The Orkut Sandbox and Google Open Social Documentation

The Orkut sandbox is the place where a developer can create Orkut applications, based on the Open Social APIs. I am very impressed by the documentation that is linked to in the invite email. There are several sample apps, and very clear instructions. An Open Social Aplication is basically a Google gadget on steroids. The leap from Google gadget creator to Open Social App creator isn’t a huge one.

In fact if you have played around with the Google gadget editor, you are well on your way to creating an Open Social app. If you have not, I will give you a hint…

Go play with the Google gadget editor.

Being familiar with the editor will help you out. The editor has functionality that allows you to upload files to Google, which is extremely helpful when experimenting with a gadget. Most of you know how dumb I am, and the Google documentation for example applications is clear enough that even I can do it… sorta.

If you haven’t yet done so I would suggest you sign up to use the Orkut sandbox.

Another suggestion is to get friends on Orkut for testing of Apps. I signed up for Orkut and was playing with a feature that got information from friends, Well I didn’t have any on Orkut! If you find yourself in a similar predicament, email me at guidelineguy@gmail.com and I will add you.

Here is a well written “nuts and bolts” look at one of the open social example gadgets and it’s code.

The above cat photos app is one of the sample Orkut gadgets in the directory. I just thought it was funny that it has a “child safe” mode