Behind the Scenes: January 2008 Archives

If you've used the hi5 versions of the iLike and Qloud music applications, you've experienced the power of OpenSocial.  It's an enabling technology that allows great applications to run on hi5. 

 

We're working with the developer community to bring about even more applications using OpenSocial. To help this process, Google and Six Apart sponsored a "hackathon."  Hackathons are great because they allow for developers to socialize, learn and write code. A good one also generally requires a hefty dose of Wi-Fi, pizza and beer too. 

 

Last night, all were in abundance with over 100 people crammed into the Six Apart office in San Francisco. The fun began with status updates, followed by presentations on the OpenSocial API, the Shindig OpenSocial server, and how to get applications up and running.

 

After that, much elbow-rubbing, coding and learning took place. For hi5 that meant meeting dozens of new people who came to use our OpenSocial development "sandbox," and a new social application prototyped by Zynga - Battleship!

The folks from Zynga were able to get their Battleship game working in the hi5 Developer's Sandbox and integrated it with your friends list and profile data.  Not bad for a few hours of hacking!

 

We're going to continue working on OpenSocial, and you can expect to see many new and interesting applications coming to hi5 in the future.

-- Paul