Tracking the latest Orkut buzz and Orkut Applications since 10-10-2007

Since I started this blog and an Orkut Community to discuss the buzz surrounding Google’s plan to open Orkut platform, I have been asked what exactly this is all about?. If you are a FaceBook user, you may already know few things about what exactly these terms are.

This article is basically written for the users who are not so familiar with the latest happenings in the social networking space and for non-technical users of Orkut.

I am simplifying the things to the most basic level and assuming few things as there is no official confirmation and documentation available from Google at the time of writing this article.

When Google opens up Orkut Platform through a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) and services, these will allow outside developers to inject new features and content into the Orkut user experience.

Let me present you with two real world scenarios to understand these terms and technologies from the bottom up.

Scenario 1:

Imagine, you want to get opinions on a specific topic or an answer for a question from your friends in orkut. Will you scrap everyone in your friends list or will you send an email to everyone? They are not flexible and it will be a heck to sort out all the emails and scraps. So, wouldn’t it be great if this kind of functionality is built into Orkut where you ask a question on your profile page and people can answer then and there without moving out of the page. Your friends can see the list of answers given by others and there are all possibilities that you can get an answer to a question or an opinion on a topic/idea. Rating the quality of the answers can also be included.

Did you say WOW!? I am sure you started to think that this would be really cool. It will be soon possible when Google really opens up Orkut.

Scenario 2:

Imagine you have joined a very large number of Orkut Communities but there are only a few you visit frequently. So, how do you visit these frequented communities? Will you just search through the communities listing page or if you are a tech savvy user you might bookmark the links in the browser. Wouldn’t it be great if you can display a matrix of your favorite communities on your profile page from where you can access these communities quickly and let your friends know your favorite communities.

The above two examples are very simple to understand what exactly an Orkut Application is. There will be a plethora of useful applications available just after Google releases the API.

With the examples in hand, let me define few terms and see how these applications are possible when Google opens up Orkut platform.

So, what’s an Orkut Application?

I cannot give you a bookish definition, but the question and answers example and the communities example presented above would be Orkut Applications at the very basic level. These applications are usually developed by third-party developers using the software code provided by Google.

Assuming that Orkut is going to give the users the ability to add the applications or widgets to their profile page just like FaceBook, it will be a matter of seconds for the users to add the applications to their profile and start using them.

As in FaceBook, every application may have a page inside Orkut itself, where you can perform more actions provided by the application. When a developer submits an application, the application will be given a unique page on the Orkut website and from there the users can interact with the application. If we take the question and answers example scenario, the unique page for this application will give you the options to create more questions, delete old questions, see your friends’ questions and the questions answered by your friends.

It seems Google is pushing the boundaries even further by allowing the developers to host their applications on a different website and users can go to this website and use the applications instead of using them inside the Orkut website.

What’s Application Programming Interface (API)?

In a simpler context, an API is a set of software libraries(code) that allow access to services offered by a software program or a software environment. For example, Flickr has an API using which one can access the photos on Flickr and deploy their own applications on third party sites. An example of this kind of Flickr application is Retriever.

Similarly, Orkut API would be a set of software libraries given to the developer community to build applications on top of Orkut data. Developers are provided with a set of functions which will allow them to fetch the data from the Orkut servers and even pushing the data into the servers if they allow.

Don’t worry about all your Orkut data being exposed to the developers. All your private data will be accessible to the applications selected by you. Surely Google will spend a lot of time on the security concerns before they actually release the APIs.

For normal users there is no need to know what exactly the API is going to do and other technical details. The developers will take the advantage of the API to provide innovative applications. Users can add and remove applications with the click of a button.

I think now you have a fair idea about what it means by opening up Orkut for third-party developers using an API. If I can paraphrase all the above information it will be something like:

The ability to extend the basic Orkut functionality by exposing the social data through a set of APIs and specifications using which the developer community can deploy innovative and useful applications or widgets for Orkut users either inside Orkut or an a different website.

Ok, you are familiar with applications and APIs now.

What is a platform?

Marc Andreessen has a great article titled ‘The three kinds of platforms you meet on the Internet‘, where he explains what is a software platform and extends this to define an Internet platform and the types of Internet platforms. From his article:

A “platform” is a system that can be programmed and therefore customized by outside developers — users — and in that way, adapted to countless needs and niches that the platform’s original developers could not have possibly contemplated, much less had time to accommodate.

I recommend reading the post by Marc Andreessen if you want to know more about platforms on the Internet. He classifies the Internet platforms into 3 types:

Level 1 Platform:

The applications built for level 1 platform run elsewhere on a third party website or inside a software program an they interact with the platform via a web services API to draw on data and services. Examples would be Google Maps mash-ups you see very often on the Internet. Developers need own serves to run these applications.

Level 2 Platform:

The applications built for level 2 platforms actually available inside the platform by injecting the functionality into the platform through widgets or any other UI elements available through a plugin-API provided by the platform developers. The applications run elsewhere on their own servers but the functionality is used inside the platform. The Facebook applications are the best example of this kind of platform. The users interact with the applications within the FaceBook UI, but the applications run elsewhere.

Level 3 Platform:

Applications built for level 3 platform run inside the platform itself. The platform provides the runtime environment within which the application’s code runs. Developers need not run their own servers to deploy applications for this platform.

Now you have a basic idea about what the Internet platform is lets get back to the Orkut Platform.

Google may decide to go with any of the above type of platforms to provide the developers, the ability to deploy applications for Orkut. I am pretty sure that its not going to be a purely Level 1 platform. Level 1 has the drawback that the users have to go to a different website to use the apps and it doesn’t make much sense. But there will be a level 1 platform even if they want to go with level 2 or level 3 to allow the developers to host the applications on their own websites.

After seeing the scalability issues and financial problems for developing and deploying large scale FaceBook applications, what I guess is Google is going to adopt a middle layer between Level 2 and Level 3 platforms. What I mean by this is, Google may offer data storage space on their serves for the applications deployed within Orkut but the processing may be done on the external servers owned by the developers. This will reduce the cost to deploy the applications and there by increasing the amount of participation by the developer community.

But nothing is clearly known as of writing this article as there is no official press release from Google about the platform. But surely they are going to announce it very soon. Otherwise they will loose this huge social networking space to their counterparts.

We can only wait till the Google officially announces about the Orkut Platform. But, once it is announced, it will open up a whole lot of new opportunities for the start-ups.

Please note that all the information provided in the this article is given as is and I don’t take any responsibility for its validity. This article is mainly written for average Orkut users to explain the latest buzz words and how they change the way Orkut is being used. The article is written from the knowledge I gained by reading few blogs and using FaceBook applications. I did develop a testing FaceBook app which is used only by me -:)

Thanks for reading and I would love to hear from you about the article.