OpenSocial Directory

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The OpenSocial Directory is a community-wide effort to create a centralized location for developers and containers to submit, review, and share OpenSocial applications. The directory is a good place for new containers to find potential apps to add to their sites. App developers will also be able to submit their apps to this central directory once, rather than on the dozens of OpenSocial containers out there (n.b. this feature is in progress).

In the initial release, we've included applications that are live on several popular sites that support OpenSocial, like MySpace, orkut, and hi5. Going forward, we plan to include approved apps from more containers, as well as allow developers to submit their own apps.

Frequently Asked Questions

Contents


General

What is this directory for? Containers already have their own directories!

Container directories are intended to help each container's users discover apps to add to their pages. The central OpenSocial directory is more focused on serving app developers and containers. We've tweaked the ranking to surface the most portable apps, and included some technical details (e.g. required features) about each app to help containers determine if a specific app is a good fit. A central directory will also benefit app developers by serving as a single location to submit new apps and get statistics about how their apps are performing across all supported containers.

How are apps in the directory ranked?

By default, apps are ranked based on the number of containers they run on. This is useful for new containers that are looking for some good apps to include in their own directory because an app that is already running on many containers can probably add support for a new container with minimal effort.

You can also sort the apps by submission date. This will allow containers to poll the directory and review any new submissions. As the directory gets more data from containers, we will add new ranking options.

For OpenSocial Containers

How do I get information from my OpenSocial container listed in the directory?

The first step is to set up an app feed that the OpenSocial directory can read to get public information about the apps in your directory. Please use the following JSON format: 

[
 { "gadget_url" : "http://example.com/gadget1.xml", 
   "install_url" : "http://mycontainer/install?appId=1234",
   "categories" : ["video", "music"],
   "total_installs" : 230534,
   "monthly_actives" : 20203
 },
 { "gadget_url" : "http://somesite.com/gadget2.xml", 
   "install_url" : "http://mycontainer/install?appId=9876",
   "categories" : ["dating"],
   "total_installs" : 5443235,
   "monthly_actives" : 120203
 },
 <... more apps ...>
]

If you don't want to make any portion of this data public, do not include it in the app feed. The required fields are gadget_url and install_url (n.b. the install_url is the URL a user can visit to install the app. This is so that people browsing the directory can click on this link and try out the app running in your container).

Send the URL for this feed to opensocial-community@googlegroups.com and we'll get you set up.

What categories are supported by the OpenSocial Directory?

The directory currently supports to following categories:

  • Business, Dating, Music, Video, Photos, Utilities, Sports, Travel, Games, Events

If your container supports other categories, please map them to the supported values shown here when creating your app feed.

How often will my directory feed be pulled?

We'll pull the data from your feed once a day and update the data in the central directory.

Can I page my feed or only return updated entries?

If you want to support paging and sorting, please do so by supporting URL parameters similar to those used in OpenSocial. That is, use count and startIndex for paging and sortOrder to specify how to sort the app in your feed.

Can I access the apps in the directory as a feed?

You betcha...just add output=rss to the URL and you'll get a RSS feed. Other supported URL parameters include:

  • cat - The category of apps to return or container on which the apps run. Defaults to all containers.
  • num - The number of apps to return. Defaults to 24 and the maximum is 100.
  • start - The start index of the apps to return.
  • sort - Use 'submit_date' to override the default ranking.
  • q - A query to use to search within the apps

For OpenSocial App Developers

How do I submit my app to the directory?

Currently the app directory only list apps that are live in the directories of OpenSocial containers. We're working on support for developers to submit their own gadgets.

My app is live on more containers than the directory gives me credit for. What's up with that?

We don't have data from all containers yet. Even when we do, it can be difficult to map several gadget XML files to the same logical app running on multiple containers. We are planning to add functionality to give app developers more control over how their gadget XML files are grouped into applications running on multiple containers.

My app is listed in the wrong category. How do I fix it?

Containers may use different sets of categories and while we try to map these categories correctly it's not always perfect. We're planning to add functionality to allow developers to edit the categories that their app is listed in.

How can I see how many users my app has?

We are planning to add total installs and monthly active users for all containers. Some containers provide more metrics and we'll incorporate this data as it becomes available.

Why do some apps show an author link? How can I make sure that my name is listed here?

The author link is parsed out of author_email attribute in the ModulePrefs in the gadget XML file. Be sure to include a contact email address in this field to have it appear in the directory.

How is the application description chosen?

The author link is parsed out of description attribute in the ModulePrefs in the gadget XML file. Be sure to include a description in this field to have it appear in the directory.

What happens if I have different descriptions of the same app for different containers? Which is preferred?

We've taken a first pass at coalescing gadget XML files into logical groups for each app. We currently choose an arbitrary gadget XML file from this group to pull the metadata like title, description, etc. We're planning to add functionality for the owner of the app has more control over what metadata is shown for their app.

Retrieved from "http://wiki.opensocial.org/index.php?title=OpenSocial_Directory"
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