Misplaced Pages

#12987

72-677: OpenSocial is a public specification that outlines a set of common application programming interfaces (APIs) for web applications . Initially designed for social network applications , it was developed collaboratively by Google , MySpace and other social networks. It has since evolved into a runtime environment that allows third-party components, regardless of their trust level, to operate within an existing web application. The OpenSocial Foundation has integrated or supported various Open Web technologies, including OAuth and OAuth 2.0 , Activity Streams , and Portable Contacts . Since its inception on November 1, 2007, applications that implement

144-544: A procedural language such as Lua could consist primarily of basic routines to execute code, manipulate data or handle errors while an API for an object-oriented language , such as Java, would provide a specification of classes and its class methods . Hyrum's law states that "With a sufficient number of users of an API, it does not matter what you promise in the contract: all observable behaviors of your system will be depended on by somebody." Meanwhile, several studies show that most applications that use an API tend to use

216-700: A reference implementation of the OpenSocial standards. It has the support of Google, Ning, and other companies developing OpenSocial-related software. The Myspace OpenSocial parser was released as project Negroni in January 2011 and provides a C# --based implementation of OpenSocial. Apache Rave is a lightweight and open-standards-based extensible platform for using, integrating, and hosting OpenSocial and W3C Widget-related features technologies, and services. It will also provide strong context-aware personalization, collaboration, and content integration capabilities and

288-684: A series A round from Mohr Davidow Ventures, as well as $ 15 million in venture debt . In 2008, comScore reported that hi5 was the third most popular social networking service in monthly unique visitors behind Facebook and MySpace. It was also the fastest growing social network. However, international growth of Facebook later hurt hi5. It was most popular in Latin America . The company had gained significant market share in Europe, Latin America, and Asia, and Mary Meeker had cited hi5 as

360-420: A software framework : a framework can be based on several libraries implementing several APIs, but unlike the normal use of an API, the access to the behavior built into the framework is mediated by extending its content with new classes plugged into the framework itself. Moreover, the overall program flow of control can be out of the control of the caller and in the framework's hands by inversion of control or

432-496: A user interface , an API is typically not visible to users. It is an "under the hood" portion of a software system, used for machine-to-machine communication. A well-designed API exposes only objects or actions needed by software or software developers. It hides details that have no use. This abstraction simplifies programming. Building software using APIs has been compared to using building-block toys, such as Lego bricks. Software services or software libraries are analogous to

504-479: A 2009 redesign, hi5 added features oriented toward gaming and entertainment. The site featured over 200 games in a variety of genres, and was adding games at a rate of 2-3 per week. It is targeted to users that are interested in flirting, dating, and making new friends. In order to join hi5, users must be age 18 or older. Due to hi5's shift in focus to social gaming, Comscore reclassified hi5 as an online gaming site in early 2011. According to comScore, hi5 ranked as

576-406: A Gadget specification. While not finalized, the groundwork for OAuth 2.0 support was put in place. In response to enterprise environment needs, OpenSocial added support for advanced mashup scenarios. It enabled gadgets to "securely message each other in a loosely coupled manner." This new feature was called Inter-Gadget Communication. OpenSocial acknowledged that the "one-size-fits-all" approach it

648-468: A URL and displayed in a <Content> tag. In response to a common use of sending data to a remote server immediately after a request, OpenSocial 0.9.0 introduced data pipelining. Data pipelining allows the developer to specify the social data the application will need and make the data immediately available. OpenSocial Templates were introduced to create data-driven UI with a separation of markup and programmatic logic. OpenSocial Markup Language (OSML Markup)

720-449: A broad term describing much of the communication on the internet. When used in this way, the term API has overlap in meaning with the term communication protocol . The interface to a software library is one type of API. The API describes and prescribes the "expected behavior" (a specification) while the library is an "actual implementation" of this set of rules. A single API can have multiple implementations (or none, being abstract) in

792-517: A business ecosystem. The main policies for releasing an API are: An important factor when an API becomes public is its "interface stability". Changes to the API—for example adding new parameters to a function call—could break compatibility with the clients that depend on that API. When parts of a publicly presented API are subject to change and thus not stable, such parts of a particular API should be documented explicitly as "unstable". For example, in

SECTION 10

#1732800919013

864-460: A client would need to know for practical purposes. Documentation is crucial for the development and maintenance of applications using the API. API documentation is traditionally found in documentation files but can also be found in social media such as blogs, forums, and Q&A websites. Traditional documentation files are often presented via a documentation system, such as Javadoc or Pydoc, that has

936-435: A consistent appearance and structure. However, the types of content included in the documentation differs from API to API. In the interest of clarity, API documentation may include a description of classes and methods in the API as well as "typical usage scenarios, code snippets, design rationales, performance discussions, and contracts", but implementation details of the API services themselves are usually omitted. It can take

1008-582: A gadget from returning information if it is not authorized to do so. New classes were added, such as the Environment class to allow a gadget to respond differently according to its environment and the Surface class to support navigation from one surface to another. The Activities class was simplified based on developer needs and the Stream class was deprecated. Google announced the launch of OpenSocial with

1080-534: A given API, it is possible to infer the typical usages, as well the required contracts and directives. Then, templates can be used to generate natural language from the mined data. In 2010, Oracle Corporation sued Google for having distributed a new implementation of Java embedded in the Android operating system. Google had not acquired any permission to reproduce the Java API, although permission had been given to

1152-475: A high-quality out-of-the-box installation as well as be easy to integrate into other platforms and solutions. Both Shindig and Apache Rave are no longer in development and have been retired by the Apache Foundation. Enterprise websites, such as Friendster , hi5 , LinkedIn , MySpace , Orkut , and Salesforce.com are major users of OpenSocial. Friendster has deployed APIs from version 0.7 of

1224-441: A modular software library in the 1940s for EDSAC , an early computer. The subroutines in this library were stored on punched paper tape organized in a filing cabinet . This cabinet also contained what Wilkes and Wheeler called a "library catalog" of notes about each subroutine and how to incorporate it into a program. Today, such a catalog would be called an API (or an API specification or API documentation) because it instructs

1296-470: A number of forms, including instructional documents, tutorials, and reference works. It'll also include a variety of information types, including guides and functionalities. Restrictions and limitations on how the API can be used are also covered by the documentation. For instance, documentation for an API function could note that its parameters cannot be null, that the function itself is not thread safe . Because API documentation tends to be comprehensive, it

1368-529: A person (the end user ) other than a computer programmer who is incorporating it into software. An API is often made up of different parts which act as tools or services that are available to the programmer. A program or a programmer that uses one of these parts is said to call that portion of the API. The calls that make up the API are also known as subroutines , methods, requests, or endpoints . An API specification defines these calls, meaning that it explains how to use or implement them. One purpose of APIs

1440-466: A person receives a friend request, they may accept or decline it, or block the user altogether. If the user accepts another user as a friend, the two will be connected directly or in the 1st degree. The user will then appear on the person's contact list and vice versa. Some users opt to make their profiles available for everyone on hi5 to view. Other users exercise the option to make their profile viewable only to those people who are in their network . In

1512-420: A pre-release of version 0.5.0. While unstable, this API introduced "various XML DTDs, Javascript interfaces and other data structures" to the OpenSocial platform. Application programming interface In contrast to a user interface , which connects a computer to a person, an application programming interface connects computers or pieces of software to each other. It is not intended to be used directly by

SECTION 20

#1732800919013

1584-440: A programmer on how to use (or "call") each subroutine that the programmer needs. Wilkes and Wheeler's book The Preparation of Programs for an Electronic Digital Computer contains the first published API specification. Joshua Bloch considers that Wilkes and Wheeler "latently invented" the API, because it is more of a concept that is discovered than invented. The term "application program interface" (without an -ing suffix)

1656-643: A shipping company API that can be added to an eCommerce-focused website to facilitate ordering shipping services and automatically include current shipping rates, without the site developer having to enter the shipper's rate table into a web database. While "web API" historically has been virtually synonymous with web service , the recent trend (so-called Web 2.0 ) has been moving away from Simple Object Access Protocol ( SOAP ) based web services and service-oriented architecture (SOA) towards more direct representational state transfer (REST) style web resources and resource-oriented architecture (ROA). Part of this trend

1728-404: A similar mechanism. An API can specify the interface between an application and the operating system . POSIX , for example, specifies a set of common APIs that aim to enable an application written for a POSIX conformant operating system to be compiled for another POSIX conformant operating system. Linux and Berkeley Software Distribution are examples of operating systems that implement

1800-512: A simplified persistence API to use feeds instead of global and instance-scoped application data. Another major announcement came from Apache Shindig . Apache Shindig-made gadgets are open-sourced. In coordination with this announcement, OpenSocial 0.7.0 introduced Gadget Specifications for developers to be able to define their gadgets using the Gadget API. Security was a large focus in version 0.6.0. Permission controls were tightened to prevent

1872-441: A small part of the API. Language bindings are also APIs. By mapping the features and capabilities of one language to an interface implemented in another language, a language binding allows a library or service written in one language to be used when developing in another language. Tools such as SWIG and F2PY, a Fortran -to- Python interface generator, facilitate the creation of such interfaces. An API can also be related to

1944-511: A system of commands and thereby bar all others from writing its different versions to carry out all or part of the same commands. Hi5 hi5 is an American social networking service based in San Francisco , California . It is owned by The Meet Group . Users can create a profile and provide personal information including interests, age, photos, and hometown. Users can also send friend requests via email to other users. When

2016-454: Is a challenge for writers to keep the documentation updated and for users to read it carefully, potentially yielding bugs. API documentation can be enriched with metadata information like Java annotations . This metadata can be used by the compiler, tools, and by the run-time environment to implement custom behaviors or custom handling. It is possible to generate API documentation in a data-driven manner. By observing many programs that use

2088-530: Is a new set of standardized tags to accomplish common tasks or safely perform normally unsafe operations within templates. OSML is extensible. Developers can create a library of their custom tags. This minor release placed a major focus on server-to-server protocols as "the Person schema has been aligned with the Portable Contacts effort, and an optional RPC proposal has been added." JSON-RPC protocol

2160-430: Is an API response . A weather forecasting app might integrate with a number of weather sensor APIs, gathering weather data from throughout a geographical area. An API is often compared to a contract . It represents an agreement between parties: a service provider who offers the API and the software developers who rely upon it. If the API remains stable, or if it changes only in predictable ways, developers' confidence in

2232-512: Is an architectural approach that revolves around providing a program interface to a set of services to different applications serving different types of consumers. When used in the context of web development , an API is typically defined as a set of specifications, such as Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) request messages, along with a definition of the structure of response messages, usually in an Extensible Markup Language ( XML ) or JavaScript Object Notation ( JSON ) format. An example might be

OpenSocial - Misplaced Pages Continue

2304-566: Is based on the OpenSocial API. It supports social networks to develop social and interacting widgets. It can be seen as an answer to Facebook's developer platform. Initial OpenSocial support experienced vulnerabilities in security, with a self-described amateur developer demonstrating exploits of the RockYou gadget on Plaxo , and Ning social networks using the iLike gadget. As reported by TechCrunch on November 5, 2007, OpenSocial

2376-522: Is created in one place dynamically can be posted and updated to multiple locations on the web. For example, Twitter's REST API allows developers to access core Twitter data and the Search API provides methods for developers to interact with Twitter Search and trends data. The design of an API has significant impact on its usage. The principle of information hiding describes the role of programming interfaces as enabling modular programming by hiding

2448-399: Is first recorded in a paper called Data structures and techniques for remote computer graphics presented at an AFIPS conference in 1968. The authors of this paper use the term to describe the interaction of an application—a graphics program in this case—with the rest of the computer system. A consistent application interface (consisting of Fortran subroutine calls) was intended to free

2520-453: Is now the most common meaning of the term API. The Semantic Web proposed by Tim Berners-Lee in 2001 included "semantic APIs" that recast the API as an open , distributed data interface rather than a software behavior interface. Proprietary interfaces and agents became more widespread than open ones, but the idea of the API as a data interface took hold. Because web APIs are widely used to exchange data of all kinds online, API has become

2592-475: Is related to the Semantic Web movement toward Resource Description Framework (RDF), a concept to promote web-based ontology engineering technologies. Web APIs allow the combination of multiple APIs into new applications known as mashups . In the social media space, web APIs have allowed web communities to facilitate sharing content and data between communities and applications. In this way, content that

2664-440: Is to hide the internal details of how a system works, exposing only those parts a programmer will find useful and keeping them consistent even if the internal details later change. An API may be custom-built for a particular pair of systems, or it may be a shared standard allowing interoperability among many systems. The term API is often used to refer to web APIs , which allow communication between computers that are joined by

2736-588: The Facebook Platform , a proprietary service of the popular social network service Facebook . OpenSocial was rumored to be part of a larger social networking initiative by Google code-named "Maka-Maka", which is defined as meaning an "intimate friend with whom one is in terms of receiving and giving freely" in Hawaiian . An open-source project, Shindig , was launched in December 2007 to provide

2808-549: The Google Guava library, the parts that are considered unstable, and that might change soon, are marked with the Java annotation @Beta . A public API can sometimes declare parts of itself as deprecated or rescinded. This usually means that part of the API should be considered a candidate for being removed, or modified in a backward incompatible way. Therefore, these changes allow developers to transition away from parts of

2880-686: The Java language in particular. In the 1990s, with the spread of the internet , standards like CORBA , COM , and DCOM competed to become the most common way to expose API services. Roy Fielding 's dissertation Architectural Styles and the Design of Network-based Software Architectures at UC Irvine in 2000 outlined Representational state transfer (REST) and described the idea of a "network-based Application Programming Interface" that Fielding contrasted with traditional "library-based" APIs. XML and JSON web APIs saw widespread commercial adoption beginning in 2000 and continuing as of 2021. The web API

2952-512: The Java remote method invocation API uses the Java Remote Method Protocol to allow invocation of functions that operate remotely, but appear local to the developer. Therefore, remote APIs are useful in maintaining the object abstraction in object-oriented programming ; a method call , executed locally on a proxy object, invokes the corresponding method on the remote object, using the remoting protocol, and acquires

OpenSocial - Misplaced Pages Continue

3024-556: The Linux Standard Base provides an ABI. Remote APIs allow developers to manipulate remote resources through protocols , specific standards for communication that allow different technologies to work together, regardless of language or platform. For example, the Java Database Connectivity API allows developers to query many different types of databases with the same set of functions, while

3096-479: The internet . There are also APIs for programming languages , software libraries , computer operating systems , and computer hardware . APIs originated in the 1940s, though the term did not emerge until the 1960s and 70s. An API opens a software system to interactions from the outside. It allows two software systems to communicate across a boundary — an interface — using mutually agreed-upon signals. In other words, an API connects software entities together. Unlike

3168-529: The 10th largest site in the World in her 2007 Technology / Internet Trends report. Bill Gossman was appointed CEO in April 2009, and at that time, hi5 refocused itself as a social-network game platform and opened itself to new game developers. In early 2010, hi5 acquired social gaming company Big Six. In 2010, it announced it had raised $ 3 million convertible note from existing investor Mohr Davidow, bringing

3240-408: The 6th most trafficked online gaming site. The company was founded in 2003 by Ramu Yalamanchi. It was profitable in its first year. By 2006, it had become the 8th largest social networking service . Prior to 2004, the company had raised $ 250,000 from angel investors . By 2007, it was the 2nd largest social networking service after Myspace . In 2007, the company raised $ 20 million in

3312-461: The API that will be removed or not supported in the future. Client code may contain innovative or opportunistic usages that were not intended by the API designers. In other words, for a library with a significant user base, when an element becomes part of the public API, it may be used in diverse ways. On February 19, 2020, Akamai published their annual “State of the Internet” report, showcasing

3384-489: The API will increase. This may increase their use of the API. The term API initially described an interface only for end-user-facing programs, known as application programs . This origin is still reflected in the name "application programming interface." Today, the term is broader, including also utility software and even hardware interfaces . The idea of the API is much older than the term itself. British computer scientists Maurice Wilkes and David Wheeler worked on

3456-451: The API, this version focused on making "application development, testing, and deployment easier and faster, while reducing the learning curve for new app developers." The OpenSocial Javascript API was streamlined to make it lightweight while retaining the power of the old Javascript API. Proxied content was introduced to eliminate the need for developers to work around previous AJAX limitations. Proxied content allows content to be fetched from

3528-624: The OpenSocial APIs , which previously necessitated an asynchronous client-side request. Additionally, it established a comprehensive tag template system and adopted an expression language that is loosely based on the Java Expression Language . From version 2.0 onwards, OpenSocial began supporting the Activity Streams format. OpenSocial is commonly described as a more open cross-platform alternative to

3600-587: The OpenSocial APIs can interoperate with any social network system that supports them. OpenSocial initially adopted a universal approach to development. As the platform matured and the user base expanded, it was modularized, allowing developers to include only necessary components of the platform. Orkut , a Google client, was the first to support OpenSocial. On December 16, 2014, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) announced that

3672-626: The OpenSocial Foundation would transition its standards work to the W3C Social Web Activity. This effectively integrated OpenSocial into the W3C’s Social Web Working Group and Social Interest Group, thereby dissolving OpenSocial as a separate entity. In its 0.9 version, OpenSocial incorporated support for a tag-based language . known as OSML. This language facilitates tag-based access to data from

SECTION 50

#1732800919013

3744-430: The OpenSocial specification, making it easy for existing OpenSocial applications using version 0.7 to be launched on Friendster and reach Friendster over 75 million users. Friendster also plans to support additional OpenSocial APIs in the coming months, including the new 0.8 APIs. hi5 taps Widgetbox support for OpenSocial to get access to the choice of web widgets Widgetbox provides. Myspace Developer Platform (MDP)

3816-502: The POSIX APIs. Microsoft has shown a strong commitment to a backward-compatible API, particularly within its Windows API (Win32) library, so older applications may run on newer versions of Windows using an executable-specific setting called "Compatibility Mode". An API differs from an application binary interface (ABI) in that an API is source code based while an ABI is binary based. For instance, POSIX provides APIs while

3888-422: The ability to adapt to the capabilities of different OpenSocial containers. The WAP authentication extension was deprecated. OAuth 2.0 support was finalized in this version of OpenSocial. OpenSocial introduced support for Activity Streams . JSON had emerged as the preferred data format and support for ATOM was deprecated. The Gadget format was simplified to give the ability to define a template library within

3960-401: The application programming interface separately from other interfaces, such as the query interface. Database professionals in the 1970s observed these different interfaces could be combined; a sufficiently rich application interface could support the other interfaces as well. This observation led to APIs that supported all types of programming, not just application programming. By 1990, the API

4032-413: The bricks; they may be joined together via their APIs, composing a new software product. The process of joining is called integration . As an example, consider a weather sensor that offers an API. When a certain message is transmitted to the sensor, it will detect the current weather conditions and reply with a weather report. The message that activates the sensor is an API call , and the weather report

4104-420: The form of different libraries that share the same programming interface. The separation of the API from its implementation can allow programs written in one language to use a library written in another. For example, because Scala and Java compile to compatible bytecode , Scala developers can take advantage of any Java API. API use can vary depending on the type of programming language involved. An API for

4176-519: The funding up to $ 38 million. In October 2010, hi5 announced Sociopath, a set of developer tools designed to make it easier for developers to bring their game to the hi5 platform. A major part of the program was the implementation of Facebook compatible APIs, which simplified the process of bringing games already developed for Facebook to hi5. Sociopath also introduced anonymous play to the site, making it easier for gamers to play games immediately without first having to provide registration info. Sociopath

4248-533: The gadget, it would use v0.8.0. Security improved with the introduction of OAuth authorization and HTML sanitation, and container lifecycle events. Persistence data was stored in JSON . Released as the "first iteration that can fully support rich, social applications." It added several standard fields for profile information, the ability to send a message to install an application, an Activity template to control activity notifications about what users have been doing, and

4320-476: The growing trend of cybercriminals targeting public API platforms at financial services worldwide. From December 2017 through November 2019, Akamai witnessed 85.42 billion credential violation attacks. About 20%, or 16.55 billion, were against hostnames defined as API endpoints. Of these, 473.5 million have targeted financial services sector organizations. API documentation describes what services an API offers and how to use those services, aiming to cover everything

4392-821: The hard way just how limited the release truly is." Russ added that "core functionality components" are missing and that "write once, distribute broadly" was not accurate. Legend:     Discontinued     Current Changes to the REST API were made to address several issues that required changes in the OpenSocial specifications so the Open Mobile Alliance could use it.. Common Containers were added that provided "a set of common services that Container developers can leverage for features like in-browser Gadget lifecycle event callbacks, Embedded Experiences, selection handlers, and action handlers." A new Metadata API gives OpenSocial applications

SECTION 60

#1732800919013

4464-490: The implementation details of the modules so that users of modules need not understand the complexities inside the modules. Thus, the design of an API attempts to provide only the tools a user would expect. The design of programming interfaces represents an important part of software architecture , the organization of a complex piece of software. APIs are one of the more common ways technology companies integrate. Those that provide and use APIs are considered as being members of

4536-518: The initial fanfare & news coverage, OpenSocial encountered many issues initially; it only ran on the Google-owned Orkut , and only with a limited number of devices, with multiple errors reported on other devices. Other networks were still looking into implementing the framework. On December 6, TechCrunch followed up with a report by MediaPops founder Russ Whitman, who said, "While [they] were initially very excited, [they] have learned

4608-410: The prices for hi5 coins based upon a user's region, capitalizing on hi5's international success and helping to monetize users from many different economies. Sociopay also helps monetize users less likely to purchase coins by instead serving them advertisements. In December 2011, the assets of the company were acquired by Tagged . After selling to Tagged, the management team of hi5 formed magi.com as

4680-614: The programmer from dealing with idiosyncrasies of the graphics display device, and to provide hardware independence if the computer or the display were replaced. The term was introduced to the field of databases by C. J. Date in a 1974 paper called The Relational and Network Approaches: Comparison of the Application Programming Interface . An API became a part of the ANSI/SPARC framework for database management systems . This framework treated

4752-442: The result to be used locally as a return value. A modification of the proxy object will also result in a corresponding modification of the remote object. Web APIs are the defined interfaces through which interactions happen between an enterprise and applications that use its assets, which also is a Service Level Agreement (SLA) to specify the functional provider and expose the service path or URL for its API users. An API approach

4824-452: The similar OpenJDK project. Judge William Alsup ruled in the Oracle v. Google case that APIs cannot be copyrighted in the U.S. and that a victory for Oracle would have widely expanded copyright protection to a "functional set of symbols" and allowed the copyrighting of simple software commands: To accept Oracle's claim would be to allow anyone to copyright one version of code to carry out

4896-505: Was added to increase server-to-server functionality. The RESTful protocol that was introduced in v0.8.0 underwent a large revision with several fields being added, modified, and deleted. OpenSocial changed specifications for containers to implement a RESTful API . Many of the OpenSocial Javascript API changes made this version incompatible with previous versions. Existing gadgets continued to use v0.7.0. After updating

4968-455: Was defined simply as "a set of services available to a programmer for performing certain tasks" by technologist Carl Malamud . The idea of the API was expanded again with the dawn of remote procedure calls and web APIs . As computer networks became common in the 1970s and 80s, programmers wanted to call libraries located not only on their local computers, but on computers located elsewhere. These remote procedure calls were well supported by

5040-411: Was initially introduced at GDC Online in 2010. In July 2010, the company raised $ 14 million from Crosslink Capital . In January 2011, Alex St. John joined the company as President and CTO. As a companion to Sociopath, hi5 introduced Sociopay in early 2011. Sociopay was intended to help hi5 to better monetize users, increasing revenues for themselves and developers. Sociopay automatically adjusts

5112-701: Was quickly cracked. The total time to crack the OpenSocial-based iLike on Ning was 20 minutes, with the attacker being able to add and remove songs on a user's playlist and access the user's friend information. Häsel and Iacono showed that “OpenSocial specifications were far from being comprehensive in respect to security”. They discussed different security implications in the context of OpenSocial. They introduced possible vulnerabilities in Message Integrity and Authentication, Message Confidentiality, and Identity Management and Access Control. Despite

5184-543: Was taking was not going to work for the diverse types of websites that had adopted the platform. To address this issue, OpenSocial is modularized into four compliance modules: Core API Server, Core Gadget Server, Social API Server, and Social Gadget Server. This allowed a developer to pick and choose the modules they wanted to use while using other services that aren't part of OpenSocial. Extensions were introduced to allow developers to extend OpenSocial containers. In response to feedback and observation of how developers were using

#12987