows how to use Google's App Engine as an AJAX Web application provider. Finally, this session will also show how to socialize your AJAX applications using the OpenSocial APIs and Google Friend Connect.

Facebook To Open Source Platform

Fri, 30 May 2008 12:15:00 EDT

Facebook, the social networking site that Microsoft owns a pricey sliver of, says it's going to open source its year-old Facebook Platform so it's easier for developers to build applications on it. It's reportedly calling the effort fbOpen and the move puts it on a collision course with the Google OpenSocial initiative that MySpace, Yahoo and now AOL back so third-party applications can access the sites' data.

AJAX World - Google Web Toolkit RC1.5 Ready To Pop

Thu, 29 May 2008 15:00:00 EDT

Google's Web Toolkit Release Candidate 1.5 will be available later this week. That's the stuff programmers can use to develop and debug web applications in Java and then deploy them as highly optimized JavaScript. That way they're supposed to be able to sidestep common AJAX headaches like browser compatibility, and enjoy significant performance and productivity gains.

Open Source & Commercial Software: Both Are Crucial

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 08:45:00 EDT

Is software development a science or an art? The software industry treats it as a science. It uses processes like MRDs, PRDs, and functional specs to convert customer needs into software that solves their problems. Various roles like product managers, engineering managers, project managers, architects, and programmers work together to drive the process like an efficient machine.

Early Notes on GoogleApps

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 09:15:00 EDT

Now, what Google announced is really exciting! I'm not kidding. It's even better than I hoped. Yes, it's only Python, but IBM's PC-DOS was only BASIC and Pascal when it first came out, and it didn't matter. Yeah, I preferred C, but I coded in Pascal because that's what you had to do to get an app running. What you're going to see here that you've never seen before is shrinkwrap net apps that scale that can be deployed by civillians. That's a mouthful, but that's what's coming. Why? Because here is a standardized platform that can be stamped out in the billions of units. Maybe Google can't do it, but the perception is that they can. Who is willing to stand up and say Google hasn't nailed scaling? What PCs did in the 80s, Google is doing now. PCs took the black magic out of owning a computer.

iPhone Developer Summit

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 14:45:00 EDT

This session will provide attendees with an overview of the iPhone SDK, including discussion of the App Store, Apple's planned distribution channel for SDK applications. Keep in mind that the contents of the SDK and experiences while using it are covered under NDA, so be prepared for me to talk in generics and leave out specific details that might be covered by the NDA. I am planning on providing a quick introduction to Objective-C for those attendees who may have never seen it and might be worried that it will be difficult to code in (it isn't!).

Open Web Developer Summit to Take Place April 21-22, 2008 in New York City

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 14:45:00 EST

In keeping with the longstanding SYS-CON tradition of being at the very forefront of software development with all its online and offline resources, SYS-CON Media & Events jointly today announced a double whammy, launching both 'Open Web Developer's Journal' (http://openweb.sys-con.com) and 'Open Web Developer Summit' (http://openweb.sys-con.com) - to be held for the first time in New York City April 21-22, 2008.

How OpenSocial Complements Silverlight

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 08:45:00 EST

To take advantage of the OpenSocial implementation in Orkut sandbox, you have to create a Google Gadget with the OpenSocial feature, post the gadget on the Internet, and then add the URL of the gadget as an application. As I looked into the Google gadget API to build this, I found something interesting, the Google Gadget framework exposes the function _IG_FetchContent() that can be used to asynchronously fetch the text at any URL.

Plaxo Is First Site To Publicly Implement OpenSocial

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 06:00:00 EST

Less than 24 hours after the launch of OpenSocial, not only was it running live in Plaxo, but there were already several first-class gadgets from top developers like RockYou and Slide. 'This is just the beginning - there's so much more to do to truly open up the social web,' wrote Plaxo's Joseph Smarr, in his personal blog on web development, tech, and life.

Microsoft Silverlight Jives With Google's OpenSocial

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 04:00:00 EST

So what kind of real social networking applications would Silverlight enable? Would it be network visualization or media playback or mash-ups? Google with its Orkut online community (a closed-source ASP.Net application) created an API for social applications so that developers can build applications that can then run inside other social networking applications. They then opened up the specification for that API to other social networking applications so that all other social networking sites can (if they want to) make their sites containers for third-party applications. So I started playing with it.

Google's OpenSocial: A Technical Overview and Critique

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 02:45:00 EST

One of the Google folks working on OpenSocial sent me a message via Facebook asking what I thought about the technical details of the recent announcements. Since my day job is working on social networking platforms for Web properties at Microsoft and I'm deeply interested in RESTful protocols, this is something I definitely have some thoughts about. Below is what started off as a private message but ended up being long enough to be its own article.

Fifty Million Facebook Users Don't Care About Google's OpenSocial APIs

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 02:30:00 EST

There are 50 million Facebook users who don't know what OpenSocial APIs are...and don't care. There are about 5,000 tech bloggers and developers who think it is a revolution that will 'Checkmate' Facebook and leave them with no moves. TechMeme has over 100 stories saying that OpenSocial is awesome and Facebook is dead. MySpace joins Google on OpenSocial initiative. OK, surely that settles it, Facebook is toast. Nope, not in my opinion.

Google's OpenSocial Initiative Gains Massive Momentum

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 04:00:00 EDT

OpenSocial, the industry-backed application programming interface (API) developed by Google to promote interoperability and shared data across all online social networks, is gaining momentum at a rapid pace. The sites that have already committed to supporting OpenSocial - Bebo, Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, mixi, MySpace, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING - represent an audience of about 200 million users globally.

Social Network Wars: Google + Everyone Else vs Facebook

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 12:45:00 EDT

In a move to bolster its attempt to add a social layer on top of the entire suite of Google services, Google yesterday joined other leading social networking players in introducing a common set of standards to allow software developers to write cross-network programs. According to The New York Times the sites in the OpenSocial alliance 'have a combined 100 million users, more than double the size of Facebook.'