DISQUS

@Mike, you might want to check out Gabtastik. It's not integrated chat like Adium or Digsby, but it does allow you run Facebook chat outside of your main browser on the Mac desktop.

Well that was sooner than expected. ;-)

Porting our OpenSocial app (Hypercube) to iGoogle took about half an hour (the iGoogle canvas only maximizes if you use multiple Content definitions, so some code restructuring was required).

If you've added the sandbox you can check out Hypercube in iGoogle:
http://www.amnestywidgets.com/hypercube/oshost/...

I don't personally use Orkut, but yes we're launching our OpenSocial app on Orkut (it's live now on MySpace and hi5, see www.amnestywidgets.com/HypercubeOS.html). Because we had already ported the app from Facebook to Friendster the move to OpenSocial wasn't too much work (Facebook specific code had already been identied and replaced). Most of our work for Orkut was providing a Portuguese translation so that we cover as many of Orkut's existing users as possible.

True, the platforms are rolling out slowly and the user uptake is slow compared to Facebook, but competition is always good for the enduser.

Although I have no confirmation of this, my gut tells me Google will be migrating iGoogle (which has a mindboggling huge user base) to OpenSocial. That will make moving to OpenSocial much more attractive to app developers.

Feinberg's analysis appears to be enlightening, but if there was really no contractual obligation to the brothers then Facebook would not be settling.

I believe Feinberg overlooks that a verbal agreement (which can be legally binding) was in place. It may be true that the brothers were too tied up in their rowing to ever meet their end of the deal, but that has no bearing on the case. It certainly wouldn't have been fair, but fair != legal.

Facebook has not much goodwill at stake via this case and could have afforded to take this all the way to court. A settlement here, IMHO, appears to imply that the case wasn't as completely bogus as Feinberg suggests.

The problem with the "personal branding" movement is that any widespread adoption dooms it to failure: Brands are built via marketing but their success is determined by the masses; if you put out the right message, you could be chosen to represent a viewpoint that the populous reveres higher than the noise. But by definition, that is an elite group -- most actors are unknowns, most companies are unheard of, and most bloggers are unread. Building an online presence and community of your friends, peers, admirers and colleagues can be personally rewarding, but if everybody does it, then it becomes the norm. True brands will always be the realm of the chosen few, and no amount of blogging, twittering or networking is going to change that. IMHO, social media is simply a new cog in the old mass media machine.

Not sure if "impossible" is quite the right word; it's definitely possible, especially if you've made sure to keep up with Google's various releases on the Orkut sandbox. Our OpenSocial app (Hypercube) on MySpace required minor changes and Orkut is good to go. Hi5 will also take minor changes, but we'll be ready! :-)

Edit: I meant the "gadgets" Javascript namespace in step 2 above....

Given the reality of proprietary OpenSocial extensions like the one offerred by MySpace, IMHO the ideal development path for OpenSocial is the following:

1) Design your OpenSocial app to adhere strictly to the Google spec (currently at 0.7). This should suffice for most functions (profile/friend queries, rendering, sharing and activity stream pushing).

2) Write alternative paths for code that uses Google's "widgets" Javascript namespace, since not all containers (e.g. MySpace) implement them.

Ta da, you have an OpenSocial app that can run on any container, including Orkut and MySpace. Finally,

3) If your apps want to take advantage of extra metadata available via platform-specific, then go for it, making sure to test for existence of those calls in your code.

If you follow this path then you don't have to worry about "coding to the platform."

@Paul, the idea behind the Social Graph API is for the social network to populate the metadata straight from it's own social graph, so in theory, as long as the social network fully populates the metadata, there should be no difference between that data and the data that is inherent to Facebook's social graph.

When it comes to discovery of a user's social graph, the Social Graph API is essentially retroactive -- if a social network implements it, then all of its users' "Add Friends" (past, present and future) will be discoverable via the API. If significant adoption occurs, the real question won't have to do with how easy it is to extend your social graph, it'll be whether Facebook's social graph is more valuable than the sum of all the social graphs available on every other network that implements the OpenSocial API.

In that sense, the Social Graph API is taking on Facebook in the same manner as OpenSocial: Facebook vs. everyone else. And as with OpenSocial, its success will be measured by how many major players get on board.

Canter has it completely wrong, but only because Google did such a poor job of defining OpenSocial that the blogosphere somehow assumed OpenSocial had something to do with social graph portability (hint: it doesn't).

OpenSocial is simply a broadly defined abstraction for connecting social "containers" (e.g. platforms that manage a user's activity stream, friends and profile information) with social "applications" (e.g. web apps that manage this data and render inside containers).

In that sense, OpenSocial is exactly what it is designed to be: an "open" standard for social applications (vs. the proprietary standard defined by Facebook).

As to whether the standard is more than "OpenGadgets": anyone can sign up for OpenSocial sandbox access and see for themselves: as of today, the Orkut sandbox has OpenSocial 0.6 implemented and yes, OpenSocial apps exist today that embrace the "social and profile components of a site."

And thanks to projects such as Shindig, OpenSocial apps are going to be running on more sites than people think.

NOMINATE: Hypercube on Facebook, allow users to discover, collect and share web widgets -- like those from Google, Widgetbox, yourminis, etc. -- directly inside Facebook.

http://www.amnestywidgets.com/HypercubeFB.html

Everything you want to know about bypassing activation on the iPhone:
http://www.hacktheiphone.com/iphone_bypass_acti...

IMHO, the safest (e.g. non-hacking) method is at the bottom "How to get a pre-paid plan" -- that way you pay $50 once, and if the need arises you can always use your prepaid minutes to make a call.

Good luck!

"They can be built totally in Ajax/JavaScript/HTML" is true ONLY if the AIR runtime is already installed on the client. Ergo, if Apple isn't allowing third-party runtimes on the iPhone then AIR apps are still out of luck. IMHO, the non-Flash announcement is meant to broaden AIR's appeal to developers.