ptg 12. Have you taken advantage of the OpenSocial platform and imported your apps to other social networks like Orkut or Hi5? I did at the start, but it became overwhelming to support multiple apps across mul- tiple sites that are not 100% compatible both in technology and policies, so now I just focus on MySpace and Facebook. 13. What advice, if any, would you offer a first-time app developer? Don’t expect your “big idea” will make you rich overnight. Dan Yue: Playdom (www.myspace.com/playdom) 1. Who are you? My name is Dan Yue and I’m the cofounder and CEO of Playdom, the largest game developer on MySpace. Prior to founding Playdom, I was employee num- ber 1 at Adify, an ad network platform acquired by Cox Enterprises in 2008; founded several wildly unsuccessful technology start-ups; and served as technical consultant to Wynn Design and Development … As a lifelong gamer, I’ve played thousands of hours of Final Fantasy 7 and Baldur’s Gate 2 and spent 34 long days as a semiprofessional Blackjack player. My commitment to the player experience runs so deep that I wake up several times a night to check the performance of Playdom’s games. 2. What OpenSocial apps have you created or helped to create? Playdom has developed and successfully launched 12 apps on MySpace, including seven RPGs. Playdom has also launched Poker Palace and Bumper Stickers on Hi5. 3. Is there anything you wish you had known before you started developing your first app? I wish we realized that games are much more successful on social platforms than other types of social apps.We first launched Kiss Me on MySpace, which was (and is) a success, but it may have been wiser to launch a game first, then follow with a social app. In the perfect scenario, you’d attract a high volume of installs with a highly engaging game; then you can use the first game’s popularity to cross-promote new apps. 4. How do you find the MySpace platform, in terms of both technology and growth opportunities? MySpace is a great platform that provides a lot of possibilities for developers. The average length of visit is longer on MySpace, compared to other social networks, and the emphasis is on self-expression and fun. Social games— and Playdom’s games in particular—work really well in MySpace’s environment. 324 Chapter 14 Marketing and Monetizing From the Library of Lee Bogdanoff Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. ptg 5. And how do you find the MySpace platform in comparison to other platforms like Facebook? MySpace is very developer-focused, and we value our relationship with them. As one of many examples, their platform team recently conducted a survey to pinpoint developer pain points and solicit recommendations. (That said, we have a positive relationship with Facebook and find their team and policies by and large developer-friendly.) 6. What has been your most successful app in terms of number of installs? How many installs does it have? Mobsters is the number-1 app on MySpace with over 13.6 million installs. Playdom also has three of the top four apps on MySpace, including Own Your Friends, Kiss Me, and Bumper Stickers. 7. What did you try that did and didn’t work to promote your app and increase installs? We have generally enjoyed great success promoting our apps. Our two biggest strengths: cross-promotions (marketing a new game via a popular established game) and deeply integrating viral channels into our games (the best virals are a natural part of the game play). 8. Do you think your app(s) has been successful? Why or why not? A number of our apps have been successful.The most obvious indicator of suc- cess is in the number of installs: Mobsters is the obvious success, our largest MySpace app with over 13.6 installs; and Bumper Stickers is in second place with over 11 million installs to date. However, we really focus on the level of player engagement, and we’re very pleased with our DAU [Daily Active Users] and length-of-session metrics. 9. How did you scale your app once growth took off? Were you prepared, or was it a surprise? Playdom’s first app to hit it big was Own Your Friends, which rocketed to 5.7 million installs in the third month, only to grow to more than 7.5 [million] installs a month later.To be honest, we weren’t fully prepared:We didn’t have the server infrastructure to support the app’s massive growth. As a stopgap solution, the founding team got up several times a night to make sure the game was online.And we quickly focused on scaling the operation. Thanks to an angel investor, this was possible early in our history. 10. Have you tried to monetize your app? If so, how? Playdom has monetized various apps—and all our RPGs. Roughly 60% of our revenue comes from direct payments for virtual goods, including in-game advance- ment and limited edition items. Five percent of the people playing our games pur- chase virtual goods and the percentage goes up as players spend more time on our game.The other half of our revenue is generated via incentivized offers. Interviews with Successful App Developers 325 From the Library of Lee Bogdanoff Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. ptg 11. Have you ever spent money advertising your app? If so, where and was it worth it? We have purchased both sponsorships and cost-per-click banner ads on MySpace. Both have been worth the energy and money because of the return-per-user metrics they provide.With each user that clicks on the ad, that user brings in additional players through the app’s viral channels.These advertisements help seed virality—a critical driver of growth. 12. Have you taken advantage of the OpenSocial platform and imported your apps to other social networks like Orkut or Hi5? Poker Palace and Bumper Stickers have both been successfully launched on Hi5. 13. What advice, if any, would you offer a first-time app developer? New developers need to understand that in today’s market, it’s difficult to go massively viral by relying on old-school “spammy” methods.Viral channels need to be authentic to the game, and the game play needs to be fundamentally engaging. We’ve created a formula that speaks to a joint need to drive growth and reduce churn: G Ϫ cD Ͼ 0 or [Growth Ϫ % of daily churn ϫ number of daily active users must be greater than 0] We’ve fueled growth by identifying the right in-game channels to deploy the virals.We’ve reduced churn by introducing in-game comments, compelling storylines, and mini-games. Summary In this chapter we looked at ways to spread your app, and then how to cash in once the installs start coming in. One thing to take away is that there are individuals and companies out there that are making money by making apps.We heard from a few of them in the interviews section and got some tips on how to achieve some success. When it comes to generating income, there is a wide variety of options; this is an expanding market and one that is interesting for advertisers. In terms of getting the biggest bang for your buck with ads, there are a lot of variables to consider. Using one of the bigger and more established companies, like Google, is a superior technical solution. You won’t see a lot of downtime with AdSense, for example. But AdSense isn’t built to target social networking apps. On the other hand, RockYou! Ads and Cubics are designed to specifically target the social networking user. But we encountered technical problems with both ad networks, so there’s a give-and-take you’ll need to consider. This is one of the most important decisions when it comes to developing and growing your app; ultimately you can’t make successful apps if you can’t pay for the 326 Chapter 14 Marketing and Monetizing From the Library of Lee Bogdanoff Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. ptg bandwidth. So it may take time for you to try different solutions, or a combination of solutions. Maybe your app is suited for micropayments and you needn’t bug your users with ads. Maybe your golfing app pulls up some great targeted ads via Google AdSense and you get lots of click-throughs. As we’ve seen, it’s easier than ever before to simply drop an ad into your app and start making money; the sooner you start thinking in terms of profit margins, the better. Summary 327 From the Library of Lee Bogdanoff Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. ptg This page intentionally left blank From the Library of Lee Bogdanoff Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. ptg 15 Porting Your App to OpenSocial 0.9 We have some good news and some bad news. Let’s go with the bad news first.The bad news is that the OpenSocial spec is currently in constant flux while the spec group seeks the Holy Grail of version 1.0.You may think that this isn’t so bad.After all, you log- ically go from version 0.8 to 0.9, then finally 1.0, right? Well, there is currently some talk of going from 0.8 to 0.9 to 0.10.That’s right: zero dot eight, zero dot nine, zero dot ten. We hope that won’t be the case and that the 0.9 spec will be stable enough that it can be called version 1.0 without too many changes. If that’s what happens, the spec should stop churning for a while, excluding a few bug fixes here and there. The other piece of bad news is that MySpace will probably continue to support the latest and greatest versions of the OpenSocial spec as they are released.That means version 0.9 will have the full support of MySpace. Sounds great, right? Well, if your app is currently written in version 0.7, that means you’ll now be two spec versions behind.The more versions that are released and supported by MySpace, the more likely it is that the older versions will receive less and less support.We’re already seeing this phenomenon to some extent. Bug fixes and feature releases for 0.7 are fewer and farther between compared to those for 0.8. Fortunately, the good news more than makes up for the bad. For the foreseeable future, MySpace will continue to support older versions of the OpenSocial spec. It’s a lot of effort to deprecate older versions of the spec, and too many apps are running on old versions. It will happen eventually, but it will probably be a long and drawn-out process. A little-known fact is that the 0.7 container actually also supports OpenSocial 0.6, an early and buggy release of the spec. By the time you read this page, dear readers, version 0.6 will be about two years old (or more)—an eternity in Internet time. If version 0.6 can last that long, and probably longer, then version 0.8 will be around for a long time as well. Even better news is the fact that when it comes down to it, not a whole lot is chang- ing from version 0.8 to version 0.9.The biggest change will be the inclusion of OSML to the spec. Since we covered OSML extensively in Chapters 10 and 11, we won’t From the Library of Lee Bogdanoff Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. ptg rehash that topic here.The other big change is what is called “OS Lite,” or the “Lightweight JS APIs.” OS Lite is, for the most part, a rewrite of the OpenSocial JavaScript APIs and has two main goals: to unify the JavaScript and REST APIs, and to use JSON for both inputs and outputs.These are both worthy goals, but the truth of the matter is that the original APIs will work just fine in version 0.9. Moving forward, OS Lite will probably become the standard, but it’s probably best to wait for version 1.0, when it becomes a bit more baked-in. Other than that, there are a few bug fixes, a feature or two, and a bit of a cleanup. Now, let’s take a look at the big changes. Media Item Support A slew of functions to support media items were added in 0.9; this includes fetches, updates, deletes, and (finally!) uploads. However, some of this functionality already existed on the MySpace platform as MySpace-specific extensions in 0.8. In the sections that follow, we’ll take a look at the new APIs and, if applicable, con- trast them with the 0.8 APIs.Then we’ll show some sample code so you can see how to use the new features. opensocial.Album The first thing we’ll look at is the new opensocial.Album object.The album object behaves exactly like the other OpenSocial objects, such as opensocial.Person; it has fields, and those fields are fetched with getField. Let’s take a look at the available fields that albums provide. OpenSocial 0.9 * opensocial.Album.Field = { /** * String, unique identifier for the album. * May be used interchangeably with the string 'id'. * @member opensocial.Album.Field */ ID: 'id', /** * String, URL to a thumbnail cover of the album. * May be used interchangeably with the string 'thumbnailUrl'. * @member opensocial.Album.Field */ THUMBNAIL_URL: 'thumbnailUrl', 330 Chapter 15 Porting Your App to OpenSocial 0.9 * Code courtesy of OpenSocial.org: http://sites.google.com/site/opensocialdraft/Home/opensocial- javascript-api-reference/albums-js. From the Library of Lee Bogdanoff Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. ptg Media Item Support 331 /** * String, the title of the album. * May be used interchangeably with the string 'title'. * @member opensocial.Album.Field */ TITLE: 'title', /** * opensocial.Address, location corresponding to the album. * May be used interchangeably with the string 'location'. * @member opensocial.Album.Field */ LOCATION: 'location', /** * String, ID of the owner of the album. * May be used interchangeably with the string 'ownerId'. * @member opensocial.Album.Field */ OWNER_ID: 'ownerId', /** * Array of MediaItem.TYPE, types of MediaItems in the album. * May be used interchangeably with the string 'mediaType'. * @member opensocial.Album.Field */ MEDIA_TYPE: 'mediaType', /** * Array of strings identifying the mime-types of media items in the album. * May be used interchangeably with the string 'mediaMimeType'. * @member opensocial.Album.Field */ MEDIA_MIME_TYPE:'mediaMimeType', /** * Integer, number of items in the album. * May be used interchangeably with the string 'mediaItemCount'. * @member opensocial.Album.Field */ MEDIA_ITEM_COUNT:'mediaItemCount' }; OpenSocial 0.8 on MySpace MyOpenSpace.Album.Field = { /** * A number representing an album's unique identifier. From the Library of Lee Bogdanoff Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. ptg * @memberOf MyOpenSpace.Album.Field */ ALBUM_ID:"ALBUM_ID", /** * The RESTFUL URI with which to access the album on the API. * @memberOf MyOpenSpace.Album.Field */ ALBUM_URI:"ALBUM_URI", /** * The album's title. * @memberOf MyOpenSpace.Album.Field */ TITLE:"TITLE", /** * The geographic location where the album's pictures were taken. * @memberOf MyOpenSpace.Album.Field */ LOCATION:"LOCATION", /** * A URL for the album's default image. * @memberOf MyOpenSpace.Album.Field */ DEFAULT_IMAGE:"DEFAULT_IMAGE", /** * A string representing the album's privacy setting, * such as "Public" or "Private" * @memberOf MyOpenSpace.Album.Field */ PRIVACY:"PRIVACY", /** * An integer representing the total number of photos in the album * (not the number of photos actually contained * within the current object). * @memberOf MyOpenSpace.Album.Field */ PHOTO_COUNT:"PHOTO_COUNT", /** * A RESTFUL URI with which to access the photos contained in the album. 332 Chapter 15 Porting Your App to OpenSocial 0.9 From the Library of Lee Bogdanoff Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. ptg Media Item Support 333 * @memberOf MyOpenSpace.Album.Field */ PHOTOS_URI:"PHOTOS_URI" }; The entities are basically the same—all the important stuff is there in both cases, such as IDs, album cover URL, and the number of media items in the album. Fetching Albums Here’s the functionality for fetching an album. First, let’s look at OpenSocial 0.9. OpenSocial 0.9 † /** * The newFetchAlbumsRequest() creates an object for * DataRequest to request albums. * * @param {opensocial.IdSpec} An IdSpec used to specify which * people/groups to fetch albums from. * * @param {Map.<string, string>} opt_params * opt_params can specify the following: * opensocial.Album.Field.ID - an array of album IDs to fetch * (fetch all albums if empty, subject to pagination) * opensocial.Album.Field.MEDIA_TYPE - an array of MediaItem.TYPE * values to specify the kind of albums to fetch. * opensocial.DataRequest.AlbumRequestFields.FIRST - * The first item to fetch. * opensocial.DataRequest.AlbumRequestFields.MAX - * The maximum number of items to fetch. * @return {Object} A request object */ opensocial.DataRequest.prototype.newFetchAlbumsRequest = function(idSpec, opt_params) {}; And now, the MySpace 0.8 extension. OpenSocial 0.8 on MySpace /** * Creates an object to be used when sending to the server * @param {String} id The ID (VIEWER or OWNER) * of the person who owns the albums † Code courtesy of OpenSocial.org: http://sites.google.com/site/opensocialdraft/Home/opensocial- javascript-api-reference/datarequest. From the Library of Lee Bogdanoff Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. [...]... {}; params [opensocial. IdSpec.Field.USER_ID] = opensocial. IdSpec.PersonId.VIEWER; params [opensocial. IdSpec.Field.NETWORK_DISTANCE] = 0; var idspec = opensocial. newIdSpec(params); // Create the DataRequest object var request = opensocial. newDataRequest(); params = {}; // Set the paging parameters if(first){ params [opensocial. DataRequest.AlbumRequestFields.FIRST] = first; } if(max){ params [opensocial. DataRequest.AlbumRequestFields.MAX]... {}; params [opensocial. IdSpec.Field.USER_ID] = opensocial. IdSpec.PersonId.VIEWER; params [opensocial. IdSpec.Field.NETWORK_DISTANCE] = 0; var idspec = opensocial. newIdSpec(params); // Create the DataRequest object var request = opensocial. newDataRequest(); params = {}; // Set the paging parameters if(first){ params [opensocial. DataRequest.MediaItemRequestFields.FIRST] = first; } if(max){ params [opensocial. DataRequest.MediaItemRequestFields.MAX]... object var params = {}; params [opensocial. IdSpec.Field.USER_ID] = opensocial. IdSpec.PersonId.VIEWER; params [opensocial. IdSpec.Field.NETWORK_DISTANCE] = 0; var idspec = opensocial. newIdSpec(params); // Create the DataRequest object var request = opensocial. newDataRequest(); var fields = {}; // Set the new fields fields [opensocial. MediaItem.Field.TITLE] = newTitle; fields [opensocial. MediaItem.Field.THUMBNAIL_URL]... SB1020718637382274400.html OpenSocial Foundation OpenSocial Data Pipelining Specification v0.9,” April 2009 Accessed May 2009 http:/ /opensocial- resources.googlecode.com/svn/spec/0.9/ OpenSocial- Data-Pipelining.xml ——— OpenSocial Javascript API Reference,” September 28, 2008 Accessed December 2008 http://wiki .opensocial. org/index.php?title=JavaScript_API_Reference ——— OpenSocial Templating Specification... fetching friends, you need to provide an opensocial. IdSpec object instead of a string ID; see Chapter 3, Getting Additional MySpace Data, for details on that To retrieve the app data in the callback, you must use a function that has been added to the opensocial. Person object:** **Code courtesy of OpenSocial. org: http://sites.google.com/site/opensocialdraft/Home/opensocialjavascript-api-reference/person... request.send(callback); } In the function we specified opensocial. MediaItem.Type.IMAGE.The other possibility is opensocial. MediaItem.Type.VIDEO Fetching Media Items Let’s look at the OpenSocial 0.9 method for fetching media items OpenSocial 0.9‡ /** * The newFetchAlbumsRequest() creates an object for * DataRequest to request albums * * @param {opensocial. IdSpec} An IdSpec used to specify which * people/groups... opt_params can specify the following: * opensocial. MediaItem.Field.ID - an array of media item IDs to * selectively fetch (fetch all items if empty, subject to pagination) * opensocial. MediaItem.Field.MEDIA_TYPE - an array of MediaItem.TYPE * values to specify the types of MediaItems to fetch * opensocial. DataRequest.MediaItemRequestFields.FIRST * The first item to fetch * opensocial. DataRequest.MediaItemRequestFields.MAX... ALBUM_ID, FILE_SIZE, NUM_COMMENTS * Containers implement restrictions * * @param {opensocial. IdSpec} An IdSpec used to specify which * people/groups own the album/media item * * @param {string} albumId * The album containing the media item to update * §Code courtesy of OpenSocial. org: http://sites.google.com/site/opensocialdraft/Home/opensocialjavascript-api-reference/datarequest Please purchase PDF Split-Merge... opensocial. DataRequest.MediaItemRequestFields.MAX * The maximum number of items to fetch * * @return {Object} A request object */ opensocial. DataRequest.prototype.newFetchMediaItemsRequest = function(idSpec, albumId, opt_params){}; And now for version 0.8 ‡Code courtesy of OpenSocial. org: http://sites.google.com/site/opensocialdraft/Home/opensocialjavascript-api-reference/datarequest Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com... (Updating and Deleting App Data) opensocial. DataRequest.prototype.newUpdatePersonAppDataRequest = function(id, key, value) {}; opensocial. DataRequest.prototype.newRemovePersonAppDataRequest = function(id, keys) {}; They have now been changed for 0.9 Version 0.9 (Updating and Deleting App Data) opensocial. DataRequest.prototype.newUpdatePersonAppDataRequest = function(key, value) {}; opensocial. DataRequest.prototype.newRemovePersonAppDataRequest . {}; params [opensocial. IdSpec.Field.USER_ID] = opensocial. IdSpec.PersonId.VIEWER; params [opensocial. IdSpec.Field.NETWORK_DISTANCE] = 0; var idspec = opensocial. newIdSpec(params); //. {}; params [opensocial. IdSpec.Field.USER_ID] = opensocial. IdSpec.PersonId.VIEWER; params [opensocial. IdSpec.Field.NETWORK_DISTANCE] = 0; var idspec = opensocial. newIdSpec(params); //