Building Social Applications using

“zembly”

Brian Ko

Topics

• Popularity of Social networking

• Impact of social networking to software

development

• What is “zembly”?

• Things you can build/publish using “zembly”

• Summary and current status

1

Social Networking Phenomenon

• Social networking is rapidly growing with more than hundreds of millions users

> Facebook, MySpace, orkut, LinkedIn, Meebo, Friendster, Twitter...

• Primary means of mass communication among 13-30 years old generation

2

Why Do You Care (as Developers)?

• Social networking offers developers unprecedented opportunities to build social applications that can reach millions of users overnight.

• Different metrics are emerging for determining value of an application

> “Size and features” to “How much usage it gets”

3

Emerging Changes in the Software World

• Participation model to the software development is changing

> “Traditional models involving mostly software developers” to “new models that involve everyone”

4

Emerging Changes in the Software World

• The social platforms have emerged as viable development and deployment platform

> Applications are being developed and deployed over the popular social platforms

5

Why Social Platforms

• Provides application development and deployment right on the web

> Removes the complexity of deployment process

• Exposes social networking facilities to applications as ready to use services or widgets

> Profile, friends, rating system, etc.

6

Why Social Platforms

• Builds an Eco-system of applications, developers, and users

> Applications deployed are becoming the part of the Eco-system, thus enhancing the value of the social platform

7

Where is the future Application Growth?

8

Where is the Future Application Growth?

• Non-traditional apps > Widgets, Social apps, iPhone apps, Mashups, Situational apps

• Characteristics of these apps > Usually small> Developed by casual developers> Quick to build, easy to deploy

• What causes this trends?> Popularization of the social platforms: Facebook, MySpace, Orkut, Meebo, Orkut, etc.

9

Zembly

• “zembly” is the place to create social applications, together

> “zembly” allows users to easily create and host social applications of all shapes and sizes, targeting the most popular social platforms on the web

10

Zembly

• Think of “zembly” like Wikipedia for social applications

> a wiki for live, editable code that is more than just about trivial widgets, but rather about full-fledged social applications that can tap into the social graph and reach millions of users.

11

Browser-based development

• IDE-based editor running in the browser

• (X)HTML, CSS, JavaScript, FBML support

• Dynamic API search & invocation

• 1-click publishing onto the web

• Automatic hosting

12

Zembly Enables Social Programming

• Collaborative creation of social applications

• Fine-grained reuse of artifacts

• News feed, Contacts, Custom profile page, Messaging, User ratings, Favorites, Comments

13

You can create these with Zembly

• Services

• Widgets

• Appplications for

>Facebook, Meebo, iPhone, OpenSocial, Orkut, MySpace

14

What is a Service?

• Contains business logic

• Written in JavaScript

• Can be published so that others can call it

> “zembly” creates a deployable web service and deploys it in it own container

• Can take parameters

15

Creating a Service

• Write business logic in JavaScript> Using IDE-like JavaScript editor: code completion,syntax checking, format, code snippet, change history

• Set up parameters• Find and use other services• Handle error conditions

> You can use built-in validation• Test the service• Publish the service

> Version control

16

What is a Widget?

• Widgets provide a user friendly component that you can embed in a web page

• Made of

> (X)HTML

> CSS

> JavaScript

17

Example: Creating BuddyWeather

18

Creating BuddyWeather

19

Summary

• “zembly” is a Wikipedia of social applications

• Using just browser, you can create and publish services, widgets, Facebook apps, Meebo apps, OpenSocial apps, iPhone apps, Google gadgets, and other social applications

• www.zembly.com

20

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