Google recently started a worldwide effort for local developer community building and promotion, and to facilitate the communication and information exchange among the developers. This program is the Google Technology User Group (GTUG). At the moment, more than seventy cities in thirty plus countries around the world has established local GTUG, more than half of them have started their first events.
The first GTUG in Beijing, mainland China , formally established its presence on August 1st. Its objectives are to provide a community for the developers in Beijing and its vicinity areas to gather together periodically to share knowledge and exchange ideas about open source, free software, open web standards, Google products, and web business opportunities.
At its first event on August 1st, Google Greater China President Kai-Fu Lee and China Open Source Promotion Foundation leader Mr. Kewei Song sent congratulatory notes to the event. Mr. Song also presented the current state of open source in China. Engineers from Google China and local developer communities presented OpenSocial introduction, Google Maps and Android. Attendees were satisfied with the opportunity to join this community event. Event attendee group photo are posted here.
Beijing GTUG hopes to see more web developers in Beijing and the surrounding areas join the group and promote web technology together. We welcome developer community leaders in other cities of China also start your own GTUG. Information about how to start a GTUG is here.
Hello, my name is Hidetaka Yamashita, and I am in charge of mixi's OpenSocial Mobile project. I am very happy to announce that mixi has recently added support for mobile phones to our OpenSocial platform. mixi.jp is currently the most popular Japanese social networking service (SNS) and has more than 17 million registered users. You may have heard about our recently launched OpenSocial developer sandbox in April. With this announcement, we are introducing our "mixi apps for mobile" platform which is based on OpenSocial's RESTful API using 2-legged OAuth.
Background
In Japan most people use 3G mobile phones that connect to the Internet at max 7.2Mbps. Currently, more people access the web through mobile phones than through PCs. In mixi's case, access from PCs is approximately 30% compared to mobile phone access, which is 70%. Therefore, it is crucial for mixi to offer mobile phone support for OpenSocial applications.
How mixi's mobile platform works
mixi's mobile development platform is targeted for non-native mobile development, where third party developers build mobile social apps on their own application servers. However, when accessing the application from a mobile phone, users still point their phones to the main mixi site as it serves mainly as a proxy to the third party site. As the response returns from the third party site, the mixi Application Proxy processes the response (which is purely content) and merges it into a complete XHTML response (by adding a header and footer). It is then passed back to the requesting mobile phone. Since the core application itself resides on a third party site, developers build their apps using the RESTful API with 2-legged OAuth to securely access social data from mixi.
With mixi's RESTful API with 2-legged OAuth, OpenSocial applications can run anytime, anywhere!
Supported Features
API (requires authentication using 2-legged OAuth). You can access all the core OpenSocial APIs, as well as photos and communities on mixi.
Timeline (for mobile)
Closed beta version - Ongoing now
Consumer launch - September 2009
Official ads program - September 2009
Virtual currency and Payment API - October 2009
To learn more about mixi's new OpenSocial mobile platform please visit: http://developer.mixi.co.jp/. (Note: this site is in Japanese.)
Posted by Hidetaka Yamashita, mixi, Inc.
(This post originally appeared on the OpenSocial blog.)
This year's Google Developer Day (GDD) in Beijing, China, concluded successfully on June 5th at the Beijing International Convention Center. Nearly 1800 people from all over China, including software and web developers, IT industry leaders, product managers, marketing managers, university professors and graduate students, as well as media and press, attended this year's event. The success of this year's event was represented by the rich contents of breakout sessions and the eager participation of various events by the conference attendees. Several event statistics below:
Attendees submitted 7,040 survey feedback forms
14 partners and other companies participated in the partner exhibition display booths
97 developers submitted Google technology application design showcase forms, and these showcase forms were displayed on a giant display board at the conference venue. Many attendees looked through these exhibitions with great interest, and taking photos of many displays to keep as references
This year's China GDD also included an evening entertainmnent with interactive knowledge sharing. 38 developers went on the stage to share their experiences and results of their innovations using Google developer technologies
A team of volunteers from the Google China office, showcased the various Google products
Many developers from leading web 2.0 companies in China displayed their company logos, these companies include developers who use Google Maps, Open Social, Android platforms: Mercedes Benz - Smart Car, Jeep China, Ctrip.com, eLong.com, Kuxun.com, Dianping.com, Anjuke.com, 51.com, J.com, Huawei, ZTE, China Mobile, China Unicom, etc.
Many conference attendees have expressed interests in using Google developer technologies after seeing the innovation and success stories, we are very happy that our efforts provided them the motivation to innovate on the web.
Below are some of survey results:
35% attendee's main goal is to learn new Google developer APIs, 21% wanted to learn more about the APIs they already know or use, 10% were most interested in listen to certain speakers, 15% were most interested in exchange with other developers, and 13% were most interested in exchange with other Googlers
90% attendees said that participating GDD was helpful to their future job
46% attendees said that by attending GDD, they are now likely or will use Google technologies in future development, while only 0.35% said they would still not use any Google technologioes
49% attendees most interested in Google Maps、31% in Open Social, 30% in App Engine, 33% in Chrome and Web technologies, 29% in O3D, and 8% in AdWords API
56% attendees thought one-day event was just about right, while 31% thought it was too short, and another 3% thought it was too long
47% attendees said that they were "very satisfied", and another 43% said they were "satisfied", and only 0.6% said that they were "not satisfied"
The photos of this year's China GDD can be seen and downloaded here:
Also, please watch out for the GDD web site for our posting of GDD sessions video recordings and slides download that we will post in the next few days.
We'd like to thank all the attendees and partners for this year's successful GDD in China! We listened to your feedback, and will try to make the event better next year. We look forward to the opportunity in the coming year for more collaborations between Google and local developers. Let's work together to promote the further development of web and web-based applications.
See you at GDD next year!
Bill Luan, Program Manager, Google China Developer Relations
With over 5 million sites using Google Friend Connect to awaken and strengthen their communities, we wanted to make it easier for those of you who prefer languages other than English to take full advantage of it. Today, we are happy to announce that Friend Connect is supported in 47 additional languages including many asian languages: Chinese, Filipino, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Vietnamese.
As a site owner, you can view google.com/friendconnect in any of these languages, which should make setting up your site much more intuitive. Better yet, you can now choose the language of your site (which can be different for each of your sites). Once selected, most Google-created gadgets and any translated third party gadgets on your site will automatically render in that language. This ensures that the Friend Connect gadgets are better integrated into your site and easily understood by your visitors. Visit the gadget gallery to see which gadgets are available in your language.
Google is very much larger than life in Malaysia. The formation of the Google Technology User Group in Kuala Lumpur says it all during its first meetup on 27th June 2009. Fondly known as GTUG KL, it's an independent technology user group that focuses on Google technology and services and is the first one in Southeast Asia. GTUG KL currently has about 92 members and 23 of them attended the meetup. We had a number of lightning talks that contributed towards making this a successful and engaging event.
Hello Android
Nazrul kicked off the meetup by presenting a talk on the Android software stack. The main focus was on the Android marketplace and how easy it is to start publishing your apps and the challenges faced by developers in the Malaysian mobile market. There was also a brief demo of the Android SDK using the Eclipse plugin.
Kegan Gan, MalaysiaCrime.com, AirSense & 5 things you need to know
Kegan was concerned about the growing crime rate in Malaysia, especially where he lives. With a new member in his family, he was getting serious about it and started up a project called MalaysiaCrime.com. The website uses the Google Maps API and has custom designed markers to indicate what type of crimes are "hot" in an area. You can even post and report crimes in your area using the website.
Marvin Lee, Introduction to OpenSocial in 5 minutes
Marvin, one of last year's winners of the Google Southeast Asia OpenSocial contest, presented an overview on how to start developing OpenSocial gadgets. He also showed a latest update on his What Say U? OpenSocial app using the Google Friend Connect API.
Lim Chee Aun, My Google App Engine apps
Chee Aun is a well known Mozilla community developer coming from Penang. He talked about Google App Engine projects that he has been building.
Colin Charles, using Google Sites
Colin called Google Sites a faster and simpler version of MS Access. Not because he's a database guy, but because he was particularly impressed at how easy it is to setup your own simple online database using Google Sites. He liked the List Items feature because it was really easy to create a form and start populating the list with data. He demonstrated by showing a list of politicians in Malaysia using social media to stay connected online. You can check it out at http://spot.bytebot.net.
Richard Azlan Abas, my G1 Android phone
Razlan was the only one with a G1 Android phone at the meet-up. He explained why he doesn't carry a laptop anymore, ever since he got a G1 Android phone. The slideout QWERTY keypad & the Google apps accessing his email, documents & news impressed him the most. He can access all that using his G1 Android phone. He was also particularly hot on Android applications and calls for all Android developers in Malaysia to step up the game.
Harmeshver Singh, using Google Sketchup is easy
Resh spoke about how easy it is to use Google Sketchup compared to other 3D modelling tools he has tried. Being an IT student, all that he wanted was something easy to work with. Google Sketchup does just that for him.
Ikhwan Nazri, OfficeKami project
Ikhwan presented his OfficeKami project. OfficeKami is a project started by the guys from Flavert Media Lab, creators of Flash mobile applications in KL. What does it do? Simple: to share with other mobile warriors (as preferred by Ikhwan) suitable mobile office hotspots in Klang valley & all around Malaysia. For every new location these mobile warriors have been to, they willl follow up with a blog post detailing the basic amenities (critical for any mobile warriors) and best of all, they marked the locations on Google Maps.
The lightning talks took almost 2 hours with exchange of opinions, debates and jokes all around between attendees. It was good to see that there was some healthy discussion to be had.
It was then time to vote for the best lightning talks. By the power of crowdsource, the people voted Ikhwan as the best presenter for the day. He went home with the best geek toy you could have on your table, a Google USB transforming hub. And yes, it transforms!
This was the first meetup for GTUG KL. Fun, hot discussions, curious and of course, a lot of sharing and caring. You can also read a nice wrap up post by Marvin Lee and view the meetup photos. If you're in Malaysia (or even if you're not!) and would like to mingle with like-minded Google fans, please join our next meetup in KL. The more the merrier! Check us out at http://sites.google.com/site/gtugkl for upcoming events.
To learn more about Google Technology User Groups, to find one in your area, or to start up your own, please visit gtugs.org.
Posted by Nazrul Kamaruddin and Marvin Lee, GTUG Kuala Lumpur. Photos by Marvin Lee, GTUG KL and Surianee, iTrain.
At Google I/O this year, we formally introduced the concept of GTUGs (Google Technology User Groups) and the launch of its website. In a short one month and a half, we are happy to report that there are a total of 13 GTUGs chapters in Asia! Many of them are looking for new members and planning for their first events.
If there's one near you, check it out! Let the organizers know you're interested; suggest topics for discussion and even offer to do a talk about your own experiences.
We would love to hear how your events went and welcome you to share your experience on this blog that is dedicated to developers like you in Asia Pacific.
