It was a long 2\3 weeks since i spent some quality time at home...a word or two about this place - yes cosy place as we all like but this one, a little variation. You can sight all strays and wilds(humans included) also have found a corner - u name any urban animal you'll find at our place. A stray dog, numerous cats(I stopped counting, dad wud have seen atleast 100 kittens in last 5-6 years), pigeons, parrots and love birds..hmm wild are the squirrels, sparrows but living inside our roof too, not to mention the crows that promptly come for their bread in the mornings. Dad n amma's foremost duty is to protect the birds from cats n dog and I love our Jamun tree!
This weekend had some physical exertion as our landlord sincerely thought of gifting us with newly painted interiors. Though amma n daddy did the major part i played my part of moving non-delicate things in n around. Sunday I sincerely promised my dearest friend Reks for movie day-out. It was the disappointing and hatred looks of her that popped in my mind when i received Sharads mail "Can you go?" A note on Facebook Developers Garage Conference on Mar 15th 2-5PM.Hah there goes my movie... though my curiosity rose on reading the title. Invited my cousin bro along (In-case even if I try to back out at last moment due to self-imposed self-pity on how restlessly life is moving, he will be my motivation to attend)
ok at-last all contemplation of skipping, landed up at the venue. It was a compact group around 40-45 and I don't regret a bit for attending. Although my regret was for not sharing. Assumed mine wouldn't add any value but looking back I feel It would have definitely. So here i go...Lets see what really entered my mind during the meet and if it had any relevance to what happened for us at our workplace I will share along the way.
It was during the end of intro section we entered and from there on...first it was Thomas who won Facebook Apps in France who gave a presentation on his Dannon-Grammin initiative. Felt happy to learn the app gained recognition and was awarded. Its this book 'Creating a world without poverty by Mohammed Yunnus' I started reading 2/3 weeks ago (as all my book reading initiative suffer this is still half way through...) created the excitement on hearing the news. This app was built in 10 days by 2 people. Also the stats of Thomas made sense. 60M total France population out of which 8 M are in FB, Why should I target separate site? His Business approach, Identify clients in France requiring a Social media Platform as FB, Create creative Ideas, build sample app (this may be my add-on), approach companies (Marketing division although IT division are much more open) if encouraged by client then order acquisition and happy ending...
FB apps does it Spam its users or not? undoubtedly yes. BUT, If only your friend sends you the app request, it creates spam. FB doesn't do on its own.
Does FB offers context-sensitive ads? No!
Monetization of FB Apps - Not virtual money but reaall..Its still unclear though difficult. By all means everyone aims for crowd pulling.
Orkut or Facebook was another interesting debate. Which one is gaining popularity in India? It is Facebook for sure, may be Orkut in the initial stage as FB was not public then. Its the dimension or the mental state of users coming to these sites. Linkedin is purely professional - more of corporate personality that you want to portray than as an individual. FB its a mix of both. Its the identity you are willing to portray influences the way you use the social networks. Also the way you see the social networking platforms. Plaxo used only as Address book. Flickr even having the best of social featues is used predominantly for Photo sharing. A voting on active orkut users amongst the gathering proved clearly the decline in popularity - may be its a FB garage :)
On Twitter, dimensions which I perceived never before exists came up - Twitter is it a competition to FB, Will they bring in all FB functionality and features. Will it replace search engines? FB is a closed (User generated content) UGC whereas Twitter is not and content is searchable even if the UGC is not of ur friends. Digg failed on its aspiration to take off. Will this happen to twitter too?
When Kiruba raised the question, How many of you are on Niche Social Networks? Are Niche Social Networks worth the try? Various views started pouring in - Why spend money on building a separate netwrok, build it as a Facebook App. Pros & cons of both options were discussed. (Areapal did I hear???)
If on FB - There is a chance of Lack of corporate identity element. What if Fb shuts off your app like scramble, how do you migrate users from FB app to your app after the pilot phase of testing (If FB used as pilot launch), will your business become available only for FB users and the risk of losing out Non-FB users, Is FB hosted app good for monetization?
Does Niche means building site from scratch without open API's. Is google the true niche platform as they dont use others open API - This thought out loud comment was thrown for discussion. And as evident it is - its against open API concept. co-existence is the word.
My views - FB App can complement a Niche social networking community but it cant only be on FB. Fb users come there for different purpose. For instance am an observer\(absorption happens too) on Twitter and FB. Also FB\Twitter is the place i gain entry point of the info required, then I begun to seek clear niche quality content outside of it. Its a mental frame again of the user...Our Niche platform have to use open APIS we cant be truly self dependant as google.
A small talk on FB Mobile API and its UI on IPhone was appreciated. FB on iPhone is cool than on BB. A demo on iPhone (SDK, Objective C )-FB Connect was demonstrated.
Philip, UN intern showed us his Presentation on UN initiative program for Student disarmament. FB cause for a weapon free world. Hans Blix... Create a cause, Have FB App for spreading message. He also caught our interest on POKEN a small interesting gadget used to poke friends on FB and read business cards. We can store multiple accounts of FB, Flickr. The saved business cards can be downloaded to computer later. 400rs priced currently and expected to go down to 200rs in next production.
http://www.doyoupoken.com/PokenWeb/corporate/welcome.jsf
Facebook connect and Open social Id - compare, discuss, debate happened. Are they similar - No. It is not. Open ID consortium standard. FB Connect not a standard. A demo on how to include FB connect to your site was demonstrated. FB Verification code, FB Secret key some frequently heard jargon's echoed...
Case study : Niche social networking platform for IIT students reaching out to Alumni and FB Connect will eliminate the pain of filling up long forms. Linkedin helped in placements of IIT this year when reached out to alumnis.
Platforms of Mobile development - iPhone and Android were compared. Android a winner with developers (app development n launch happened in 6 days for Photon Infotech)! Android's admirable barcode scanner, price compare within miles and returning back the store name made its mark. A similar dating apps is also attempted.
At the end, FB architectures for a client of Photon - Tracklet got its Min's of limelight.
1) Existing FB user. Access app using FB connect in Tracklet site
2) Bring Tracklet App into FB
Books recommended : Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom: How Online Social Networking Will Transform Your Life, Work and World - by Matthew Fraser and Soumitra Dutta
Apress Developing Facebook Widget (Although I tried to amazon it, i wasnt able to find. May be i heard it wrong)
Thanks to all who organized and esp - Kiruba, Varun, Vasanth & Mani
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The story of our company.
Now to Social Networking Niche Platform attempt of ours. Will document it in detail and share later (If i don't do the rough cut at-least now it will add to the to-dos\wishes that never happen).
- Proto done in Ning. Issues faced : Data Migration\Backup, Ning ID for all users, Role based theme not possible, Admin cannot assign default specific custom application to its users. Not cost effective when scalability becomes a factor, UI not entirely at our hands to customize.
- Other Social Network creators explored - Socialgo, Soceeo, PeopleAggregator,KickApps,two others which I cant recall the names too now were not up-to the mark of Ning - Issues faced : Browser compatibility, Less flexibility
- Next step lets build our own platform. Since we all have our hands well into Java. Java only Content Management Systems(CMS) were explored. Before then was CMS required or not debate arose? And considering all the utility value CMS will add it was accepted into our living.
- Java only CMS - Lenya had its drawbacks - db conn, roles and permissions. Criteria's required to evaluate a CMS for a Social Network platform was framed
- ok now what? Do we have to be open to PHP too?
- Wordpress conference @ Delhi in feb 09 opened doors for co-existence of Ning and Wordpress for our Proto.
- CMS explored - Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, TYPO 3. Drupal came out as the winner for the evaluation criteria we set. (Imp to note - It shud accomodate both PHP & java struts as we already have few modules in Java available).
- Next what - omg - MVC architecture - CMS based again. 1 Min, Is a framework required at all? evaluate again. Our associates said a big Yes. Drupal has its own framework but also compatible with ZEND. What is it FB is using? - Zend or Yii Framework? It is Zend we assume based on info available online.
- Now we all set with MySQL, Drupal, Zend.
On our Facebook App development - We have nicknamed him Pied Piper - Ranjith. As u all can recount the story of Pied piper mesmerizing children to his music, we expect Our Piper to mesmerize big kids to pull them to our site. He has comeout with sample application for our recruitment portal Whereismyboss.com.
On Mobile front - we are into iPhone, BB, Windows, Android, Nokia-Symbian native platform apps development. Again it is built around WIMB
If you all wish we can gather sometime for our Pied Piper and Mobile Musketeers to give us lesson for building a sample simple app from scratch.
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