top 5 tips for building viral social web applications and sites

Top 5 Tips for Building Viral Social Web Applications and Sites

Jonathan LeBlancDeveloper 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

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.

http://code.google.com/p/webfinger/

Build for relevant graphs Example Technology: WebFinger

Login name: jleblancIn real life: Jonathan LeBlancHome phone: 123-4567Office: San Jose, CALast Login: Tue Oct 4 12:41 on ttys000

jleblanc@x.comhttp://www.jcleblanc.com

finger jleblanc@x.com

Build for relevant graphs WebFinger: Origin through the finger protocol

Build for relevant graphs WebFinger: How it Works

Build for relevant graphs WebFinger: How it Works

Build for relevant graphs WebFinger: How it Works

<XRD xmlns='http://docs.oasis-open.org/ns/xri/xrd-1.0' xmlns:hm='http://host-meta.net/xrd/1.0'> <hm:Host xmlns='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>

curl http://gmail.com/.well-known/host-meta

Build for relevant graphs WebFinger: Performing WebFinger Discovery

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

curl http://www.google.com/s2/webfinger/?q=nakedtechnologist@gmail.com

Build for relevant graphs WebFinger: Performing WebFinger Discovery

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

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

http://code.google.com/p/pubsubhubbub/

Understanding your sharing model Example Technology: PubSubHubbub

Understanding your sharing model PubSubHubbub: How it Works

Understanding your sharing model PubSubHubbub: How it Works

Understanding your sharing model PubSubHubbub: How it Works

Understanding your sharing model PubSubHubbub: How it Works

Understanding your sharing model PubSubHubbub: How it Works

www.salmon-protocol.org

Understanding your sharing model Example Technology: The Salmon Protocol

Understanding your sharing model The Salmon Protocol: How it Works

Understanding your sharing model The Salmon Protocol: How it Works

Understanding your sharing model The Salmon Protocol: How it Works

• How does the publisher prevent spam or abuse?

• Is the content coming from a trusted source?

• How does the publisher ensure the quality of the updates?

Understanding your sharing model The Salmon Protocol: Things to Consider

1. Subscriber sends signed request to publisher (e.g. using acct:johndoe@subscriber.example.com).

2. Publisher performs discovery on endpoint to verify identity provider.

• Webfinger• LRDD (Link-based Resource Descriptor)

3. Provider verifies signature via public keys obtained during discovery.

Understanding your sharing model The Salmon Protocol: Determining Source

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

Use Existing Technology Don’t reinvent the wheel!

• 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 Partner Strategies: Failure to Integrate Company “ABC”

Use Existing Technology Example Technology: The Open Graph Protocol

http://ogp.me/

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: How Web Semantics Work

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

<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: The Metadata Format

• Basic Metadata• Location• Contact Information• Video Data• Audio Data• Objects

• Activities• Businesses• Groups• Organizations

• People• Places• Products and Entertainment• Websites

Use Existing Technology Open Graph Protocol: What is Defined?

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 all available outlets Being 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 FullHome

Build for all available outletsExample Technology: Activity Streams

Defines a social activity

Platform agnostic

Integrated into OpenSocial

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

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 – OAuth 2

Significantly improved integration time.

Communication over HTTPS

Questions? Jonathan LeBlancTwitter: @jcleblanc

E-Mail: jleblanc@x.com

http://www.slideshare.net/jcleblanc