What is this all about?
As iWiW had a significant effect on Hungarian internet users as of 2005, both users and the owners and developers of different web-based services are going to come by a serious new facility in 2009. Namely, iWiW has opened the gates for external applications, making way for running standalone applications or such related to existing web-based services, so called Social Gadgets, in compliance with the OpenSocial standard.
What is this OpenSocial standard?
The development of the OpenSocial standard was initiated by Google. Its purpose is to define interfaces which enable APIs to be operated inside social networking portals with access to users and their social networks, thus creating numerous potential new functions for developers and API users alike. As a result of close cooperation between Origo Zrt and Virgo, Hungary’s first gadget container that complies with the OpenSocial standard has been introduced to iWiW. The choice of OpenSocial was not accidental. Social networking sites as significant as MySpace, Hi5, Orkut – just to mention the greatest – took sides with it all over the world.
Here I have a web-based service. How is it good for me?
The answer is simple: as of now, you can potentially reach 3.5 million people. All you need is to have an appropriate application made. Suppose you have an online bookstore. We have an application made, which allows registered iWiW users to display their friends a list of books they purchased from us. Friends click, end up on our website and buy. Probably they choose to install the application too and their friends begin to arrive. Certainly, this is a simplified and dumb example, but it illustrates well how neatly packaged little applications spread like a virus, generating tens of thousands of visitors, probably within a couple of days.
How can Virgo be of help?
Our company is the developer of iWiW, thus iWiW’s OpenSocial container too, so we have quite an extensive experience with the formation, potentials and constraints of applications. Our experts can provide valuable assistance as early as mapping opportunities for- and laying out the application, so that the finished gadget would reach the target audience easily, living up to expectations and business requirements.
Is there a punch line?
There is. The finished API, with minor alterations if necessary, can be easily used on other portals operating as OpenSocial Gadget containers.
What about Facebook?
Facebook works in a technical environment different from that of OpenSocial’s. Nevertheless, we have experience in developing Facebook applications. We have solutions for those customers, who wish to have their application made so that it complies with both standards, without having to do the same thing twice.