Top 5 Tips for Building Viral Social Web Applications and Sites

Top 5 Tips for Building Viral Social Web Applications and Sites
Jonathan LeBlanc
Developer Evangelist
Email: jleblanc@x.com
Twitter: @jcleblanc

Programming Social Applications Building Viral Experiences with OpenSocial, OAuth, OpenID, and Distributed Web Frameworks
http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920014201.do
Foundation for socializing applications and websites.
Open Source foundation.

Using Open Source Solutions The foundation for “Programming Social Applications”
Open source is not the be all end all, it’s simply a solid foundation.

The Core Principals
Build for the relevant social & interest graphs
Understand your sharing model and integrate early
Use the work that other companies have invested in
Build for all available outlets
Use emerging social technologies

Build for relevant graphs A Poll
When do you integrate social outreach channels in your products?

Build for relevant graphs What do social and interest graphs consist of?

Build for relevant graphs Understanding Relationship Models
Follower Model
Connection Model
Group Model

Build for relevant graphs Integration Success and Failure of Zynga
First round of “Mafia Wars” as an initial game partner for YAP in 2009. Failed to produce high install rates and difficult to integrate.
Second integration of “Mafia Wars” and “FishVille” in late 2010. Higher install rates, new viral channels and little integration pain.

Build for relevant graphs Example Technology: WebFinger
http://code.google.com/p/webfinger/

Build for relevant graphs WebFinger: Origin through the finger protocol
finger jleblanc@x.com
Login name: jleblanc
In real life: Jonathan LeBlanc
Home phone: 123-4567
Office: San Jose, CA
Last Login: Tue Oct 4 12:41 on ttys000
jleblanc@x.com
http://www.jcleblanc.com

Build for relevant graphs WebFinger: How it Works

Build for relevant graphs WebFinger: Performing WebFinger Discovery
curl http://gmail.com/.well-known/host-meta
<XRD xmlns='http://docs.oasis-open.org/ns/xri/xrd-1.0'
xmlns:hm='http://host-meta.net/xrd/1.0'>
<hm:Hostxmlns='http://host-meta.net/xrd/1.0'>
gmail.com</hm:Host>
<Link rel='lrdd' template=
'http://www.google.com/s2/webfinger/?q={uri}'>
<Title>Resource Descriptor</Title>
</Link>
</XRD>

Build for relevant graphs WebFinger: Performing WebFinger Discovery
curl http://www.google.com/s2/webfinger/?q=nakedtechnologist@gmail.com
The User Profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/nakedtechnologist
The portable contacts link: http://www-opensocial.googleusercontent.com/api/people/118167121283215553793/
The public Google Buzz feed: https://www.googleapis.com/buzz/v1/activities/118167121283215553793/@public

The Core Principals

Understanding your sharing model The real life versus online social graph

Understanding your sharing model Sharing Models
The Opt-in Model
The Opt-out Model

Understanding your sharing model Case study: The oversharing application

Understanding your sharing model Example Technology: PubSubHubbub
http://code.google.com/p/pubsubhubbub/

Understanding your sharing model PubSubHubbub: How it Works

Understanding your sharing model Example Technology: The Salmon Protocol
www.salmon-protocol.org

Understanding your sharing model The Salmon Protocol: How it Works

Understanding your sharing model The Salmon Protocol: Things to Consider
Is the content coming from a trusted source?
How does the publisher prevent spam or abuse?
How does the publisher ensure the quality of the updates?

Understanding your sharing model The Salmon Protocol: Determining Source
Subscriber sends signed request to publisher (e.g. using acct:johndoe@subscriber.example.com).
Publisher performs discovery on endpoint to verify identity provider.
Webfinger
LRDD (Link-based Resource Descriptor)
Provider verifies signature via public keys obtained during discovery.

The Core Principals

Use Existing Technology Don’t reinvent the wheel!

Use Existing Technology Partner Strategies: Failure to Integrate Company “ABC”
Third round partner integrating with our social services.
They created their own OAuth implementation since we did not have an appropriate SDK.
Integration failed near completion of the code.

Use Existing Technology Example Technology: The Open Graph Protocol
http://ogp.me/

Use Existing Technology Open Graph Protocol: How Web Semantics Work

Use Existing Technology Open Graph Protocol: How Web Semantics Work
Geo
<span class="geo">
<span class="latitude">52.48</span>,
<span class="longitude">-1.89</span>
</span>
vCard
<div class="vcard">
<div class="fn">Joe Doe</div>
<div class="org">The Example Company</div>
<div class="tel">604-555-1234</div>
<a class="url" href="http://site.com/">http://site.com/</a>
</div>

Use Existing Technology Open Graph Protocol: Vision of the Semantic Web

Use Existing Technology Open Graph Protocol: Reality of the Semantic Web

Use Existing Technology Open Graph Protocol: What Changed

Use Existing Technology Open Graph Protocol: The Metadata Format
<html xmlns:og="http://ogp.me/ns#">
<head>
<title>Restaurant at Wente Vineyards – Livermore</title>
<meta property="og:url"
content="http://www.yelp.com/biz/gATFcG9HTaXJpg">
<meta property="og:type" content="restaurant">
<meta property="og:title"
content="The Restaurant at Wente Vineyards">
<meta property="og:image"
content="http://media2.px.yelpcdn.com/iVSnIs">
...
</head>
...
</html>

Use Existing Technology Open Graph Protocol: What is Defined?
Basic Metadata
Location
Contact Information
Video Data
Audio Data
Objects
Activities
Businesses
Groups
Organizations
People
Places
Products and Entertainment
Websites

The Core Principals

Build for all available outletsBeing Platform Agnostic
Facebook was a primary outlet for Zynga when they integrated OpenSocial containers.
They built an abstraction layer on top of every platform. One game, multiple endpoints.

Build for all available outletsExample Technology: OpenSocial
Foundation Specification for Social Applications and Containers.
Shindig is a practical implementation of OpenSocial.
Partuza is a sample social container.

Build for all available outletsOpenSocial View Foundations
Profile
Full
Home

Build for all available outletsExample Technology: Activity Streams
Defines a social activity
Platform agnostic
Integrated into OpenSocial

The Core Principals

Use emerging social technologies The early bird gets the worm
By the time a system is popular, your chances of making headway are slim.
Dedicate resources to working on and contributing to open systems

Use emerging social technologies How lack of innovation lead to failure in YDN
Failure to move quickly on new technologies.
Security prevented innovation.
Not seen as a technology leader.

Use emerging social technologies A Poll
Do you or your companies allot time for emerging technologies?

Use emerging social technologies Authorization Systems – OAuth 1
Authorize applications and sites to do something on your behalf.
Signing done on side of integrator.
Lengthy integration process.

Use emerging social technologies Authorization Systems – OAuth2
Significantly improved integration time.
Communication over HTTPS

?
Questions
Jonathan LeBlanc
Twitter: @jcleblanc
E-Mail: jleblanc@x.com
http://www.slideshare.net/jcleblanc

Top 5 Tips for Building Viral Social Web Applications and Sites

by Jonathan LeBlanc on Oct 04, 2011

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Top 5 Tips for Building Viral Social Web Applications and Sites — Presentation Transcript