Hey Gary, It kind of makes sense when your familiar with the history of OpenSocial, first we had a JavaScript API (gadgets) and people who offered that API ("containers" as we call them), and then we added a REST API to allow for all kinda of nifty things like using OpenSocial on mobile devices and/or in server to server situations. Add some OAuth and OpenID to the mix, and Google Friend Connect became possible, as well as many other interesting applications.
You can really pick whatever makes sense to you. For people who have a great idea it's a real time saver to make a social app, so you don't have to attract an audience to your site, deal with advertising, writing login handlers, a cms, etc etc.. Simple write an OpenSocial app, and put it on the existing social sites and leverage their existing user base. If you have a site where you would like to add social too it, if you have the resources and technical know-how, using shindig gives you all the freedom and flexibility you want, but again it does take a bit of work .. For people who don't have the time, resources or background to do that, FriendConnect is an amazing option, cut and paste some html and your already a social site that can host OpenSocial apps, using GFC's login , friend lists and posting activities back to those social networking sites (so their friends see it, and visit your site too, great way to make the attention circle connect). And indeed, as the last option, using what we often refer to as "The Open Stack", a combination of various technologies allowing people to authenticate, grant access and retrieve social information in a portable and open way (meaning "Open" as in: open source, open spec & open specification processes) with technologies like OpenID for identity, OAuth for granting access to resources, and PortableContacts and/or OpenSocial for social information (friend lists, activities, messages, etc); An example of such server to server scenario would be, well say that you had a site with movie quotes ranked by popularity .. using OAuth and OpenSocial's people end point, you could import someone's friend list and show not only the general ratings, but also the much more valuable and interesting ratings and comments of your friends. Friend Connect in it's self is indeed also a great example of how to use these technologies, OpenID (& a few others) for identity, OAuth for permission, and OpenSocial's people and activities end points for as the data exchange standard. A fun resource to learn a bit more about what's happening in this 'Open Stack' area is "the social web tv": http://thesocialweb.tv/ On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 10:54 PM, Gary <gary.freder...@jsoft.com> wrote: > > Great post, > > Are the 4 options in a faq? > Is Friend Connect an example of option 3? > > and I wasv also feeling somewhat deflated. We have some small social > groups, mostly mailing lists with some stuff on web pages and getting > them more social sounds like a good idea. I tried Friend Connect and > it went well to build a few hello world kinds of examples. > > I was about to install shindig (php version for that first test) but > now think I need to also look more at OpenID and OAuth. > > Lots to look into. > > Gary > > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "OpenSocial Application Development" group. To post to this group, send email to opensocial-api@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to opensocial-api+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/opensocial-api?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---