Prateek Dayal

Internet Revolution has a great post on Google and its top 10 failures. Opensocial is listed at number 4 and I cannot agree more. With all the hoopla around the launch, it took orkut about 7 months to launch opensocial applications and even if we ignore for a minute the fact that developing on orkut is a nightmare, the app selection process is a complete mystery and a total turn off.

We worked on an opensocial application that allows user to add music to their orkut profile. This is ofcourse music they have uploaded on Muziboo or music they have marked as favorite on Muziboo. We worked on this application not just because we must have a presence on orkut and facebook but for two reasons

• Most of our users have presence on orkut and this feature had been requested before
• A lot of muziboo users add muziboo as their webpage in orkut and post muziboo links in their profile and community threads in orkut. Below is a screenshot showing that

The above led us to believe that we can add a lot of value to our users by enabling them to showcase their music on their orkut profile. We therefore went ahead and created a simple application where we can link up your muziboo account and application and your music and favorites start showing up on your profile page.

We tested the app for xss and cross browser functionality and submitted to orkut. There was no email confirming that the app has been submitted nor any link to track the approval process. After a week or 10 days, we got an email from orkut saying that our app has been rejected. The reason cited was that they are looking at more interactive apps like ilike app that let you do more.

Here is my question to the orkut and opensocial team. Who decides the value of the application? Is it the developers, the orkut team or the end user? If its the end user, then there is already enough evidence that this is something a lot of people will benefit from. Compare this to facebook where even the most basic apps are accepted if they work. I for example have picasa and flickr app on my profile that just displays my picasaweb and flickr images on my profile. They do nothing else and I don’t want them to do anything else and facebook does not interfere.

I think in orkut unless you crap on and slap your friends, the apps are not interactive and useful enough. I think they should really look into making the platform more democratic and letting users pick what they want.

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Tags: comparison, facebook, muziboo, opensocial, orkut

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 13th, 2008 at 12:53 am and is filed under opensocial, orkut. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.