Mark Halvorson from Atlassian Software here! You may have read my blog post a while back about Why Enterprise Software Provider Atlassian chose OpenSocial Atlassian. We've been working hard over the past year adding an OpenSocial container based on Shindig into JIRA 4. I'm writing today because we've got some cool news for all you gadget developers out there.
But before I mention that, I wanted to give you a heads up about Atlassian. We build affordable, lightweight software that helps enterprises collaborate better. Our products include Confluence, recognized as the most widely-used enterprise wiki, and JIRA, one of the world's most popular issue trackers for IT project management. We also make a bunch of developer tools to help you write great code. Check us out.
We're excited to announce Atlassian Codegeist IV, our fourth annual plugin competition. We're giving away over $50,000 in prizes for the coolest, most useful, most elegant plugin or integration for any of Atlassian's products. There are six prizes, each worth $5,000 in cash, and thousands
more in software, conference tickets, and even a new MacBook!
But the interesting thing for the OpenSocial community is that because JIRA 4 is now an OpenSocial Container, and gadgets are now a big part of our plugin competition! To jumpstart our gadget development, we're sponsoring a category for best OpenSocial gadget inside JIRA. In JIRA 4, we're focusing on the gadgets part of the spec, with more Social features to come in our next release. OpenSocial is a brand new technology for our community, so the field is wide open.
We've also got a first- and second-place Best Plugin prizes, and three other specific categories for different types of plugins (each still worth $5,000). There's something here for everyone, including opportunities beyond traditional Java development.
This year we will even be announcing the winners live on October 21 at AtlasCamp, our premier developer conference. You need not be present to win, but it sure will be more fun!
You can use the Developer Forums to communicate with your peers, find team-members, ask questions, and publicize your awesome new plugin. The Atlassian Developer Community is strong, and Codegeist is a wonderful chance to collaborate with other developers.
Check out the Codegeist website for more information and get started today.
Thanks, and Happy Coding!
http://www.atlassian.com/
Write a Gadget, Win $5000!
Wednesday, September 23, 2009 at 3:55:00 PM
MySpace Full Support of OpenSocial 0.9 REST APIs Now Available
Tuesday, September 22, 2009 at 9:45:00 AM
MySpace is pleased to unleash our full support of OpenSocial 0.9. MySpace's OpenSocial 0.9 implementation was built on an entirely new framework with three main goals in mind for developers; stability, performance and compliance to the OpenSocial 0.9 specification. These three goals will yield more consistent results, fewer errors, and means that your code should be even more portable to other social networks that support OpenSocial.
While we're labeling this as a BETA, we feel our APIs are in a very solid state and are ready for widespread use. The PHP and C# SDKs have been fully updated to use all of the new 0.9 APIs we have available. The other SDKs are currently being updated for your use and we've started to update the community-supported SDKs found at opensocial.org.
Documentation for all the APIs can be found here:
- Activities : Provides the event data found in the MySpace Activity Stream.
- Albums : Support for fetching, creating and updating photo albums.
- AppData : A generic key/value store that your app can use to fetch, update and delete data relevant to your app.
- Groups : Provides information on a user's friend categories.
- MediaItems : Photo support, including photo uploads.
- People : Gives access to a user's profile data, as well as their friends' profile data.
- StatusMood : Allows support for updating and fetching a user's status and mood, as well as fetching their friends' status and mood.
- Notifications : Create app notifications that are displayed in the recipient's mail center.
Japan's mixi has launched its OpenSocial Container for all users!
Thursday, September 17, 2009 at 4:39:00 PM
Hello! My name is Yoichiro Tanaka, and I belong to the Platform Team of mixi, Inc. "mixi" is currently the most popular social networking service (SNS) in Japan and has more than 17 million registered users. I am happy to announce that we have released "mixi apps" which is based on OpenSocial to all of our users. As of September 4th, more than 220 apps have already been registered and launched!
Background
mixi was originally launched in February 2004 as one of the first social networking services in Japan. It lets users create profiles, make friends with other users, post diaries, discuss in communities, share pictures and music with friends, etc.
mixi apps is a new service which lets social application providers develop applications that use social graphs formed within mixi, and provide these applications to mixi users. To achieve this, we chose OpenSocial as the best solution.
In order to be ready with a quality set of applications for our public launch, we have been running a beta version of mixi apps for our developers since last December.
Applications
Since our launch of mixi apps, we are finding some applications that are substantially more popular than others. Here's two of the more popular applications.
The first application is "Kanji test" produced by Drecom. It challenges users, who compete against each other, to write down how to read Kanji characters (also known as to "furiganize"). It also shows the ranking of the number of Kanji sets that the user successfully furiganized. In the relatively short period since it has been available to users, it has skyrocketed in popularity and already has over three hundred thousand users!
The next application is "Recollect sketch" produced by REAL. Users are given a theme, and are challenged to draw it entirely from memory! What results is usually a very unique and funny image which users can share and enjoy with friends. This application is visually entertaining and social, and it already has about one hundred thousand users.
The preceding applications are just a sample of the continually growing application directory of mixi apps, which averages several new applications per day!
Supported Features
- OpenSocial 0.8.1 core APIs (People, Activities, Persistence, and Invite).
- The gadgets "core" and "feature-Specific" APIs (mostly supported).
- Partly supports Albums API in OpenSocial 0.9.
- A mixi specific "Community API," which allows application access to mixi community (or group) information along with its members.
Upcoming Supported Features
- Sending a notification between users using a requestSendMessage function.
- Sending a event of app's life-cycle for developers.
mixi Ad Program
In addition to mixi apps, we have also recently announced the "mixi Ad Program". This service is one of the business support programs from mixi for developers. If you decide to join this service, ads will be shown within your application, and you will make profits through revenue sharing based on your application's page view. This service has already started from September 3rd, 2009.
The features of "mixi Ad Program" are the following:
- Registry and usage fee are free!
- Both corporate and individual developers can join this program.
- Ordering and confirming your reports is easy through a single management page.
- Assured profit of a minimum of 0.01 yen per page view.
More information on this service can be found at:
http://developer.mixi.co.jp/
We believe this production release of "mixi apps" and overall support of the OpenSocial standards will enable us to easily continue innovating on compelling future social services for our users. In addition, we hope that our business support programs will greatly contribute to developing the market of mixi apps.
Business of Social Applications
Tuesday, September 15, 2009 at 9:03:00 AM
In just over two years, social applications have greatly enhanced the user experience on social networks. The number of app installs among social networks has climbed into the billions, creating an industry with hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue. In this series of blog posts we are going to cover a wide range of topics such as business models, characteristics of successful apps, best practices, and metrics/stats.
Historic Overview
The industry started out with the introduction of the Facebook Application Platform but has since expanded to many other social networks all over the world thanks to the OpenSocial standard. Social networks that benefited from adoption of OpenSocial include MySpace, orkut, hi5, Yahoo, and more than 20 other social networks. You can visit the OpenSocial
wiki for technical details, tutorials and samples, and check out the Containers page for a comprehensive listing of all the OpenSocial networks along with traffic and demographics data.
In a short period of time, social applications have gone through two distinct phases in terms of feature richness and monetization methods. The first phase was dominated by apps providing simple social interactions such as self-expression or giving gifts. The second phase exhibits increasingly sophisticated characteristics in apps such as game design patterns (levels, points, rankings, etc.) and user generated content.
Business Models Overview
The business models of social apps have closely followed the development of social apps. In the first phase, the most revenue was generated from traditional display ads, supplemented by affiliate/referral offers and app installs. This worked well for simple interactive apps with relatively low engagement because users quickly moved on to next thing, be it an ad, a link or another app install. In this phase, less engagement by users in apps kept page view inventory in balance with available ads, resulting in high eCPM and profits for developers.
As apps matured in sophistication and richness, users became much more engaged with apps, less inclined to click on ads, links, or another app installs. Higher engagement also generated much higher demand for page view inventory, outweighing the supply from ad networks and therefore reducing eCPM rates. Out of necessity, app developers learned to take advantage of high user engagement by selling virtual goods, and in doing so, creating virtual economy business models that have provided the second boost to the ecosystems of social apps.
Stay tuned as we explore the business of social apps in upcoming posts on the OpenSocial blog.
Ning Apps Launch Across 1.5 Million Ning Networks
Thursday, September 10, 2009 at 8:33:00 AM
Today we released Ning Apps, or third-party applications based on OpenSocial 0.8, that serve as new, rich features for our 1.5 million+ Ning Networks and 33 million users.
Thanks to OpenSocial and more than 90 Ning App developers, our Ning Network Creators now have an even greater choice over the features and applications they can add to Ning Networks to make them exactly right for a given topic, interest or passion.
If you don’t know about Ning, we’re the social platform for the world’s interests and passions online. Through the power of Ning Networks, we bring the context of topics, interests and passions to social networking. We’ve been at work on Ning Apps in a private beta for a few months now and our Network Creators love Ning Apps for three key reasons.
First, with a single click, a Ning Network Creator can now add Ning Apps to expand the functionality of their Ning Network and increase engagement by their members. Most social platforms rely exclusively on members adding applications to their profile pages, but when a Network Creator adds a Ning App, that Ning App is available to all of the members of that Ning Network in a flash. This means that with one action, a Network Creator can make their Ning App available to hundreds, thousands or even millions of people instantaneously. This is a different – and we think better – approach to application distribution.
Second, with the breadth of Ning Apps, the options on Ning Networks are infinite for Network Creators. Here are some examples of how Ning Networks can use Ning Apps to engage their unique audience in a relevant and effective way.
For Artist, Musician or Entertainment Ning Networks
- Sellit online store to sell merchandise
- Ticketmaster or LiveNation to sell event tickets
- Qik to stream mobile video or Ustream.tv to live video chat from a live event
- Social Giving by Pinc to support fundraising efforts
- Marketplace Classifieds to allow people to post and search local ads for more volunteers and resources
- BlogTalkRadio to host live radio shows
- PollDaddy to rapidly gauge members level of involvement
- Huddle to share workspaces and collateral
- Tungle.me to schedule meetings and mobilize members
- WordPress to display blog posts
For Sports Fan or Extreme Athlete Ning Networks
- NewsShare to share highlights and stories
- Emote to share real time reactions to games and players
You can see the Full Ning Apps Directory at about.ning.com/ningapps.
Third, Ning Apps are completely integrated into Ning Networks by design. Ning Apps support gadgets.skins, allowing them to automatically inherit the visual style of the Ning Network to which they're added. Additionally, each Ning App by default is designed to write to a member's Latest Activity feed, send messages on behalf of the member (via requestSendMessage) and drive distribution using a Ning Network’s default viral sharing options.
If you're a developer interested in more info, please check out our Ning Developer Network. If you're a Ning Network Creator, please visit the full Ning Apps Directory on your Ning Network to start adding Ning Apps today.
Check out Cyworld's developer sandbox
Wednesday, September 02, 2009 at 8:31:00 AM
Annyonghaseyo! This is Kyle Kim from Cyworld with some exciting news!
We have recently launched Dev.Square a sandbox environment for Cyworld developers. In celebration of the launch, we had a big announcement conference in Seoul with over 750 people attending (see the photos here). I'd like to thank everyone who attended the conference as well as those who contacted us after reading our previous post.
For developers in Korea who are interested in writing applications for Cyworld, we are hosting a workshop on September 4, 2009. Speakers from our partner companies (including Mickey Kim and Chris Schalk from Google) will host sessions on OpenSocial APIs, social gaming, and trends within the social apps industry. For more details on the workshop, please visit the Dev.Square website.
The DevSquare website is currently available in Korean and English; Language settings can be changed from the drop-down menu at the bottom of the page. In order to register as a developer, you should first register as a Nate/Cyworld member. We apologize for the cumbersome process, but do not miss this opportunity to access our 24 million Cyworld users / 27 million NateOn (IM) users.
For English comments / questions, please contact Dyne (dynelee@skcomms.co.kr), and for Korean comments / questions, contact devsquare@nate.com.
We have also created an official Twitter page. Please follow us for frequent updates.
