Best Practices For My Space Apps

Best Practices for MySpace AppsJuly, 2009
May X, 2009

Overview
This document covers a number of best practices for developers building Apps for the MySpace Open Platform. It covers:
Growing Your User Base
Driving Engagement
Developer Guidelines

Growing Your Audience
Invitations
The most effective channel for growing your user base
Up to 20 friends can be invited at once
Most companies create their own friend selector that passes the recipients to our Invite dialog
We recommend that you filter the friends list to only include:
Users who do not have the App installed
Put Top Friends and Online friends at the top of the list
Only include regular user profiles (no bands, comedians, etc.)
Provide an option to select multiple friends, 20 friends or all friends
User’s can add additional names in the To: bar
Test variations of the invite message
Keep in mind that user’s can block receiving invites from your App

App Activities
App activities was recently expanded to show activities to all friends, thus creating a viral channel
Activities must be previewed and published manually by the end user.
Have a call-to-action to the viewers of your activities, which leads users to an OpenCanvas page that contains an add App button
An OpenCanvas page allows the developer to personalize based on the user’s ID, display name and public photos
Use the OpenCanvas to further interest the user and have a clear call-to-action to add the App
Parameters can be passed from the activity to the OpenCanvas that provide context to the App
Status Updates
Using our server-to-server REST APIs allow you to update the user’s status with a link to the canvas
It must be clear to the user that they are updating their status

You don’t have to rely on our Add App link on a canvas.
Provide your own Add App link that points to your canvas with the parameter autoInitiateInstall=true, which will bring up the Add App dialog

Unlike other social networks, MySpace Apps can have a more persistent and upfront presence on the user profile with modules
With OpenSocial you can differentiate between the userviewing the profile box or a visitor/friend viewing it
Have different calls-to-action
Personalize
Integrate personalization and animation to make yourprofile box standout and be engaging
Flash can be used on profile modules
Make sure your profile box does not have a significantnegative impact on profile page loadtime

Users can post to blogs, bulletins and profiles, which are one to many channels.
Apps can also send one to one messages to the user’s inbox
Only one user can be mailed to at a time
Posting to a comment is like sending a message to the user, but it’s publicly viewable
Users can set their comments to be approved before being displayed
All these options require user confirmation and are not available as server-to-server APIs
Blogs, messages and bulletins can contain links to the canvas and Add App page, and can contain externally hosted images

Once your viral channels are ready, invest in sponsorship in the App gallery and other parts of the site to fully launch your App
Leverage our Hypertargeting and optimization capabilities to target the right audience with the right call-to-action
Use autoInitiateInstall=1 to shorten the add App process
Use tracking parameters passed in the install callback to analyze conversion rates for various ad units

Driving Engagement
App to user notifications can be a powerful engagement channel. They can sent to any user that has the App installed.
They can be invoked in the App via OpenSocial or from the server via REST APIs.
REST must be used for bulk messaging.
Notifications should have clear call-to-actions using action buttons. They can include a media item, such as a picture of any user that has the App installed to engage the user or a picture uploaded to an album
You can upload pictures using to be released 0.9 REST APIs for photos

Driving Engagement
The user homepage (UHP) module is a great way to draw the user back into the App
Include in the UHP module personalized and timely updates of what’s happening in the App
Flash can be used in the UHP module to make it more interactive
Also make sure the UHP module does not negatively impact page load time

Developer Guidelines
Using IFRAME versus OpenSocial for your surfaces
IFRAME makes it easier to keep your App update, however there is more heavy lifting in terms of invoking OpenSocial methods for Invites and Activity Publishing and REST calls
Use IFPC library for communicating to OpenSocial from your IFRAME App
Our SDKs cam simplify using the REST APIs
Flash can either be uploaded to our CDN or served from your CDN
We now support the appropriate crossdomain.xml permissions for non-MySpace hosted Flash Apps
Leverage install and uninstall callbacks to track acquisition and churn
The URL of the page from which the App was installed is passed as a parameter in the callback
Leverage appParams and appData to pass state from modules or canvas pages to other canvas pages
Make use of adjustHeight to dynamically adjust the IFRAME on canvas to fit your content.
In the developer website, don’t login as the App and then try to create a new App

Getting Support
Stay up to date with best practices at http://developer.myspace.com
Follow our developer blog at http://developer.myspace.com/community/blogs/
Email developerrelations@myspace-inc.com
Documentation: http://wiki.developer.myspace.com
MySpaceID SDK’s: http://lnk.ms/00rb2
Follow us on Twitter @myspacedevteam

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Best Practices For My Space Apps

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