and Apache Shindig
Chris Schalk, Google Developer Advocate
FaceBook and OpenSocial Developer Meetup - 12/10/2008

Agenda
• OpenSocial Concepts
• Apache Shindig
• The OpenSocial Specification Process
2

Agenda
• OpenSocial Concepts
• Apache Shindig
• The OpenSocial Specification Process
3

Too many platforms!

Standards based
OpenSocial
Write once…
Deploy everywhere

Massive exposure for
your apps!

OpenSocial Concepts
What is OpenSocial?
“OpenSocial defines a common set of APIs based on Open Standards
for building social applications across multiple websites”
9

OpenSocial Concepts
Who own’s OpenSocial?
? No!
OpenSocial is managed under the auspices of the
“OpenSocial Foundation” - http://www.opensocial.org
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Some OpenSocial Partners

In one year: has over 600 Million user reach!

More OpenSocial numbers
 315M+ app Installations
 85M+ daily canvas page views
 7,500+ applications
 20+ live containers
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Where is OpenSocial live today?
Applications live to Users: Initial Developer Sandboxes:
• LinkedIn - New • iGoogle
• MySpace • Yahoo!
• orkut • Minglebox
• Hi5 • imeem
• Freebar
• Viadeo
• Friendster
• CityIN
• Webon from Lycos
• IDtail
• Tianya
• YiQi • Ning
• Netlog • Plaxo Pulse
• Hyves • Lokalisten
• … many more in the pipeline!
• Ning
• Fanbox
• XiaoNei
• Mail.ru
• Socialtext
• 51.com http://wiki.opensocial.org
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Not just Social Network Sites
• Social network sites - Profiles and home pages
ex: MySpace, Hi5
• Personal dashboards – Widgets
ex: iGoogle, My Yahoo
• Sites based around a Social Object
ex: Flickr, YouTube
• Enterprise, Professional
ex: LinkedIn, Oracle, SalesForce.com
• Any web site
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OpenSocial Roadmap
• Version 0.5 was released in a “developer release” on Nov
1st.
• First “sandbox” was made available on Orkut
• Version 0.6 was released in December
• Initial version of Shindig server software was launched as Apache
incubator project
• Other sandboxes came live - Hi5, Ning, Plaxo …
• Version 0.7 (production) was released in January
• MySpace, Hi5, Orkut currently running with 0.7
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OpenSocial Roadmap
• Version v0.8 is current
• Latest evolution of OpenSocial as defined by the
OpenSocial development community
• Updated JavaScript API
• Now contains a RESTful API
• hi5, MySpace, orkut, iGoogle now support 0.8
• Specification:
http://www.opensocial.org/Technical-Resources/opensocial-spec-v08
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OpenSocial v0.8.1 spec is here
• Specification is now published
• Updates include:
• RESTful Protocol updates
• JSON RPC Protocol
• Specification:
http://sites.google.com/a/opensocial.org/opensocial/Technical-
Resources/opensocial-spec-v081
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OpenSocial 0.9 - Future Directions
• Goal:
– Enable a faster development experience that is both secure and
efficient
• Solution: “Opensocial Templates”!
OS Templates core principles:
• Client-side and server-side processing
• Standard set of tags with extensibility model
– Example: <os:ShowPerson>
• http://groups.google.com/group/opensocial-and-gadgets-
spec/web/opensocial-templates
– Demo: http://ostemplates-demo.appspot.com/
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To follow the progress of the Spec…
http://groups.google.com/group/opensocial-and-gadgets-spec
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Demonstration:
Building OpenSocial Applications
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Agenda
• OpenSocial Concepts
• Apache Shindig
• The OpenSocial Specification Process
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How do you host OpenSocial Applications?
1. Can build your own server that implements
OpenSocial specification…
2. Or can use “Shindig” - Reference implementation for
OpenSocial
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Hosting OpenSocial Applications
What is Shindig?
• Apache Incubator Project
• Currently available in Java and PHP
• Shindig Components:
• Gadget Server
•Parses gadget XML, renders as HTML/JS/CSS
• OpenSocial Data Server
• Plugs into social graph data
• RESTful, RPC protocol services
• Downloaded JavaScript libraries
•Core gadgets, OpenSocial client JavaScript environment
http://incubator.apache.org/shindig
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Why use Shindig?
• Strong Open Source community
• High quality production-ready code
• Used by: hi5, orkut, iGoogle, Netlog, Hyves …
• Synchronized with specification
• Language neutral (Java, PHP, …)
• .Net coming soon!
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How Shindig works
• Gadget Server
• OpenSocial Data Server
Shindig
Yoursite.com
Gadget
Gadget Server
OpenSocial
DataServer
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Java Shindig components
• Gadget Server
• OpenSocial Data Server
Shindig
Yoursite.com
Gadget
Gadget Server
OpenSocial
DataServer
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Shindig success at hi5
• Big Traffic
• 10k req/sec Edge
• 6k req/sec Origin
• Hundreds of Developers
• 1800+ Apps
• 1 Billion hits/day
… on 42 Shindig servers
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Demonstration: Trying out Shindig
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Adapting Shindig
• Adapting Shindig to your own social data
Shindig
Gadget Server
OpenSocialDataServer
ActivityService Social Graph
PersonService Data
AppDataService
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Demonstration: Shindig with MySQL
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RESTful and RPC protocols
Shindig now supports both REST and RPC protocols as of v0.8!
Opens new development models
• Background processing.
• Easier Flash integration.
• Mobile applications.
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RESTful and RPC protocols
Communication methods:
•RESTful (Representational State Transfer)
•RPC (Remote Procedure Call)‫‏‬
Formats:
•XML
•JSON
•AtomPub
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RESTful and RPC protocols
REST:
•Resources are URLs.
Example - People:
• All people connected to the given user:
/people/{guid}/@all
• All friends of the given user:
/people/{guid}/@friends
• Profile of the given user:
/people/{guid}/@self
• Profile of the authenticated user:
/people/@me/@self
• Supported Person fields:
/people/@supportedFields
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RESTful and RPC protocols
Querystring parameters customize requests:
• Response format (JSON, XML, AtomPub)‫‏‬
format={format}
• Request extra fields
fields={-join|,|field}.
• Filtering:
filterBy={fieldname}
filterOp={operation}filterValue={value}
updatedSince={xsdDateTime}
networkDistance={networkDistance}
• Paging:
count={count} sortBy={fieldname}
sortOrder={order}
startIndex={startIndex}
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RESTful and RPC protocols
REST responses (Person):
• JSON:
{
quot;idquot; : quot;example.org:34KJDCSKJN2HHF0DW20394quot;,
quot;displayNamequot; : quot;Janeyquot;,
quot;namequot; : {quot;unstructuredquot; : quot;Jane Doequot;},
quot;genderquot; : quot;femalequot;
}
• XML:
<person xmlns=quot;http://ns.opensocial.org/2008/opensocialquot;>
<id></id>
<displayName></displayName>
<name>
<unstructured>Jane Doe</unstructured>
</name>
<gender>female</gender>
</person>
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RESTful and RPC protocols
REST responses (Person):
• AtomPub:
<entry xmlns=quot;http://www.w3.org/2005/Atomquot;>
<content type=quot;application/xmlquot;>
<person xmlns=quot;http://ns.opensocial.org/2008/opensocialquot;>
<name>
<unstructured>Jane Doe</unstructured>
</name>
<gender>female</gender>
</person>
</content>
<title/>
<updated>2003-12-13T18:30:02Z</updated>
<author/>
<id>urn:guid:example.org:34KJDCSKJN2HHF0DW20394</id>
</entry>
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RESTful and RPC protocols
REST has some disadvantages:
•Batch support requires multiple HTTP requests, or a contrived URL
scheme.
•Specifying multiple users via querystring is difficult. Is
?uid=1234,5678 the same resource as ?uid=5678,1234 ?
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RESTful and RPC protocols
RPC:
•One endpoint - parameters specify methods to call.
•Batch support.
•Specify collections of users through passed arguments, not URLs.
Example - Fetch current user:
• Request • Response
POST /rpc HTTP/1.1
HTTP/1.x 207 Multi-Status
Host: api.example.org
Content-Type: application/json
Authorization: <Auth token>
{
Content-Type: application/json quot;idquot; : quot;myselfquot;,
{ quot;resultquot; : {
quot;methodquot; : quot;people.getquot;, quot;idquot; : quot;example.org:34KJDCSKJN2HHF0DW20394quot;,
quot;idquot; : quot;myselfquot;, quot;namequot; : { quot;unstructuredquot; : quot;Jane Doequot;},
quot;paramsquot; : { quot;genderquot; : quot;femalequot;
quot;useridquot; : quot;@mequot;, }
quot;groupidquot; : quot;@selfquot; }
}
}
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RESTful and RPC Client libraries
Client libraries are being created for PHP, Java, Ruby and Python.
• Help you connect to OpenSocial containers, and work with social
data on your server.
http://code.google.com/p/opensocial-java-client/
http://code.google.com/p/opensocial-ruby-client/
http://code.google.com/p/opensocial-php-client/
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RESTful and RPC protocols
Sample: Fetch a user’s friends from Shindig:
OpenSocialClient c = new OpenSocialClient(quot;myhost.comquot;);
c.setProperty(OpenSocialClient.Properties.REST_BASE_URI, quot;http://localhost:8080/social/rest/quot;);
try {
OpenSocialPerson p = c.fetchPerson(quot;john.doequot;);
System.out.println(p.getDisplayName());
Collection<OpenSocialPerson> friends = c.fetchFriends(quot;john.doequot;);
for (OpenSocialPerson friend : friends) {
System.out.println(friend.getDisplayName());
}
} catch (Exception e) {
}
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Demonstration: Trying out the REST client library
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Example container applications
Java
• Socialsite
• Created by Sun
• Flexible social graph
• Completely Open Source
https://socialsite.dev.java.net/
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Example container applications
PHP
• Partuza
• Created by Google employee
• Hosted on Google Projects
• Based on PHP Shindig
http://code.google.com/p/partuza/
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Agenda
• OpenSocial Concepts
• Apache Shindig
• The OpenSocial Specification Process
45

The OpenSocial specification process
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The OpenSocial specification process
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The OpenSocial specification process
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Useful Links
Homepage & specification: http://www.opensocial.org
New Wiki! (Compliancy, Cross container development …)
• http://wiki.opensocial.org
Get on the forums:
• http://groups.google.com/group/opensocial
Subscribe to the Shindig mailing list:
• shindig-dev-subscribe@incubator.apache.org
Help shape the specification:
• http://groups.google.com/group/opensocial-and-gadgets-spec/
Check out Shindig:
• http://incubator.apache.org/shindig
OS Templates:
• http://groups.google.com/group/opensocial-and-gadgets-spec/web/opensocial-templates
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Questions
Q&A
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