Google® Business Solutions All-in-One For Dummies®

Chapter 3. Creating Applications for Social Networks

In This Chapter

• Integrating your business with social networks

• Understanding OpenSocial

• Creating your OpenSocial applications

There are so many useful programs and services available on the Internet that it's usually not a problem finding a program that does something you want. The problem arises when you try to get that program to work with another program. Programmers can be jealous about their code and not want to share it with others, making it difficult for programs to work together. And, even when the code is shared, it's difficult to make everything work together if the programs are not written that way from the start. A shared standard is so important because it enables programs to work together. And that's where OpenSocial comes in.

Introduction to OpenSocial

OpenSocial is the name given to a common application programming interface, or API, that programmers use to write applications that work across several different social networks and hosted services. It allows applications written for one social network to pull data from different sources, share information across these platforms, and work on different platforms if necessary. That means that applications written using the OpenSocial API can work on

• MySpace

• Ning

• LinkedIn

• imeem

• Salesforce.com

• orkut

• Six Apart (blogging software that includes Movable Type and TypePad)

These are some of the more popular applications, but OpenSocial allows you to share your programs across more than ...