The document discusses leveraging cloud computing platforms and services for social media applications. It outlines the different types of cloud services including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS). Examples are given of major cloud providers like Amazon Web Services, Google, Facebook, and Twitter and how their platforms and APIs can be used to build social applications.

1. Leveraging the Cloud for Social Media Ed Laczynski LTech 5/25/2010

2. Cloud 101 The Big 4 Showcase Field Notes Q&A

4. Cloud 101 8 confusing definitions on google “ massively scalable capabilities provided as a service on the Internet” Extreme programmability through open APIs Embrace standards Disruptive and flexible pricing Startup friendly “ Easy” to use Map http:// www.appirio.com /ecosystem/

5. Business View Gartner - $150B by 2013 Start-ups love it - http://leanstartup.pbworks.com VC’s love it - Good adjective to have. “ revolutionary from business model perspective, creating a multi-year investment opportunity” – Lazard Capital (Nov 2009)

6. Know your aaS’s IaaS - Infrastructure Closest “to the metal.” Raw server power. PaaS - Platform Structured. Turnkey. SaaS – Software and API Hundreds of services. Building blocks.

7. Infrastructure Clouds Amazon Web Services Terramark Rackspace Media Temple Microsoft Azure Google Storage Akamai IT focused Put anything you want on them Priced on utility basis Low-level services

10. 0-5000 servers in 5 days

11. Platform Clouds Google AppEngine Force.com EngineYard Joyent Azure Developer focused Language restricted Instrumentation included Higher-level

13. Software Clouds Salesforce.com Google Apps Mailchimp Sendgrid APIs and Toolkits – “The Web” Business user focused Configuration restricted API and mashup friendly

15. APIs and Toolkits Facebook Twitter OpenSocial OAuth and OpenID RSS and MRSS Feeds

16. What does that mean for social apps? Cloud = Low Startup Cost and Agility Infrastructure If your app is successful, you’ll need to use IaaS at some point. Platform If your app meets certain use cases, you’ll want to consider PaaS Software Your app will almost certainly use SaaS / API at some level.

17. Your Social App = (Infrastructure AND/OR Platform Services) + Software and API Services

19. The Big 4

20. Google Google Platform, API, and some infrastructure OpenSocial / Google Accounts Google Apps Marketplace Google AppEngine Google Buzz Android http://code.google.com

21. Amazon Amazon Web Services Infrastructure Focus EC2 S3 and Cloud Front Powers platforms and important SaaS vendors Amazon Affiliates and related APIs Most widely used public infrastructure cloud http://amazon.com/aws

22. Facebook Platform (FBML) and API World-class API and integration capabilities Thousands of apps, many huge successes in their own rights Zynga – Runs on Amazon EC2 ($1B+ valuation) Cloud innovator: Built on cloud power and open source http://developers.facebook.com

23. Twitter Clean and well written API Social networking leader Millions of users Along with Facebook, great place to incubate new apps to gain reach http://dev.twitter.com/

24. Showcase http://www.huffingtonpost.com - great social media and cloud integration Animoto – http://www.animoto.com EngineYard - http://www.engineyard.com http://www.gogosend.com launch TweetDeck

25. Field Notes

26. Social Media Cloud Ideas Store images on Amazon S3 Run your Rails app on EngineYard Connect your users to Facebook Run your customer support with ZenDesk.com Search twitter with Twitter Search API Build a web scraper and run it on Amazon Store your data on an Amazon RDS Database Build a great social app, and add an open API.

27. What (software dev) platform? For social media apps, hard to beat Ruby on Rails. Pathable – used for this conference! Twitter iLike Lots more http://rubyonrails.org/applications Why? Amazing developer community Really, really, really powerful plugins and “gems” PHP also great option. Java for Android apps.

28. Where should I deploy? Ruby on Rails? Engine Yard or Joyent, unless you have really spot on IT guys, then maybe directly to Amazon Existing Java app? Amazon, Rackspace, Terramark are all good. They support Windows/.NET too. PHP can be used anywhere. Media Temple is a good option here. Wherever it is, make sure you understand the pricing and the lock-in.

29. When not to deploy to cloud? When you have a “small” app with limited reach (internal business app). When you have to be behind a corporate firewall (possible but complicated). If you own a datacenter already with a large sunk cost (you won’t need it yet).

30. Pitfalls to avoid I want to write my own <common business function> I want to use <non-open source language/platform> My friend told me that <some database other than MySql> is the best. I can host this myself on <some cheap $5/mo webhosting provider>.

31. Thanks! Ed Laczynski http://twitter.com/edla http://techcloud.com http://www.ltech.com LinkedIn [email_address]