IN THIS CHAPTER

One of Google’s most recent and most interesting forays into open source development concerns social networks—sites like MySpace and Google’s own Orkut. In conjunction with several of these social networking sites, Google has developed the OpenSocial API, a means of developing applications that work across multiple social networks. Use OpenSocial to develop a gadget for MySpace, and it’s easy to port to Friendster and LinkedIn.

In this chapter, we examine what OpenSocial is and what it does, and walk you through developing your own OpenSocial gadgets.