OpenSocial: A Standard for the Social Web
Patrick Chanezon
Kevin Marks
Christian Schalk
May 28, 2008

Agenda
OpenSocial Introduction
How to build OpenSocial Applications
OpenSocial Containers
Becoming an OpenSocial container
Summary

OpenSocial Introduction - Patrick
Chanezon

Making the web better
by making it social
What does social mean?

What does Social mean?
Eliette what do you do with your friends?

This work by Eliette Chanezon is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

This work by Eliette Chanezon is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

This work by Eliette Chanezon is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

This work by Eliette Chanezon is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

This work by Eliette Chanezon is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

This work by Eliette Chanezon is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

Raoul: a social object for Charlotte (3 year old)

Jaiku’s Jyri Engeström's 5 rules for social
networks: social objects
1. What is your object?
2. What are your verbs?
3. How can people share the objects?
4. What is the gift in the invitation?
5. Are you charging the publishers or the spectators?
http://tinyurl.com/yus8gw

How do we socialize objects
online
without having to create yet
another social network?

Standards create markets: Hal Varian
OpenSocial is a straightforward application of chapters 8 and 9 of his
1998 book \"Information Rules\"
“Standards change competition for a market to competition within a
market”
Network Effects
Lock-In and Switching Costs
Standards

OpenSocial
A common API for social applications
across multiple web sites

OpenSocial Foundation
OpenSocial Foundation
http://opensocial.org/
Keep the specification open
Specifications discussed in public forum
Spec evolves using an open source community process

OpenSocial Containers
friendster ®

Standards-based
html+javascript+REST+oauth

Why should you care about OpenSocial?
Developers: Distribution >275 Million users
Containers: Features
Users: More applications

This work by Eliette Chanezon is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

This work by Eliette Chanezon is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

This work by Eliette Chanezon is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

A standard for everyone
This work by Eliette Chanezon is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

How To Build OpenSocial Applications -
Chris Schalk

OpenSocial Client API
JavaScript - version 0.7 production
Standard Web development technologies
HTML + Javascript
Can integrate with 3rd party server
REST Services
Based on Atom publishing protocol
AtomPub and JSON

OpenSocial JavaScript API
The core OpenSocial Services include
People & Friends
Access friends information programmatically
Activities
See what you’re friends are up to
Share what you are doing
Persistence
Provide state without a server
Share data with your friends

People & Friends Example
Requesting friend Info
function getFriendData() {
var req = opensocial.newDataRequest();
req.add(req.newFetchPersonRequest(VIEWER),
'viewer');
req.add(req.newFetchPeopleRequest(VIEWER_FRIENDS),
'viewerFriends');
req.send(onLoadFriends);
}

People & Friends Example
Callback function for returned friend data
function onLoadFriends(resp) {
var viewer = resp.get('viewer').getData();
var viewerFriends = resp.get('viewerFriends').getData();
var html = 'Friends of ' +
viewer.getDisplayName() + ‘:<br><ul>’;
viewerFriends.each(function(person) {
html += '<li>' + person.getDisplayName()+'</li>';});
html += '</ul>';
document.getElementById('friends').innerHTML = html;
}

Activities Example
Posting an activity
function postActivity(text) {
var params = {};
params[opensocial.Activity.Field.TITLE] = text;
var activity = opensocial.newActivity(params);
opensocial.requestCreateActivity(activity,
opensocial.CreateActivityPriority.HIGH, callback);
}
postActivity(\"This is a sample activity, created at \" +
new Date().toString())
}

Persistence Example
Persisting data
function populateMyAppData() {
var req = opensocial.newDataRequest();
var data1 = Math.random() * 5;
var data2 = Math.random() * 100;
req.add(req.newUpdatePersonAppDataRequest(\"VIEWER\",
\"AppField1\", data1));
req.add(req.newUpdatePersonAppDataRequest(\"VIEWER\",
\"AppField2\", data2));
req.send(requestMyData);
}

Persistence Example
Fetching persisted data
function requestMyData() {
var req = opensocial.newDataRequest();
var fields = [\"AppField1\", \"AppField2\"];
req.add(req.newFetchPersonRequest(
opensocial.DataRequest.PersonId.VIEWER), \"viewer\");
req.add(req.newFetchPersonAppDataRequest(\"VIEWER\",
fields), \"viewer_data\");
req.send(handleReturnedData);
}

Persistence Example
Displaying fetched (persisted) data
function handleReturnedData(data) {
var mydata = data.get(\"viewer_data\");
var viewer = data.get(\"viewer\");
me = viewer.getData(); // me is global var
var data = mydata[me.getId()];
htmlout += \"AppField1: \" + data[\"AppField1\"] + \"<br/>\";
htmlout += \"AppField2: \" + data[\"AppField2\"] + \"<br/>\";
var div = document.getElementById('content_div');
div.innerHTML = htmlout;
}

Demonstration - Building OpenSocial
Applications using the JavaScript API

Server-side REST Services
Accessing People information
/people/{guid}/@all
-- Collection of all people connected to user {guid}
/people/{guid}/@friends
-- Collection of all friends of user {guid}
-- subset of @all
/people/{guid}/@self
-- Profile record for user {guid}
/people/@me/@self
-- Profile record for requestor

Server-side REST Services
Accessing Activities information
/activities/{guid}/@self
-- Collection of activities generated by given user
/activities/{guid}/@friends
-- Collection of activities for friends of the given user
{guid}

Server-side REST Services
Accessing Persistent data
/appdata/{guid}/@self/{appid}
-- All data for user {guid}, app {appid}
/appdata/{guid}/@friends/{appid}
-- All data for friends of user {guid} and app
{appid}; read-only

Server-side REST Services
Additional query parameters
format={format}
-- Format desired; one of (atom, json); default is json
fields={field+}
-- List of fields to include in request
startPage={startPage}
-- Index into a paged collection
count={count}
-- Set page size for paged collection

Demonstration - Using the OpenSocial
REST Services

OpenSocial ServerSide Integration Options
In addition to using the provided persistence API...
Establish a \"home\" site where gadget can phone
home to retrieve, post data
Can host home site on your own, or use services:
Amazon EC2
Joyent
Google AppEngine

Google AppEngine and OpenSocial
Create an App Engine app as your backend!
Use makeRequest() to call back to your AppEngine
server
Utilize AppEngine's datastore
New OpenSocial Apps are coming online
BuddyPoke...
Checkout Lane Liabraaten’s OpenSocial-AppEngine
integration article
http://code.google.com/apis/opensocial/articles/appengine.html
Google IO Code Lab about OpenSocial Apps in the Cloud

Resources For Application Developers
Specification
http://opensocial.org/
http://groups.google.com/group/opensocial-and-gadgets-spec
Code Samples and Tools
http://code.google.com/opensocial
http://code.google.com/p/opensocial-resources/
Sandboxes
http://developer.myspace.com/
http://www.hi5networks.com/developer/
http://opensocial.ning.com/
http://code.google.com/apis/orkut/
http://code.google.com/apis/igoogle/
http://en.netlog.com/go/developer/opensocial

OpenSocial Containers - Kevin Marks

Containers provide a social context
OpenSocial separates application logic from social context
an app sees user ids - the container makes them people
Users understand the social contract of the containers
Save apps and users from re-registration hell

Containers don’t choose users
Containers set up the social model, users choose to join
they grow through homophily and affinity
Network effect can bring unexpected userbases

OpenSocial gets you to all their users
You don't have to pick a site to specialise for
You get to spread through multiple friend groups
You'll be surprised by where your users are
so make sure you plan to localize

Not just Social Network Sites
Social network sites - Profiles and home pages
Personal dashboards
Sites based around a Social Object
Corporate CRM systems
Any web site
How do we abstract these out?
Viewer + friends
Owner + friends

The Viewer and Viewer friends

Owner and Owner friends

Owner and Viewer
are defined by Container
The Application gets IDs and connections to other IDs

the Owner need not be a Person
It could be an organisation
or a social object

Kinds of container - Social network
sites
Profile pages
Owner is profile page owner
Viewer may not be known, may be owner or other
member
Home pages
Owner is Viewer (must be logged in to see)
Examples
MySpace
Hi5
Orkut

Kinds of container - Personal
dashboard
like Home pages
Owner is Viewer (must be logged in to see)
Friends may not be defined
Example:
iGoogle, My Yahoo

Kinds of container - Social Object site
Pages reflect the object - movie, picture, product
Owner is the object
Owner friends are people connected to the object
may be authors or fans
Viewer is looking at it, Viewer friends are people you
may want to share with
Example:
Imeem is a bit like this
- opportunity for sites like Flickr, YouTube

Kinds of container - CRM systems
Pages reflect the customer
Owner is the customer
Owner friends are people connected to the customer
may be your colleagues, or other customers
Viewer is you, Viewer friends are your colleagues or
customers
Example:
Oracle CRM, Salesforce

Kinds of container - Any web site
Owner is the site
Owner friends are site users
Viewer is you,
Viewer friends are your friends who have visited this site
Example:
Google Friend Connect will enable this for any site

Container Sites control policy
Check the Environment
Getting information
Viewer information may not be available
or it may be hidden from you
Call requestPermission API that can prompt the users
Spreading your application
Activities display under container control
RequestSendMessage
RequestShareApp
Monetization and Installation
Meet the Containers (next session)
Best Practices for Spreading your App (tomorrow)

Netlog demo

Becoming an Open Social Container -
Chris Schalk

Becoming an OpenSocial Container
Question:
How do you become an OpenSocial container?
Answer:
Utilize existing Open Source container code.
The Apache incubator project “Shindig” serves this
purpose!

Apache Shindig
What is Shindig?
Open source software that allows you to host
OpenSocial applications
Is currently an Apache Software Incubator project
Heavy partner involvement (Ning, hi5 …)
Serves as open source reference implementation of
OpenSocial & gadgets technologies
It’s Goal:
“Shindig's goal is to allow new sites to start hosting social apps
in well under an hour's worth of work\"

Apache Shindig Info...
Apache Shindig Website
http://incubator.apache.org/shindig

Demonstration - Implementing your own
container using Shindig

SocialSite
SocialSite is an Open Source project that allows you to turn
your web application in an OpenSocial container
Leverages Apache Shindig
Built by Sun (Dave \"Roller\" Johnson), announced at
JavaOne this month
Adds a database and widgets to manage your social
network

SocialSite Architecture
Details at https://socialsite.dev.java.net/

Summary
OpenSocial is making the web more social
The current version 0.7 is in production
REST API and 0.8 coming soon
Developers can start creating social applications today
Orkut, Myspace, hi5, Netlog open to 200 M users now
iGoogle, IDTail, Hyves, Imeem sandboxes
Social sites: implement OpenSocial
get Shindig and start planning
SocialSite
Friend Connect
Advertisers: create brand advertising Apps now

OpenSocial Sessions at Google I/O
12 sessions
Building an OpenSocial Application, Focus on Client Side APIs
Apache Shindig: Make Your Social Site an OpenSocial Container
OpenSocial - Scaling and Analytics, Nuts & Bolts
URLs Are People Too - Using the Social Graph API to Build a Social Web
Fireside Chat: OpenSocial
OpenSocial at MySpace: Creating popular apps on MySpace
OpenSocial across Containers
OpenSocial Specification: What's Next for OpenSocial
Monetizing Application Traffic On Social Network
OpenSocial, OpenID, and OAuth: Oh, My!
Best Practices for Spreading Your App without Ruining the User
Experience
Building on the Promise of OpenSocial
2 code labs
Make Your Social Site an OpenSocial Container Using Shindig
Building an OpenSocial Application in the Cloud

Q&A