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.

Popularity: 12% [?]

I have lately been trying to understand how virality and WOM works. I know that if your service is compelling enough, many users will talk about you. But what I have been discovering in the last few weeks is that you can also structure your application, the flow etc in such a way that users are motivated to invite their friends.

Why would the users invite their friends? There could be a number of reasons

1. The place is more fun with friends around (orkut)
2. You may actually have some monetary benefits (such as makemytrip)
3. It may just help you unlock some features of the website (mostly applicable to facebook/opensocial apps)

There are a couple of interesting articles on the net …. I am trying to dig more information about this stuff … here is what I have found so far.

The Four Viral App Objectives (a.k.a., “Social network application virality 101″)

I was amazed to find out that stanford actually had a class on facebook apps last fall

As I work towards building an opensocial app (followed by a facebook app) for Muziboo.com, I will be posting more stuff on applications, virality etc. If you have some resources, please leave them as comments and I will update the list with them

Popularity: 4% [?]

I am very excited (as is everyone else) on OpenSocial’s launch. Most of the users for Muziboo.com are members of orkut and we are planning to roll out a few applications over the next week or so to help them showcase their music to their friends.

The great thing about open social is ‘learn once write everywhere’ as it is based on good old Javascript, HTML and XML. From what I have read so far, it is based on google gadgets architecture with a social context added to it.

Watch out for some nice apps from Muziboo …. Do join up and start uploading your music there and we will make it even easier for the world to take notice soon :)

Popularity: 10% [?]