IntenseDebate, the enhanced commenting system that was recently acquired by WordPress’s parent company Automattic, has relaunched to the public (the service originally opened its doors in late 2007, but reentered private beta as soon as it was acquired). IntenseDebate has also released the public beta of its WordPress plugin, which includes a number of features that make it much more appealing to blog owners.

The most important feature is two-way comment syncing, which copies all comments left on your blog through IntenseDebate’s system to your WordPress install. One common complaint about early versions of some comment systems, including InstenseDebate and close competitor Disqus, was that comments resided on their servers, leaving blog owners in a bind if they ever chose to discontinue the system. Disqus remedied this issue with their 2.0 release in August and IntenseDebate has done the same with this plugin.Source:TechCrunch
roughly one year since the service launched to fight Facebook’s exploding platform product, and the main companies behind OpenSocial are holding an all day press and developer event at MySpace’s San Francisco headquarters.

The presentation embedded below was shown to attendees of the event. See our other coverage as well:

OpenSocial Turns One: My, How You’ve Grown!
Social Network Apps To Finally Monetize Within The Next Year

The presentation embedded below was shown to attendees of the event. See our other coverage as well:

OpenSocial Turns One: My, How You’ve Grown!
Social Network Apps To Finally Monetize Within The Next Year
Source:TechCrunch

The days of buying packaged software loaded onto CDs are numbered. Today, Microsoft quietly drove another nail into the coffin of packaged software by launching the Microsoft Store on the Web. After testing the software download store in Europe and Korea, Microsoft opened up its U.S. version today.

The store sells all Microsoft software from Office to Xbox 360 games. Instead of shipping the software in the mail, you download it over the Web. Just like you can download apps directly to your iPhone from the iTunes App Store, the Microsoft Store takes the same approach for its own PC and server software. (It does not distribute mobile apps or software made by other companies). Source:TechCrunch

Today at OpenSocial’s first birthday event, a group of press, developers, and members of the OpenSocial team convened to discuss the future of the platform. Of the many topics discussed during the roundtable, perhaps the most pressing was the issue of monetization - many developers are simply unable to convert their users to a steady stream of revenue. And while OpenSocial’s Director of Engineering David Glazer admitted that he didn’t know the answer, he predicted that within the next year we’ll see a standardized payment platform integrated into OpenSocial. And with that, we may start to see more of these applications transition into viable businesses.

Friendster might not be the first name in social networking in the US, but in Asia it’s the dominant player in many countries, with a userbase totaling more than 60 million across the continent. Today, the company is announcing that Facebook applications can now be easily ported into Friendster – who already has its own developer platform and also supports OpenSocial.

This could be attractive to Facebook developers for a number of reasons, especially considering the negative impact that the site’s recent re-design is having on usage for some applications. For the most part, Friendster’s audience has little overlap with that of Facebook – only 22% according to the companies – meaning there are about 45 million potential new users for developers to target. Further, for the moment the Friendster developer community is far less competitive than that of Facebook – its directory features only about 600 applications as opposed to the tens of thousands that have already been built for Facebook.

Thus, the challenge for developers who port their applications over to Friendster is not necessarily the competition – though Slide, RockYou, and other big widget makers own many of the most popular apps – but making them attractive to a largely different audience.

To that end, developers would be well served to utilize Facebook’s tools for translating applications into foreign languages as part of their effort to gain Friendster users. Friendster does not currently offer its own translation tools, though Jeff Roberto, the company’s Director of Marketing says that “If the application currently works in multiple languages and has been translated we will support it.”

As for monetization, Friendster gives most of the control to developers. In a statement, the company writes: “Ads are allowed anywhere in an application, including the user profile page, providing the potential for a dramatic increase in page views and corresponding ad revenues.”

Meanwhile, this launch would seem to indicate that Facebook will continue to push its own platform and steer clear of joining Google’s OpenSocial for the foreseeable future. To enable developers to port their Facebook applications, Friendster made use of the open source version of the Facebook platform known as fbOpen.

In addition to Friendster, Bebo also leverages fbOpen to allow developers to import Facebook applications (while simultaneously supporting OpenSocial as well). In turn, Facebook can claim to offer a developer community with access to hundreds of millions of users – on par with that of OpenSocial, whose members include dozens of sites such as MySpace, hi5, and LinkedIn.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Friendster Joins the Platform Party; Widget Directory Launching Nov. 30thFriendster Launches Classifieds and JobsThe Daily Poll: Is OpenSocial Really a Threat to Facebook?Friendster Officially Launches Developer PlatformFriendster Adds Fan Profiles; Four Years Too LateFacebook Apps: iGoogle, LivePets, VuvoxThe Daily Poll: Will Facebook Join OpenSocial?

Vysr has announced support for OpenSocial applications via their RoamAbout browser plugin. This means you’ll be able to access any OpenSocial Web app no matter where you are online. This is all part of their User-Centric Web initiative.

The Site-centric Web confines users to individual sites in order to use specific apps and services, but the User-Centric Web breaks those barriers and allows users to access those very same apps and services from anywhere on the Web. You’re no longer chained to social networks, and can even communicate with your friends on those sites while somewhere else.

The RoamAbout plugin adds a small vertical row of icons for all of the applications and services that you want to access as you surf the Web. They don’t take up much space and provide a great deal of useful functionality and even some fun if you add some of the games that are available.

What’s unique about this tool is the way that it interacts with any website that you visit. For example, if you highlight some text on a site and click the Wikipedia applet on the RoamAbout bar, a small pop-up window will appear with results from Wikipedia based on the text you selected.

There are already a wide variety of applications that you can add to your RoamAbout launcher. They range from the usual services such as Wikipedia, YouTube, Flickr and Twitter to fun diversions such as PacMan. Look for a tremendous increase of apps to come soon as the OpenSocial platform gains more acceptance and new applications are developed.

Vysr has established an OpenSocial Registry for developers that want to learn how to make their apps more portable and part of the user-centric Web.

What’s interesting here is that even though this all centers around the OpenSocial platform, Vysr still enables users to access apps from non-OpenSocial environments such as Facebook and its litany of apps and services. To prove this, they created something called Fetch, which allows users from Facebook to quickly check if they have new messages, pokes, friend requests and status updates, and shared information such as photos or news articles while browsing on any Web site. It can also use the contextual information of the page to display relevant social network information. For example, users can easily lookup all of their friends from the city mentioned on a Web page. Fetch will eventually be able to access other major social networking sites and will be available soon on RoamAbout.

At first glance, one might think this is just another browser plugin or extension but it’s far more than that. Providing access to apps and services, no matter where you are online, is an innovative process. The fact that this will now support the still fledgling OpenSocial platform can only mean there will be more interest in developing, and more importantly, using new user-centric Web applications.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Vysr’s Next Level: More Browser “Widgets.”OpenSocial Sandboxes for hi5, Ning, and Plaxo Go Live. Dig In.OpenSocial Container Pre-ReleasedDomain Owner of OpenSocial.com Cybersquatting?Yahoo, MySpace and Google Join to Form OpenSocial FoundationGoogle OpenSocial Now Live!Imeem Adds OpenSocial to Media Platform

Social network hi5 has launched a language translation tool fully compliant with the OpenSocial 0.8 standard. The tool will make it easy for developers to localize their applications, while the users will be able to communicate in their language of choice not only on hi5, but also when using third-party applications available on the hi5 Platform.

Developers who don’t have translators of their own can also leverage hi5’s community of professional and crowdsourced translators.

This is a good example of why it pays off to be a part of the OpenSocial posse; you create an internationalized application compliant with the standard and you can deploy it on any site that supports it. Of course, Facebook and its platform is now big enough to draw developers regardless of OpenSocial, but these things do make a difference in the long run.

“The availability of OpenSocial translation services on hi5 lets third-party developers easily create localized, in-language applications for millions of users around the world, increasing adoption and awareness for many companies,” said Akash Garg, CTO and co-founder of hi5. On the third-party app developer side of things, Ali Partovi, CEO of iLike said they’re “excited to know that hi5’s crowdsourcing service would expand iLike’s reach internationally, helping music spread among fans from different languages, geographies and cultures.”

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Google’s AJAX Translation Apps Make You Global, Fast.Facebook’s Translation Application Now Available to DevelopersMicrosoft Launches Online Translation ServiceNetLog Opens On-The-Fly Translations to DevelopersGoogle Translate Now Eats its Own Dog FoodGoogle’s Translation Engine Now LiveJajah Babel Offers English to Mandarin Translations Just in Time for Olympics

NetLog first appeared on the scene in 2007, and is notable for being the first multi-language and multi-country social network to work with OpenSocial. With a network that spreads out over 20 countries and has users that speak more than 20 languages, this was a big deal. Now NetLog is moving on to the next phase of its development plan. It has opened up its translation and localization capabilities to third-party developers.

One of the features of NetLog is near instantaneous translation into each language it serves. This means that with access NetLog grants, an application developer has the ability to reach a localized audience in their native language. This makes it easier for developers to create globally accessible applications and helps ensure success.

NetLog also has what they call a “credits economy.” The developers are being granted access to this as well. This seems to work as a way to make money in a way other than through advertising revenues on the NetLog network. I was unable to find any hard data stating what kind of revenue could be expected, but it seems to operate in a way similar to the iPhone App Store, allowing developers to charge credits for their applications or offer them for free.

If you are a developer wanting to work with NetLog, the network is accepting applications that it determines add value for their members. Learning a bit from Facebook’s mistakes, they are denying applications access that require the user to leave the site, install the application or invite friends. That’s a refreshing change from applications requiring users to spam their network on Facebook and MySpace.

NetLog seems to be going about this the right way. Not only that, the value of their translation and localization features for developers could be a huge boost in getting those applications a global reach. It will be interesting to follow NetLog’s use of OpenSocial and the newly opened door for developers and see what accomplishments and new ideas spring from it.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Last.fm Profile Widgets for NetlogNetlog Skipping OpenSocial. For Now.Facebox Becomes Netlog; Raises €5MEuropean Social Network Netlog Jumps Aboard OpenSocialFacebook Launches Community-Driven Project to Add Foreign Language SupportFacebook Adds 55 More Languages to Translations ApplicationOpen Web Awards Finalists: Mainstream or Large Social Networks

I just got a quick note from FriendFeed’s Bret Taylor letting me know that the FriendFeed Beta that MG Siegler spotted the other day is officially out and ready for public consumption. The new look sports a number of new features, all of which will end up getting integrated into the default design once feedback is garnered from the userbase.

There are a lot of interesting aspects to the new layout, most of which have to do with the organization of the data into different and user-defined groups, something that partially answers an issue I brought up with FriendFeed over the weekend.

In new functionality, though, there’s the ability to upload photos with new posts to the system, allowing you to select and upload multiple files at once with no additional downloads required (just using the standard share button that’s on every page).

Probably the most useful feature in this update is the ability to define friend lists. They’re designed to enable you to organize your friends into groups.  This has long been a feature requested for services like FriendFeed and Twitter - the noise level that rises with adding new friends can interfere with the reliable communication you may have had with your close friends when you first set up your service.  Despite the trademark spartan design on FriendFeed, keeping up with hundreds of folks is surprisingly easy, but in doing so, you’ll probably notice as I did the decrease in intimacy with your core friends.

The friends lists can help remedy this, and by setting up the groups, you’ll more easily be able to scan through and get a handle on what your buddies have been up to before heading on over to the white noise that is the combined feeds of all the people you’re following.

If your goal is more noise, rather than less, you’ll probably enjoy the newfound ability to see other people’s home feeds. This can be useful for when you want to explore others’ circles of friends and assimilate them into your own collective, as you’ll be able to see your current friend’s postings in the context of all their friend’s postings.

I haven’t had long to test these features yet, but at first blush, I’d say I’m all for them. They potentially solve a lot of issues I was developing with the service, so I expect them to be widely well recieved.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:FriendFeed Gets $5M, Launches to the PublicFriendFeed Recommendations? Who Are You Likely to Like?Former Googlers Team Up to Launch FriendFeedMashable Rocks: Connect with us on FriendFeedFriendFeed Launches SearchFriendFeed for iPhone Coming - I’ve Waited For This All My LifeFriendFeed Brings Twitter Back

Source:Mashable!

Even though social network hi5 has had support for Widgetbox widgets since early July, the ability for developers to fully leverage hi5 as a network in relation to these widgets was limited to the capabilities of, well, a widget. Now, Widgetbox has teamed up with hi5 to allow access to its App Gallery for an integrated solution that allows apps built on Widgetbox to act as stand-alone applications within the hi5 network.

According to hi5, over 2 million Widgetbox widgets have been added to hi5 from its existing support, leading to more than 65,000 subscriptions to widgets. Now, any developers that would like to create an application for hi5 now have the option of creating an OpenSocial application that’s distributed on Widgetbox and through hi5 and all the other of the other social networks that have launched OpenSocial support.

This is yet another way in which developers can take extend their distribution, expanding on Widgetbox’s existing support for other platforms like Facebook as well. It allows hi5 to provide more value to its developer community, and allows Widgetbox to provide more channels through which its Application Gallery creations can be accessed. Given Widgetbox’s developments for its own advertising networks, making deals with large social networks will benefit Widgetbox and its advertisers and developers as well.

As hi5 was also among the first to support OpenSocial, and took things a step further with its own messaging API, there are a number of hi5-specific ways in which developers can further gain adoption for their applications. Got an app through Widgetbox on hi5? Let us know what you think of this new partnership.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Widgetbox Launches Showcase & “Get It Now”Widgetbox Launches iPhone Widget Gallery Sans Apple’s SDKWidgetbox Showcase Offers iTunes Widget and PlaylistWidgetbox Launches App Accelerator for BeboWidgetbox Launches Gossip Widget Collection for BeboMoney-Making Facebook Apps from RockYou & WidgetboxWidgetbox Chosen by Forbes for Widget Distribution

OpenSocial is Google’s developer platform for social networking applications. It’s the backbone behind applications on MySpace, Orkut, Friendster, LinkedIn, Plaxo, hi5, and many more. We’ve gathered a list of 13 OpenSocial video tutorials and educational videos so you can learn more about how to use it.

OpenSocial Google Workshop - Here’s an hour-long video of a workshop that Google offers for getting acquainted with OpenSocial. While not strictly a tutorial, it does provide some great information.

Google’s Open Social Tutorial Series - This five-part series covers all the basics for using OpenSocial and includes: Gadget Basics, Listing Friends, Giving Gifts, Listing Gifts You’ve Sent, and Listing Gifts You’ve Received.

How to Put Flixster Functionality into MySpace - This tutorial shows how to integrate Flixster into your MySpace.com profile using OpenSocial.

OpenSocial Across Containers - This video covers best-practices for implementing OpenSocial applications across containers.

Tour of OpenSocial Developer Resources - This video gives an overview of all of the resources available to Orkut/OpenSocial Developers.

E-junkie talks about OpenSocial - This video gives an overview of how E-junkie.com uses the OpenSocial platform.

A Different Kind of OpenSocial Container - This video suggests a new way for OpenSocial containers to give access to their applications, and has some very useful ideas for OpenSocial developers.

MySpace Developer Platform Videos - MySpace applications are built on the OpenSocial platform, and they have six videos here to get you started.

Creating Popular OpenSocial Applications on MySpace - This talk by Maxwell Newbould and Christopher Cole covers a variety of topics related to OpenSocial, from a general overview to a nuts and bolts technical information.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:20+ Photoshop Video Tutorials20+ Great Resources For Video TutorialsOpenSocial Sandboxes for hi5, Ning, and Plaxo Go Live. Dig In.LessonBites Launches iTunes Model for Educational VideoGoogle OpenSocial Now Live!NewsGator Joins OpenSocialOpenSocial Container Pre-Released