Platform Updates

Wednesday, January 28, 2009 at 12:22 AM



Here are some updates from the past week :

An orkut user's political views field (opensocial.Person.Field.
POLITICAL_VIEWS) will no longer be returned as a part of the Person data in the OpenSocial APIs. We have removed this field because of the classification of political views as sensitive information in some jurisdictions.

The REST and RPC support which was originally introduced on the sandbox is now available in production on www.orkut.com. Now you can make REST calls to orkut using the endpoint : http://www.orkut.com/social/rest/ and RPC calls using the endpoint: http://www.orkut.com/social/rpc/

Please see the orkut Server to Server developers' guide for details on using REST to retrieve orkut data from an external server.

J2Play– helping to make your applications more social

Monday, January 26, 2009 at 11:43 AM

We're constantly looking for ways to help you create the best applications for orkut users. The success of OpenSocial applications on the orkut platform is often tied to how social they are. Recently, we were contacted by the folks at J2Play about a tool they are offering that's designed to add social elements to your apps. While we don't specifically endorse the tools that we highlight here in the blog, we thought enough of you might be interested in this resource that it would be worth sharing. Check it out:

J2Play's Social Games Platform

J2Play's Social Games Platform helps flash and PC game developers quickly and easily add social features to their games. Here are some highlights of the platform:

  • Over seven simple social features (including chat, profiles, and comments) that you can add to your app without having to worry about any additional coding
  • Ability for your app to automatically generate feeds, notifications, invites, and a profile box
  • Membership in the J2Play social games network, designed to help your app spread virally
  • More than five engagement features including leaderboards, player badges, challenges, multi-player mode, and the ability to earn money via ad revenue

FancyPants Adventure is just one example of a game that used the J2Play platform to add features like leaderboards and player badges in order to become more social and in turn create a richer and more engaging experience for its users. Check out a screenshot to see these additions in action:



To learn more about J2Play, take a look at the developer wiki they've created. You can also feel free to contact the folks at J2Play with any additional questions you might have at: developer@j2play.net.

Do you have tools, tips or tricks that you think other developers could benefit from? If so, please feel free to let us know.

Hope you found this post informative, and we're looking forward to seeing your apps become even more social!

Posted by Miles Johnson, Marketing Manager.

Building safe orkut apps

Tuesday, January 20, 2009 at 6:46 PM



Late last month, we added an article describing the lifecycle stages of a typical orkut application. Among other things, this article includes an elaborate section which details the process of testing applications before submitting them to the directory. This section identifies several common mistakes and how to avoid them.

In particular, applications are often cited for not escaping user-submitted data, which typically results in XSS vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities allow malicious users to effectively hijack your application, redirecting your users to phishing sites or worse. Be sure to read the section titled "Identifying and plugging security vulnerabilities" before submitting your apps. Addressing these security holes in your apps should prevent any unwanted attacks from malicious users. It should also avoid interruption of service of your app since apps with such vulnerabilities will be removed from the directory immediately.

As always, if you find any issues or just want to chat about the platform, the developer forum is always available. IRC office hours are scheduled every week as well, so stop on by!