Socialcast Releases Developer API

Socialcast this Wednesday released an official developer API. After weeks of beta testing with select clients the API is now available for all Socialcast members. Socialcast is a real-time collaboration platform that allows companies to communicate and collaborate via activity streams where coworkers share text, files, images and links. Socialcast also allows for users to organize groups to share information with enterprise teams.

The Socialcast API allows developers to create applications through a robust set of operations to interact with activity streams. Socialcast also offers users a desktop client built off their API.

“Socialcast Founder and CEO Timothy Young mentioned that Socialcast aims to be a platform, and not a tool like Yammer, or Twitter,” says TechCrunch reporter Daniel Brusilovsky.

When viewing the Socialcast website I see this eWeek quote featured as the latest buzz, “Socialcast is like a secure Twitter for the Enterprise.”

What I’m going to take away from these contradicting statements is that Socialcast is working on developing and enhancing features to break away from the “enterprise Twitter” mold, however bases the platform on similar functionality.

Collaber Launches Web-based Collaboration

Collaber on Web comes to market this week as an extension of the Collaber Desktop real-time collaboration software suite. Collaber allows users to share files, folders, tasks, events and track project activities through unified team workspaces. In addition to Web based access, new features include a multi-calendar view, improved HTML editing, keyboard shortcuts, advanced alerts, enhanced filters and the launch of an application store where developers can offer new tools built on the Collaber API.

Users can maintain a single Collaber account to access and manage their projects from the Web or desktop.

Source: Online PR News

Google Wave Splashes 100,000 Testers this Fall

The top story from the Googleplex this week is the announcement confirming Google Wave will be available to 100,000 testers this fall. The latest project lead by Google Maps developers Lars and Jens Rasmussen, Google Wave is an open source collaboration and communications platform that fuses conversations and documents in real-time.

Developers have already been getting their hands dirty in the Google Wave Sandbox with almost 6,000 active accounts. Google is working on filling an additional 20,000 account requests over the next month.

Leading up to the September 30th test launch Google will be working on increasing the stability, speed and usability of the Google Wave platform while expanding API features.

Source: Google Wave Developers Blog

Opera Unite Introduces Browser-Based Web Server

Many companies these days are focused on developing applications that run online within “the cloud” a.k.a. Software as a Service (SaaS); Opera today introduces what appears to be a P2P development platform that promotes running applications locally and using the Opera browser as a web server. Opera Unite is a new technology from Opera that claims to “radically extend what you are able to do online.”
 
Out of the box Opera Unite has a standard set of applications which give users the ability to share files, photos, media, and chat with friends. These applications are not meant to be the core functionality of Opera Unite, but rather simple examples of what can be developed using the Unite API. “The key to Opera Unite is that it enables a whole new class of social software on the Web, applications that benefit from two or more people being online at the same time. And, with Opera Unite, these people can all connect directly without needing middlemen who control third-party servers,” says Lawrence Eng, product analyst at Opera.

The Unite platform also promotes the ability to create collaborative applications such as wikis, shared documents and spreadsheets, which are not hosted in the cloud.

An introduction to Opera Unite available on the Opera Developer Community attempts to explain how everything works, but many have security concerns with users turning their home computers into web servers.

Open Source Collaboration for Web Surfers with Google Wave

Brothers Lars and Jens Rasmussen, creators of Google Maps, are hoping for another home run for the Google brand with the developement of an open source collaboration and communications platform called Google Wave. A ‘wave’ brings together elements of conversation and document; riders of the wave exchange information and collaborate with photos, videos, rich text, maps, gadgets, feeds from other web sources, and more.

Wiki-like functionality allows everyone on a wave to directly edit content or comment on specific elements. Real-time updates allow collaborators to see changes being made as they happen. There is also a history or ‘playback’ feature that allows you to see how the wave has evolved.

Google Wave is an HTML 5 application built on the Google Web Toolkit. An open source project with rich APIs, GWave allows developers to build on top of the platform and also promotes communication and integration into other web services.

We think Google Wave looks ‘swell’ so far and we’re anxious to see more of this product as it develops.

Source: Google Blog

The $15 Million Twitter App: Topsy Launches Real-Time Tweet Search

As the exchange of information on the Web increasingly approaches the now, innovators at Topsy Labs Inc have launched a real-time search engine built off of Twitter’s API. With $15 million in venture funding, co-founder Gary Iwatani isn’t the only one banking on the success of Topsy’s search technology. “We’ve architected what we believe is a next-generation platform for search on the Web,” Iwatani told VentureWire.

Traditionally search giants such as Google have dismissed content from social media sources to reduce spam within search results, reliant on the model of link popularity along with favoring original relevant content when indexing websites. Topsy frontmen, who also founded anti-spam company Cloudmark Inc, are no amateurs when it comes to filtering out the junk. By watching signals, such as the authors who or are producing spam messages, they can more effectively filter out the trash tweets and bring relevant information to the top of search results.

While technically Topsy may be a Twitter app at the moment, the potential for it’s real-time search technology to expand to other social media charts a potentially strong future for this company.

Check out the video for more insight on how Topsy works…

Source: Venture Capital Dispatch

Social Platform Ning Adds Apps

Ning, a social platform that allows users to create their own niche social networks, announces the addition of Ning Apps, which are OpenSocial applications that Ning network creators can add to their social network’s main page. This system will allow developers to create applications that can be syndicated across any Ning network. For example a Ticketmaster app would allow a band, who uses the Ning platform for their website, to embed an app on their main page to promote ticket sales of their shows. Currently in private beta, Ning Apps should roll out to all users by the end of May.