Yesterday (Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2008) was a big day for online apps. Yahoo!, LinkedIn and Google have each made some noteworthy announcements that bear a little examination.
Yahoo!
As part of it’s Yahoo! Open Strategy (Y!OS), Yahoo! has officially launched the Yahoo Social Platform (YSP), Yahoo Query Language (YQL), Yahoo Application Platform (YAP), and OAuth. This article on TechCrunch summarizes the key elements of the Y!OS announcements:
1. Access to your and your friends’ activity streams both on Yahoo and elsewhere on the Web.
2. A single, universal Yahoo profile.
3. A portable address book that you can take to other sites.
4. More customization features that let you bring content from other sites more easily into Yahoo.
5. Social networking features that help you connect to more people on Yahoo.Specifically, the Y!OS consists of several developer components, which you can read more about on Yahoo’s developer blog or its developer network site. The components are Yahoo Social Platform (YSP), Yahoo Query Language (YQL), Yahoo Application Platform (YAP), and OAuth.
For the purposes of this discussion I’ll focus on YAP as it’s in many respects analogous to Facebook Apps, Google Gadgets and the recently announced LinkedIn Applications.
To me, the two most noteworthy items are the fact that YAP embraces OpenSocial and OAuth. These are the two only truly “open” aspects of their announcements. I’m not saying that YQL isn’t open, but simply that OpenSocial and OAuth are the only things are that are not directly tied to the Yahoo! platform and facilitate interoperability among applications from different vendors/developers.
One can develop Yahoo! apps in any programming language, but Yahoo! has released a PHP SDK to help aspiring developers kickstart their projects. I expect to see SDKs in Java and Ruby soon enough.
Yesterday, LinkedIn joined the fray by announcing the aforementioned LinkedIn Applications. I’ve noted before how much I dislike Facebook so I was very pleased to hear that unlike Facebook, LinkedIn Applications will go through an approval process before being posted on the applications catalog. This means that I need not fear of being attacked by a mob of zombies, vampires or other sort of undead things. There will be no “poking” either, which will also help my bruises heal. LinkedIn prides itself in being a serious business-oriented network and it’s clear that their application review policies will keep things that way.
Currently, there are only a handful of applications available on LinkedIn from notable vendors such as Amazon, WordPress, SixApart and Google along with collaborative apps from Box.net and Huddle. A full list, along with introductory videos may be found on TechCrunch.
A while ago, Alfresco announced a Facebook App that exposed the Alfresco ECM to your social network. This was intended as a proof-of-concept demontrating the power of Alfresco Web Scripts and how easy it is to mash-up Alfresco to other web applications and services. I never though it practical given that Facebook isn’t really for serious business networking, with tongue-in-cheek I often joke that Facebook is where my ex-girlfriends come to find me, but I’d really love to see an Alfresco Share app for LinkedIn.
Aside from the fact that applications are built using the OpenSocial model, there’s a little information on precisely how these applications should be developed on the LinkedIn site, the guidelines, etc. Instructions on how to submit applications may be found on the LinkedIn Applications Platform page.
Finally, Google announced the Google Apps Labs where users of Google Apps can add experimental applications to their Google Apps Domain. The three sample applications are a TinyURL-like URL Shortener (Short Links), a Question & Answer app (Moderator) and Google Code Reviews. These apps cam be installed through the Google Solutions Marketplace by clicking on a simple “Ad it now.” button. Take a look at the Google Short Links page on the marketplace for an example of what that looks like.
Now, the real gem here has little to do with the availability of these new apps. What has really caught my eye is that these apps are developed and powered by Google App Engine and are delivered via the Google Solutions Marketplace. The implication being, of course, that by integrating the Marketplace, Google Apps and Google App Engine, Google has put the final brick in place for a complete end-to-end application development, delivery and monetization solution that fully leverages Google’s infrastructure for security and scalability. This is something that Saleforce.com has refined to an art form, but what I like here is that use of Google App Engine is optional so there’s no need to worry about being locked to a proprietary runtime which is itself a fairly moot point given that App Engine will likely be supporting new languages (such as Java) in the future.
While the Google announcement does not appear to be related to the Yahoo! and LinkedIn announcements at the surface, it doesn’t take a great intellectual leap to see that Google can serve as the back-bone for Yahoo! and LinkedIn apps. It’s also worth noting that all three companies are backing OpenSocial as the foundation for interoperability and while I suspect that “true portability” of an app among the three solutions is not possible, I’m fairly certain that the core business logic of an app can be easily abstracted such that all one needs to do is write a custom front-end that deals with authentication and the other idiosyncrasies unique to the individual platform that is being targetted.
Conclusion
This lack of true portability is bothersome to me, but perhaps initiatives such as OpenSocial, OpenID and OAuth will evolve to become the foundation of an interoperable Web Operating System. In the meantime, I’m curious about how well these platforms will do and whether it will be economically viable for enterprise software vendors such as Alfresco and others to deliver their applications via the different platforms.
It’s very easy to see that apps developed for the Yahoo! platform will be mass-market apps that will have much in common with the Facebook apps we’ve seen thus far. I’m more interested in seeing what kind of apps are built for LinkedIn. The most obvious types of applications will likely be collaborative in nature, I can also see that “self-promotion” apps such as blog and micro-blog aggregators will be popular. Beyond that, perhaps we’ll see applications that take advantage of your social network to create a “circle of trust” as Matt Asay has discussed on occasion where trusted friends share knowledge, advice and even product/service recommendations.
Only time will tell.
October 29th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
[...] I noted in my work blog, Yahoo!, LinkedIn and Google have been making much headway in the realm of social application [...]