Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

iGoogle Launches Developer Sandbox

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the another-star-in-the-googleverse dept.

gurubaba writes "Google has announced the launch of iGoogle Developer Sandbox, which will allow developers to build and test applications. The Sandbox provides support for building social applications using the OpenSocial API. 'The iGoogle OpenSocial container will allow developers to build full page applications, just like the ones on Facebook, using the Canvas View. The applications built using the developer Sandbox can display profile information, post activity updates, send messages and gadget invites and add friends. The developers will also be able to monetize the applications through ads.'"

3 of 62 comments (clear)

  1. Please, please please... by Mateo_LeFou · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Don't do another pseudo-open API like Android. I had been all excited about the prospect of playing with that (woot, an Eclipse plugin already!) until I read about its licensing.

    --
    My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
  2. ads by Frac+O+Mac · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The developers will also be able to monetize the applications through ads. Google ads of course.
  3. Re:Finally somebody makes sense of it all by AnyoneEB · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I disagree on Google's openness. Google certainly is a big supporter of open source (SoC, etc.), but their core business is intrinsically closed: they want you on their site looking at their ads. Search is at least understandable as it requires a lot of work to spider, index, and cache any significant portion of the web, but GMail is not open. It ties you to Google and Google's ads instead of, say, Microsoft's OS, so it is more accessible, but it still holds the same problems: you do not really control your e-mail.

    To use GMail's features, you have to let Google have all of your e-mail to scrape for information about you, and, because it is closed-source, certain features which are not in Google's interest like easy encryption support will likely never get implemented and minor interface tweaks/extra preferences are difficult or impossible to get added.

    That said, I am also a GMail user because it simply is far more convenient than the alternatives, but nothing made by Google is going to be truly open unless it is a side project they cannot make money on. As soon as a libre webmail client reaches GMail's usability (at least for the subset of its features that I use), I will switch.

    --
    Centralization breaks the internet.