MySpace Developer Team : open canvas

Open Canvas and App Settings Enhancements

Test User — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 20:04:00 GMT

We’ve recently made some updates to our Open Canvas feature. As most of you know, one of the primary benefits of using Open Canvas functionality in your apps is that it gives you immediate access to basic user info such as the user’s public photos and display name. Ideally, this means users can immediately start using basic functionality of your app without having to go through the add app process. For example, they can "try" your app from the gallery when they click the "try it" link. When a user does add your app you’ll automatically get access to their friends list. From that point, you can then request specific permissions on an as needed basis. This allows you to design Apps with a low bar of entry that can quickly engage the user and can incrementally request permission for deeper functionality.

We’ve updated the app settings page to better reflect the new Open Canvas model through three sections: "Apps I’ve Added", "Apps I’ve Blocked", and "Apps I Haven’t Added".

The New Apps Settings Page

The "Apps I’ve Added" section provides a cleaner, friendlier way for users to manage their existing apps. The new layout highlights the apps they have and uses less vertical space then the current layout so users can quickly get to the apps they want. It also provides quick links to the most popular app management options.

With new larger icons, the user can better manage the apps they’ve blocked from the "Apps I’ve Blocked" section.

Finally, from the "Apps I Haven’t Added" section, the user can manage the global privacy permissions. Privacy conscious users can prevent apps they haven’t explicitly installed but whose canvas they are viewing, such as Open Canvas apps, from having access to their basic info. They can also prevent apps they haven’t added from receiving unsolicited communications (for example receiving app invites or profile comments).

You can find out more about implementing Open Canvas functionality in our "How Open Canvas Works" primer or check out our "Open Canvas FAQ".

What's New in MySpace OpenSocial 0.8

Chad Russell — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 21:09:00 GMT

The spec for OpenSocial 0.8 has been finalized and MySpace’s implementation has been released. There are some key benefits that 0.8 adds over 0.7 on the MySpace platform. The JavaScript container more closely conforms to the spec and some MySpace specific extensions have been pulled into the OpenSocial namespace. The result of this is that your 0.8 app will port much more easily to other platforms than your 0.7 app did. The app data API has been cleaned up and made more useful.

There are also important new features and capabilities on the MySpace platform that are only available to 0.8 apps:

Open Canvas allows your app to be functional for users even before they have added the app. Learn more about Open Canvas
Custom App Activities allow 0.8 apps to post activities into user Friend Updates. Learn more about Custom App Activities
App Notifications will allow apps to message their users directly, and will only be available on 0.8

In this three part series of articles, I’ll walk you through the process of creating an application from start to finish with emphasis on the six major improvements that distinguish 0.8 from 0.7 on MySpace:

Enhancements to the opensocial.Person object
Our new permission model, dubbed Open Canvas, that makes extensive use of opensocial.hasPermission and opensocial.requestPermission
Updates to app data to accept only valid JSON
The deprecation of PostTo in favor of opensocial.requestShareApp and opensocial.requsetSendMessage
Activities
App Notifications

Read What's New in MySpace OpenSocial 0.8:

Invites, Open Canvas, and Activities

Kyle Brinkman — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 21:18:00 GMT

Happy holidays! As an early present I'm pleased to report that we've released a bunch of new capabilities that should really help users engage with your apps on MDP. First up is App Invites: previously when users added apps via an invitation, the invite disappeared and users were presented with a link to the app. Now, users are immediately taken to the app when they accept invites. We got lots of requests for this change, and expect it will make it clearer and easier for people to start using the applications their friends have recommended

We're also releasing today the first stages of our Open Canvas implementation. As we've discussed previously, Open Canvas allows MySpace members to use an app canvas page prior to explicitly adding the app. You can read full details on how Open Canvas works, but the point I want to emphasize is that this capability is entirely optional. Users can still add and interact with your applications entirely as before, but you now have more options for engaging with users prior to installation. We're excited to see creative implementations of Open Canvas and look forward to feedback from you guys on further development.

Finally, I also have good news on App Activities. Several weeks ago we released Custom App Activities, a new capability on MDP that allows apps to raise events, including text, links, and media, that appear in Friend Updates on members' home pages. At that time we limited the service to developers of an app in order to allow you guys to test out the functionality in advance and help us work out any bugs. As of today we've opened up the service to allow your apps to raise events for all users!

Learn how to create and publish activity templates.

Activities are a great way to deepen engagement. Raising events allows users to broadcast to their friends all the cool things they're doing on your apps, from winning a hand at poker, to rating a new movie or completing a quiz. Like all user-to-user communications on MDP, each event must be approved by the initiating user. We feel this is the best way to balance message volume, rather than relying on black-box quotas or other filtering systems.

Here's an example of an approval modal for an activity raised by an application and the resulting event in a friends Updates:

The MDP team has worked really hard to get these features out before the holidays, and we hope this rings in the new year on a good note for everyone.

Happy New Year!

/kyle