On August 5th YiQi.com launched an OpenSocial developer platform in China based on Apache Shindig, which makes this the first OpenSocial implementation in China based on open source software! The OpenSocial Developer Platform by YiQi.com is b uilt on version 0.7 of the OpenSocial specification , making it easy for existing OpenSocial applications to run out-of-the box and reach all YiQi users. We welcome all app developers to join us as developer partners.

Posted by Andrew Bowers, Developer Programs If you've taken a look at the Google I/O website recently, you may have noticed a number of new sessions by OpenSocial app and container developers. There are now over 15 OpenSocial sessions posted, and over 80 sessions in general. A couple of the new sessions posted include: OpenSocial, OpenID, and OAuth: Oh, My!

Posted by Chris Schalk, Google Developer Advocate At yesterday's OpenSocial Summit, imeem ) www.imeem.com ( announced that it has launched as a new OpenSocial container. imeem is the 3rd largest and one of the fastest growing social networks in the U.S., with over 24 million unique user visits per month. The site enables users to discover, interact and express themselves with all types of online media. Through the Media Platform,

Posted by Dan Holevoet, Developer Programs Fellow OpenSocial developers, I'm happy to announce the opening of the iGoogle developer sandbox , which supports both OpenSocial and an updated version of the gadgets API. The iGoogle sandbox supports OpenSocial 0.7, including friends and activity streams as well as a home and canvas view of your gadgets. Later, iGoogle will support the requestSendMessage function to facilitate growth of your gadget.

Posted by Dan Peterson, Product Manager As a follow-up to the post earlier this week , we're now only a few days away from the OpenSocial Summit happening on Wednesday, May 14th at the Googleplex )1400 Crittenden( . We're looking forward to discussing the draft proposal for OpenSocial v0.8 , which includes a RESTful API, as well as diving deep on topics such as App Building Best Practices, Security with OAuth and Caja,

Posted by Lane LiaBraaten, Developer Programs hi5.com , an international social network, is very far along implementing OpenSocial as part of their developer platform, and they're gearing up to launch OpenSocial apps to 80 million users, spanning over 200 nations on March 31st, 2008. To help developers get ready, hi5 is putting on a hackathon on Saturday, March 15, at the Googleplex in Mountain View, CA. Space is limited so RSVP now by sending an email to hackathon@hi5.com .

Posted by Dan Peterson, Product Manager Now that I'm back from OpenSocial's London Hackathon ) write-up , pics (, and meeting fellow Shindig folks at ApacheCon EU, I wanted to take a moment to highlight some important happenings in the community: Just a few days ago, MySpace's apps gallery went out of beta , which means more apps in front of more users. At Web 2.0 Expo, Lou Moore from hi5 gave an interesting presentation about Implementing an OpenSocial Container .

Posted by Patrick Chanezon, Developer Advocate I will be representing Google for the Open Silicon Valley panel about the Platformization of the Web in Palo Alto tomorrow. Here is the panel description: In recent years, leading social networking companies have launched open platforms to third-party developers. Our Spring Quarterly Panel will feature representatives from key platform players in the Social web space.

Posted by Dan Holevoet, Developer Programs This week's Silicon Valley Web Builder )SVWB( hackathon attracted a group of developers of different levels of experience in building social applications and set them on a course to create applications with OpenSocial. After some introductions, they group got its hands dirty by working through a " codelab ." At the end of the night, groups demoed the apps they built during the hackathon.

Posted by Patrick Chanezon, Developer Advocate The OpenSocial 0.7 API specification that we announced yesterday is now available in the Orkut sandbox : developers can start taking advantage of the new 0.7 features today, such as: Many new data fields in the Person class . Activity templates : makes it possible to consolidate multiple activity messages into a single summary so users don't have to wade through a flood of messages. A more restrictive privacy model.

Posted by Peter Chane, Group Business Product Manager, OpenSocial It's a big week for OpenSocial - MySpace has launched the MySpace Developer Platform. Congratulations, guys - you're bringing more than 100 million users around the world within easy reach of the creativity and inspiration of social app developers. The MySpace Developer Platform, which is live now at http://developer.myspace.com ,

Posted by Dan Peterson, Product Manager Following up on the discussions at the recent hackathon, OpenSocial 0.7's API specification has been finalized. The best news is that, based on numerous discussions with both app developers as well as container sites, we believe OpenSocial 0.7 has all the necessary pieces to launch OpenSocial apps to users at scale. In fact, both hi5 and orkut will be using OpenSocial 0.7 for their upcoming user-facing launches.

Posted by Peter Chane, Group Product Manager Starting yesterday, hi5 began rolling out two new music applications from iLike and Qloud . hi5's 70 million registered users will be able to use the iLike and Qloud applications to play their favorite songs and share music from hundreds of thousands of artists, among other music-related activities. These are the first applications using OpenSocial to go live on hi5 and were developed and launched within a three-week timeframe.

Posted by Cassie Doll, Software Engineer We're pleased to tell you that the OpenSocial JavaScript API version 0.6 has been defined, which updates the initial OpenSocial release to include what we've heard to be the most immediate pain points. As per the release notes , the main changes are: Gadgets can now be container-aware, if necessary, to build tighter integration. Developers can easily have apps that let users navigate between different surface,

Posted by Elizabeth Yin, Developer Programs Many people have asked us to help promote their OpenSocial events; for example, Jesse Stay, co-founder of the Utah Social Media Developers Garage , recently asked if we could help him get the word out about his meetup . We've now made it easier for developers to promote their events and find others in their area with our new Developer Events calendar . If you are organizing a meeting on OpenSocial or other developer topics,

Posted by Dan Peterson, Product Manager We're thrilled to tell you the initial commit to the Shindig repository is in. This is the first of many steps towards providing infrastructure for those wishing to host OpenSocial apps on their websites. In case you didn't see it last time ,

Posted by Stephanie Liu, Developer Programs You've probably seen the Campfire One video )or caught the highlights ( with some of the demos, but you may have missed our in-studio interviews. I recently got to sit down with a bunch of developers who have been working with OpenSocial - check out the playlist on YouTube or in the embedded player down below. Big thanks to Shelfari, E-junkie, Ning, Flixster, Plaxo, iLike, FotoFlexer, LinkedIn, Hi5, Qloud, Bleacher Report, Slide,

Posted by Dan Peterson, Product Manager As OpenSocial evolves, we're eager for websites to be able to host OpenSocial apps . To that end, we released an in-memory container sample which includes an early glimpse at the Service Provider Interface )SPI( layer, and you may have heard about the Apache Shindig project proposal , which we're quite excited about. We're still iterating and thinking through some of the open questions,

Posted by Graham Spencer, OpenSocial Team We've been getting great feedback on the 0.5 version of the OpenSocial API. One of the top requests we've heard from application developers is for a non-spoofable version of IG_FetchContent. See below for our current thinking, which incorporates some pieces of OAuth , based on a proposal from Jeremiah Robison of Slide.

Posted by Elizabeth Yin, Developer Programs Many of you have expressed an interest in having the raw materials presented at Campfire One on November 1st. To that end, we've now posted the following: Higher quality video files of Campfire One, split up into 6 parts for ease of viewing and sharing ) 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 ( The actual presentation displayed during the event The source code behind David Glazer's "10 minutes to an OpenSocial app" Additionally,