OpenSocial: standards-based apps for all social networks

[Diego]

It's been widely reported that Ning will join Google and others this Thursday for an announcement of a new set of Open APIs for applications to that can be embedded in many social networks. I have added to this discussion on my blog, but wanted to note here that when this goes live on Ning it will be supported across all Ning networks with appropriate controls for network creators to disable, enable, etc.

The OpenSocial apps will be similar in functionality to Facebook apps, so it will be another great way of adding new stuff to Ning networks. We plan to aggressively support these APIs, but we will also continue to work on improving the developer experience on Ning itself. That is, OpenSocial will be another option that developers will have to add functionality to Ning networks, in no way this changes our plans to provide better tools to write, manage, and merge code that runs on the platform, and to continue improving and expanding our REST and PHP APIs as well.

If you have any questions, please post them here -- we will also have more details (and videos!) on Thursday.

[Oliver Lewis]

Hi Diego
This is very interesting! So if I understand correctly this should make it possible for a developer to create an application that will enable more detailed searching of Ning member profile data such as I am looking for here: http://developer.ning.com/forum/topic/show?id=1185512%3ATopic%3A4001

If so, do you have any idea how complex a task it would be to build such an app?
Cheers
Oliver

[Diego]

Hi Oliver,

Adding that kind of Ning-specific behavior wouldn't be accomplished through OpenSocial (it doesn't have that depth in its initial version, perhaps eventually) but using Ning's own APIs (either PHP or REST). We're slowly but surely advancing in expanding documentation and examples to support exactly the kind of change you describe, starting with the documentation we've centralized in this network, but a lot more will be forthcoming, including ways to extend network behavior without requesting the source code (so you can continue getting updates from us even if you added behavior).

d

[Oliver Lewis]

Hi Diego

Thanks for the helpful reply. So in that case I wonder is the documentation for achieving my goal of profile data searching via Ning's APIs actually available yet on this site (I couldn' t find anything) and if not, do you have any timescale for when it might be?
Thanks
Oliver

[Alex]

I am new to the Ning Developers Network. I want to check out open social with Ning. How do I add an open social app to my Ning developers network given the url to the xml file? Can you help?

[Diego]

Hi Alex,

We'll be releasing this information today over the next few hours, as well as full container support for OpenSocial (in beta form) in Ning networks. Stay tuned!

d

[Rohit Rai]

Hi! I hae played aroun d a bit with Ning and Open Social API a bit and have got one widget deployed and running. You can read the step by step info here http://mytechrantings.blogspot.com/2007/11/my-first-open-social-wid.... I have also ported my entire experience since the Open Social announce ment at my blog on http://mytechrantings.blogspot.com

I also invite you to join in devsocial.ning.com where am in a procedure of establishing a community for Open Social study, understanding, research and development.

[Sorcha]

Excuse my ignore in advance. Related to this question from Oliver, in perhaps a more basic way, is, "How do I get at the Ning network domain name in a generic way when I don't want to use ning.CurrentApp anymore?". In fact, and apologies if this is simple, how do I get my opensocial only app to return the String "Ning" or "Orkut" or ...

[galeros]

Any idea on the geographical distibution of ning and its networks? I think it would be interesting to know, as maybe our "agents" in the field could focus on areas where we could help spread the gospel and shore up some gaps in the "graph". What do you say? I also think we need to do something on the physical plane to ground ning socials into the physical domain. Can only help. Just my view. :)

g

[ashwini]

This might be out of topic question, but would like to ask if there are any API's available for uploading the videos?
I mean any possible solution?

Thank you.

[Fabricio Zuardi]

Hi, can you be more specific about the video upload question?
Feel free to start a new thread if you think it is not related with the OpenSocial api, describe what you are trying to achieve and maybe we can help you :)

[]s

[galeros]

Could direct this question to Marc. You know, that Andreesen guy. :) His social network on ning is pmarcanetwork.ning.com . I'm not sure which email address he might respond to, but he'd be the guy to ask.

laters,
MarK