Re: [orkut Developer Blog] Launch plan update

[Jesse Stay]

I can't tell you how frustrated I am with this announcement.  I spent good money to go out to the hackathon 2 weeks ago just so my app would be launched with the Orkut first launch on OpenSocial.  I'm very disappointed that one day before the launch you guys pull the plug.  A lot of us developers have invested a ton of our time and resources helping you get this live and we can't even celebrate with you.  Now, with the Orkut launch being so close to the Myspace launch I'm going to have to divert my efforts to Myspace.  You guys can't make an official date announcement and then change it to an entire week later, only for a select few, just a day before the original launch date!

Just my $.02 FWIW

Jesse

On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 12:08 PM, Peter Harbison <harb...@gmail.com> wrote:

Posted by Amar Gandhi, Group Product Manager

We've made a couple of modifications to the launch plan detailed in this post. We've decided to have a pre-launch testing period in which we'll push just a few apps to production -- this will likely happen next week. We are notifying the apps that will be in the directory for this initial testing period today (Feb. 26th). If you submitted an app, but are not selected for the pre-launch testing phase, hang tight...we'll contact you before the launch.

After the pre-launch testing is complete and we are confident that the platform is ready, we will launch the platform to developers. We expect the pre-launch testing to take around four weeks. When we launch, we will be whitelisting apps on a daily basis assuming they meet the criteria (not malware or spammy, no 404 errors, etc).

As we and our users get comfortable with apps on orkut, we will remove the whitelisting process and you will be able to add apps to the directory yourself.

We apologize for delaying the launch a few weeks. We feel that this pre-launch testing period will ensure that users are introduced to apps in the best way possible.

If you have any questions about this new launch plan, let us know in the orkut developer forum.

--
Posted By Peter Harbison to orkut Developer Blog at 2/26/2008 11:04:00 A

--
Jesse Stay
The Social Media Guru

Partner, Co-founder: SocialOptimize.com
Author: O'Reilly's FBML Essentials
http://www.amazon.com/FBML-Essentials-Jesse-Stay/dp/0596519184/
Co-Author: I'm on Facebook -- Now What???
http://FacebookAdvice.com

Blogger:           http://www.jessestay.com
http://www.socialoptimize.com/blog

Phone: (801) 853-8339

[jalmond]

Definitely anyone from the Google/Orkut team that's reading this,
jesse is fully right, this is amazingly bad form, and its certainly no
way to build a good development community.

Like Jess, my company diverted time, resources, and money to make sure
we were there for launch date (or the prelaunch date if thats what its
being called now). In fact this was a HUGE reason why we chose to
develop on Orkut; the playing field was supposed to be leveled and
everyone got a fair shot. Obviously that's pretty clutch for any apps
in a competitive spaces where the snowball effect is in play.

Now from the announcement, I'm left wondering what's going on. What
does "we'll push just a few apps to production " mean? Some fuzzy 4
week window where some apps get exclusive access to build up users
before others (who submitted the apps by your deadline) have to wait?

I'm certainly hoping some further clarification will come out, because
the blog post, on first read, comes off pretty harshly to those of us
who pushed hard to be there on day 1 to users.

-Jeremy Almond

On Feb 26, 8:24 pm, "Jesse Stay" <jesses...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I can't tell you how frustrated I am with this announcement. I spent good
> money to go out to the hackathon 2 weeks ago just so my app would be
> launched with the Orkut first launch on OpenSocial. I'm very disappointed
> that one day before the launch you guys pull the plug. A lot of us
> developers have invested a ton of our time and resources helping you get
> this live and we can't even celebrate with you. Now, with the Orkut launch
> being so close to the Myspace launch I'm going to have to divert my efforts
> to Myspace. You guys can't make an official date announcement and then
> change it to an entire week later, only for a select few, just a day before
> the original launch date!
>
> Just my $.02 FWIW
>
> Jesse
>
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 12:08 PM, Peter Harbison <harbi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Posted by Amar Gandhi, Group Product Manager
>
> > We've made a couple of modifications to the launch plan detailed in this

> > post<http://orkutdeveloper.blogspot.com/2008/02/its-final-countdownto-laun...>.

> > We've decided to have a pre-launch testing period in which we'll push just
> > a few apps to production -- this will likely happen next week. We are
> > notifying the apps that will be in the directory for this initial testing
> > period today (Feb. 26th). If you submitted an app, but are not selected
> > for the pre-launch testing phase, hang tight...we'll contact you before the
> > launch.
>
> > After the pre-launch testing is complete and we are confident that the
> > platform is ready, we will launch the platform to developers. We expect the
> > pre-launch testing to take around four weeks. When we launch, we will be
> > whitelisting apps on a daily basis assuming they meet the criteria (not
> > malware or spammy, no 404 errors, etc).
>
> > As we and our users get comfortable with apps on orkut, we will remove
> > the whitelisting process and you will be able to add apps to the directory
> > yourself.
>
> > We apologize for delaying the launch a few weeks. We feel that this
> > pre-launch testing period will ensure that users are introduced to apps in
> > the best way possible.
>
> > If you have any questions about this new launch plan, let us know in the orkut

> > developer forum <http://groups.google.com/group/opensocial-orkut>.
>
> > --
> > Posted By Peter Harbison to orkut Developer Blog<http://orkutdeveloper.blogspot.com/2008/02/launch-plan-update.html>at 2/26/2008 11:04:00 A

>
> --
> Jesse Stay
> The Social Media Guru
>
> Partner, Co-founder: SocialOptimize.com

> Author: O'Reilly's FBML Essentialshttp://www.amazon.com/FBML-Essentials-Jesse-Stay/dp/0596519184/

[Navaneeth Krishnan]

I'd like to echo Jesse's concern. Even I 've invested considerable amount of time
and resources in building an app. Now that my app has not been shortlisted for pre-launch,
I need to wait for more than a month before orkut users can get to use it  !

I am sure many developers like us feel let down by this decision. Also, from an orkut user's
perspective, the day they get to see the first third party apps *is* the launch. In effect, a few select
apps get launched next week. And everybody else gets locked down for a month.

Does not sound fair.

Regards,
Navaneeth

[Dinesh Kumar Subramanian]

Hi All,

Even i too agree with you people. In the light of all I want to know
is there any developers App been accepted or only the App of the
partners like [rockyou, slide, like etc] were accepted.

If any of developers App is accepted I would say its ok. and we have
to work hard and make our app much better to get it listed.

But if its only the partner aka the big players then i would say its
not openSocial its closedSocial.

Let us all know if any of the developers app is accepted.

dinesh

[victorc]

Agree with all of you, following from the begining (last november) the
Orkut platform and updates (with communities dev and forum
participation), I am now frustrated not to have some answers from
Orkut about my app. Just a short email like "Wait we are looking your
app ..." or "Sorry but your app is not so goof for us ... " would be
nice from Google.
I am a bit disappointing not to be informed after lot of time
investment on OpenSocial tests and debugs ...

Victor

On Feb 27, 6:35 am, Navaneeth Krishnan <navaneeth.cont...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> I'd like to echo Jesse's concern. Even I 've invested considerable amount of time
> and resources in building an app. Now that my app has not been shortlisted for pre-launch,
> I need to wait for more than a month before orkut users can get to use it !
> I am sure many developers like us feel let down by this decision. Also, from an orkut user's
> perspective, the day they get to see the first third party apps *is* the launch. In effect, a few select
> apps get launched next week. And everybody else gets locked down for a month.
> Does not sound fair.
> Regards,
> Navaneeth
> Jesse Stay wrote:I can't tell you how frustrated I am with this announcement. I spent good money to go out to the hackathon 2 weeks ago just so my app would be launched with the Orkut first launch on OpenSocial. I'm very disappointed that one day before the launch you guys pull the plug. A lot of us developers have invested a ton of our time and resources helping you get this live and we can't even celebrate with you. Now, with the Orkut launch being so close to the Myspace launch I'm going to have to divert my efforts to Myspace. You guys can't make an official date announcement and then change it to an entire week later, only for a select few, just a day before the original launch date!
> Just my $.02 FWIW

> JesseOn Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 12:08 PM, Peter Harbison <harb...@gmail.com> wrote:Posted byAmar Gandhi,Group Product ManagerWe've made a couple of modifications to the launch plan detailed inthis post.We've decided to have a pre-launch testing period in which we'll push just a few apps to production -- this will likely happen next week. We are notifying the apps that will be in the directory for this initial testing period today (Feb. 26th).If you submitted an app, but are not selected for the pre-launch testing phase, hang tight...we'll contact you before the launch.After the pre-launch testing is complete and we are confident that the platform is ready, we will launch the platform to developers. We expect the pre-launch testing to take around four weeks. When we launch, we will be whitelisting apps on a daily basis assuming they meet the criteria (not malware or spammy, no 404 errors, etc).As we and our users get comfortable with apps on orkut, wewill remove the whitelisting process and you will be able to add apps to the directory yourself.

>
> We apologize for delaying the launch a few weeks. We feel that this pre-launch testing period will ensure that users are introduced to apps in the best way possible.

> If you have any questions about this new launch plan, let us know in theorkut developer forum.
> --
> Posted By Peter Harbison toorkut Developer Blogat 2/26/2008 11:04:00 A

> --
> Jesse Stay
> The Social Media Guru
> Partner, Co-founder: SocialOptimize.com

> Author: O'Reilly's FBML Essentialshttp://www.amazon.com/FBML-Essentials-Jesse-Stay/dp/0596519184/

[Dustin...@gmail.com]

Jesse's 100% right. This decision reflects extremely poor judgment on
the Orkut Team's part. Many have now wasted massive amounts of time
and resources scrambling to assemble applications in preparation for
this launch, only to be ousted so close to game day. It would seem
we've been let down entirely.

This is a really low blow.

Kudos to Jesse and the rest who have spoken up here. Thanks for saying
what we're all thinking.


-Dustin / www.iwiddit.com

[Suhail Doshi]

I am in full agreement with every single one of these responses. I've
spent countless hours iterating, improving, and working till crazy
hours in the morning to get it done before that Friday deadline only
to realize that *maybe* in four weeks I'll get lucky enough to be in
the directory. It is a tad bit irritating. I do understand there's a
lot to be put together but dates are dates, and time is money. I don't
think it's fair to push a few apps to the pre-launch, you stated
before that you weren't the social application police, so it will be
fair to push all applications that met the deadline on Friday for the
initial application inclusion as stated before.

My makeRequests keep telling me "don't be evil", hopefully our voices
in this thread remind you of that.

Suhail Doshi

On Feb 26, 9:24 pm, "Jesse Stay" <jesses...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I can't tell you how frustrated I am with this announcement.  I spent good
> money to go out to the hackathon 2 weeks ago just so my app would be
> launched with the Orkut first launch on OpenSocial.  I'm very disappointed
> that one day before the launch you guys pull the plug.  A lot of us
> developers have invested a ton of our time and resources helping you get
> this live and we can't even celebrate with you.  Now, with the Orkut launch
> being so close to the Myspace launch I'm going to have to divert my efforts
> to Myspace.  You guys can't make an official date announcement and then
> change it to an entire week later, only for a select few, just a day before
> the original launch date!
>
> Just my $.02 FWIW
>
> Jesse
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 12:08 PM, Peter Harbison <harbi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Posted by Amar Gandhi, Group Product Manager
>
> > We've made a couple of modifications to the launch plan detailed in this

> > post<http://orkutdeveloper.blogspot.com/2008/02/its-final-countdownto-laun...>.

> > We've decided to have a pre-launch testing period in which we'll push just
> > a few apps to production -- this will likely happen next week. We are
> > notifying the apps that will be in the directory for this initial testing
> > period today (Feb. 26th). If you submitted an app, but are not selected
> > for the pre-launch testing phase, hang tight...we'll contact you before the
> > launch.
>
> > After the pre-launch testing is complete and we are confident that the
> > platform is ready, we will launch the platform to developers. We expect the
> > pre-launch testing to take around four weeks. When we launch, we will be
> > whitelisting apps on a daily basis assuming they meet the criteria (not
> > malware or spammy, no 404 errors, etc).
>
> >  As we and our users get comfortable with apps on orkut, we will remove
> > the whitelisting process and you will be able to add apps to the directory
> > yourself.
>
> > We apologize for delaying the launch a few weeks. We feel that this
> > pre-launch testing period will ensure that users are introduced to apps in
> > the best way possible.
>
> > If you have any questions about this new launch plan, let us know in the orkut

> > developer forum <http://groups.google.com/group/opensocial-orkut>.
>
> > --
> > Posted By Peter Harbison to orkut Developer Blog<http://orkutdeveloper.blogspot.com/2008/02/launch-plan-update.html>at 2/26/2008 11:04:00 A

>
> --
> Jesse Stay
> The Social Media Guru
>
> Partner, Co-founder: SocialOptimize.com

> Author: O'Reilly's FBML Essentialshttp://www.amazon.com/FBML-Essentials-Jesse-Stay/dp/0596519184/
> Co-Author: I'm on Facebook -- Now What???http://FacebookAdvice.com
>
> Blogger:          http://www.jessestay.comhttp://www.socialoptimize.com/blog
>

> Phone: (801) 853-8339- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Jerome]

Thanks Jesse for echoing the developer community frustrations. I
surely share the same disappointments.

We all worked hard to meet the deadline, with the expectation that our
apps would be reviewed, and if the Orkut team felt some adjustments
are required before including them in the soft launch, then we would
have to address their identified to-dos to be included. But being left
out of the soft/pre launch without any feedback on our submission is a
bit harsh...

Jerome

On Feb 26, 10:24 pm, "Jesse Stay" <jesses...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I can't tell you how frustrated I am with this announcement. I spent good
> money to go out to the hackathon 2 weeks ago just so my app would be
> launched with the Orkut first launch on OpenSocial. I'm very disappointed
> that one day before the launch you guys pull the plug. A lot of us
> developers have invested a ton of our time and resources helping you get
> this live and we can't even celebrate with you. Now, with the Orkut launch
> being so close to the Myspace launch I'm going to have to divert my efforts
> to Myspace. You guys can't make an official date announcement and then
> change it to an entire week later, only for a select few, just a day before
> the original launch date!
>
> Just my $.02 FWIW
>
> Jesse
>
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 12:08 PM, Peter Harbison <harbi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Posted by Amar Gandhi, Group Product Manager
>
> > We've made a couple of modifications to the launch plan detailed in this

> > post<http://orkutdeveloper.blogspot.com/2008/02/its-final-countdownto-laun...>.

> > We've decided to have a pre-launch testing period in which we'll push just
> > a few apps to production -- this will likely happen next week. We are
> > notifying the apps that will be in the directory for this initial testing
> > period today (Feb. 26th). If you submitted an app, but are not selected
> > for the pre-launch testing phase, hang tight...we'll contact you before the
> > launch.
>
> > After the pre-launch testing is complete and we are confident that the
> > platform is ready, we will launch the platform to developers. We expect the
> > pre-launch testing to take around four weeks. When we launch, we will be
> > whitelisting apps on a daily basis assuming they meet the criteria (not
> > malware or spammy, no 404 errors, etc).
>
> > As we and our users get comfortable with apps on orkut, we will remove
> > the whitelisting process and you will be able to add apps to the directory
> > yourself.
>
> > We apologize for delaying the launch a few weeks. We feel that this
> > pre-launch testing period will ensure that users are introduced to apps in
> > the best way possible.
>
> > If you have any questions about this new launch plan, let us know in the orkut

> > developer forum <http://groups.google.com/group/opensocial-orkut>.
>
> > --
> > Posted By Peter Harbison to orkut Developer Blog<http://orkutdeveloper.blogspot.com/2008/02/launch-plan-update.html>at 2/26/2008 11:04:00 A

>
> --
> Jesse Stay
> The Social Media Guru
>
> Partner, Co-founder: SocialOptimize.com

[Alex Epshteyn]

I can understand your concern, but it seemed fairly obvious around the
time of the hackathons that the sandbox wasn't sufficiently stable to
get the green light this week. It's been having issues the past few
weeks.

I fully agree with Google's decision to push back the date. I'm
concerned that even their new release date might be a bit early, but
then again, "release early and often" is just as much a core value of
theirs as "don't be evil." :)

It's a hard software project with very ambitious goals.

By the way, what makes you think that MySpace is launching any time
soon? I doubt it's going to be any time before April.

Alex

On Feb 26, 11:24 pm, "Jesse Stay" <jesses...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I can't tell you how frustrated I am with this announcement. I spent good
> money to go out to the hackathon 2 weeks ago just so my app would be
> launched with the Orkut first launch on OpenSocial. I'm very disappointed
> that one day before the launch you guys pull the plug. A lot of us
> developers have invested a ton of our time and resources helping you get
> this live and we can't even celebrate with you. Now, with the Orkut launch
> being so close to the Myspace launch I'm going to have to divert my efforts
> to Myspace. You guys can't make an official date announcement and then
> change it to an entire week later, only for a select few, just a day before
> the original launch date!
>
> Just my $.02 FWIW
>
> Jesse
>
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 12:08 PM, Peter Harbison <harbi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Posted by Amar Gandhi, Group Product Manager
>
> > We've made a couple of modifications to the launch plan detailed in this

> > post<http://orkutdeveloper.blogspot.com/2008/02/its-final-countdownto-laun...>.

> > We've decided to have a pre-launch testing period in which we'll push just
> > a few apps to production -- this will likely happen next week. We are
> > notifying the apps that will be in the directory for this initial testing
> > period today (Feb. 26th). If you submitted an app, but are not selected
> > for the pre-launch testing phase, hang tight...we'll contact you before the
> > launch.
>
> > After the pre-launch testing is complete and we are confident that the
> > platform is ready, we will launch the platform to developers. We expect the
> > pre-launch testing to take around four weeks. When we launch, we will be
> > whitelisting apps on a daily basis assuming they meet the criteria (not
> > malware or spammy, no 404 errors, etc).
>
> > As we and our users get comfortable with apps on orkut, we will remove
> > the whitelisting process and you will be able to add apps to the directory
> > yourself.
>
> > We apologize for delaying the launch a few weeks. We feel that this
> > pre-launch testing period will ensure that users are introduced to apps in
> > the best way possible.
>
> > If you have any questions about this new launch plan, let us know in the orkut

> > developer forum <http://groups.google.com/group/opensocial-orkut>.
>
> > --
> > Posted By Peter Harbison to orkut Developer Blog<http://orkutdeveloper.blogspot.com/2008/02/launch-plan-update.html>at 2/26/2008 11:04:00 A

>
> --
> Jesse Stay
> The Social Media Guru
>
> Partner, Co-founder: SocialOptimize.com

[Alex Epshteyn]

P.S. If you finished your app early, that's awesome! Now you have
extra time to make it even better! I wish I had your problem :)

On Feb 26, 11:24 pm, "Jesse Stay" <jesses...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I can't tell you how frustrated I am with this announcement. I spent good
> money to go out to the hackathon 2 weeks ago just so my app would be
> launched with the Orkut first launch on OpenSocial. I'm very disappointed
> that one day before the launch you guys pull the plug. A lot of us
> developers have invested a ton of our time and resources helping you get
> this live and we can't even celebrate with you. Now, with the Orkut launch
> being so close to the Myspace launch I'm going to have to divert my efforts
> to Myspace. You guys can't make an official date announcement and then
> change it to an entire week later, only for a select few, just a day before
> the original launch date!
>
> Just my $.02 FWIW
>
> Jesse
>
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 12:08 PM, Peter Harbison <harbi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Posted by Amar Gandhi, Group Product Manager
>
> > We've made a couple of modifications to the launch plan detailed in this

> > post<http://orkutdeveloper.blogspot.com/2008/02/its-final-countdownto-laun...>.

> > We've decided to have a pre-launch testing period in which we'll push just
> > a few apps to production -- this will likely happen next week. We are
> > notifying the apps that will be in the directory for this initial testing
> > period today (Feb. 26th). If you submitted an app, but are not selected
> > for the pre-launch testing phase, hang tight...we'll contact you before the
> > launch.
>
> > After the pre-launch testing is complete and we are confident that the
> > platform is ready, we will launch the platform to developers. We expect the
> > pre-launch testing to take around four weeks. When we launch, we will be
> > whitelisting apps on a daily basis assuming they meet the criteria (not
> > malware or spammy, no 404 errors, etc).
>
> > As we and our users get comfortable with apps on orkut, we will remove
> > the whitelisting process and you will be able to add apps to the directory
> > yourself.
>
> > We apologize for delaying the launch a few weeks. We feel that this
> > pre-launch testing period will ensure that users are introduced to apps in
> > the best way possible.
>
> > If you have any questions about this new launch plan, let us know in the orkut

> > developer forum <http://groups.google.com/group/opensocial-orkut>.
>
> > --
> > Posted By Peter Harbison to orkut Developer Blog<http://orkutdeveloper.blogspot.com/2008/02/launch-plan-update.html>at 2/26/2008 11:04:00 A

>
> --
> Jesse Stay
> The Social Media Guru
>
> Partner, Co-founder: SocialOptimize.com

[Lane LiaBraaten (Google)]

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for voicing your concerns - I hear you loud and clear. I've
worked with a number of you online and in person for a while now and
would hate to see your efforts wasted.

I want to emphasize that the update in the launch plan is only to add
a "pre-launch testing period" where the orkut team can test out
running OpenSocial apps on orkut. It wasn't very clear in the blog
post that this testing period will involve a very limited set of
people, less than 1% of orkut users.

Some issues, like scaling and latency, simply can't be tested on the
limited sandbox. The orkut team has chosen a small number of apps and
developers to work closely with during this period to iterate through
these issues quickly. A limited testing phase on orkut's production
systems will ensure that when launched to the other 99% of orkut
users, your apps will be running on a stable platform. I don't want
your users to see the "Bad, bad server. No donut for you." error that
we've all become familiar with.

Before scaling up to a global launch, the review process will be
scrapped (no pun intended) and the directory will be open to all
applications. You'll simply need to submit your app through an online
form and it will be included in the application directory, similar to
the iGoogle submission process.

To those of you who devoted time and resources to submit your
applications for review, the team has been trying very hard to get you
feedback. The submission form will be taken down shortly so the team
can focus on giving direct support and feedback to everyone who was
able to submit an orkut application. With feedback from the team, you
can streamline your interface, fix those last pesky bugs, and deliver
a more polished and successful application to users at launch.

I'm glad you all raised your concerns and hope that you continue to do
so. Your feedback has been invaluable in the design, implementation,
and testing of OpenSocial and orkut.

Cheers,
Lane

On Feb 27, 8:05 pm, Alex Epshteyn <alexander.epsht...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[Alisa]

I completely agree. I was in part of the Trusted Testers Group. I
felt like it was a waste of my time b/c it didn't give any of us an
advantage over any other developers. I realize there is a lot of
potential with the Social Platform but I personally have lost any
motivation that I once had to put a lot of time and effort into it.
Google keeps telling us one thing and then going a different
direction.

Alisa

On Feb 26, 9:24 pm, "Jesse Stay" <jesses...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I can't tell you how frustrated I am with this announcement.  I spent good
> money to go out to the hackathon 2 weeks ago just so my app would be
> launched with the Orkut first launch on OpenSocial.  I'm very disappointed
> that one day before the launch you guys pull the plug.  A lot of us
> developers have invested a ton of our time and resources helping you get
> this live and we can't even celebrate with you.  Now, with the Orkut launch
> being so close to the Myspace launch I'm going to have to divert my efforts
> to Myspace.  You guys can't make an official date announcement and then
> change it to an entire week later, only for a select few, just a day before
> the original launch date!
>
> Just my $.02 FWIW
>
> Jesse
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 12:08 PM, Peter Harbison <harbi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Posted by Amar Gandhi, Group Product Manager
>
> > We've made a couple of modifications to the launch plan detailed in this

> > post<http://orkutdeveloper.blogspot.com/2008/02/its-final-countdownto-laun...>.

> > We've decided to have a pre-launch testing period in which we'll push just
> > a few apps to production -- this will likely happen next week. We are
> > notifying the apps that will be in the directory for this initial testing
> > period today (Feb. 26th). If you submitted an app, but are not selected
> > for the pre-launch testing phase, hang tight...we'll contact you before the
> > launch.
>
> > After the pre-launch testing is complete and we are confident that the
> > platform is ready, we will launch the platform to developers. We expect the
> > pre-launch testing to take around four weeks. When we launch, we will be
> > whitelisting apps on a daily basis assuming they meet the criteria (not
> > malware or spammy, no 404 errors, etc).
>
> >  As we and our users get comfortable with apps on orkut, we will remove
> > the whitelisting process and you will be able to add apps to the directory
> > yourself.
>
> > We apologize for delaying the launch a few weeks. We feel that this
> > pre-launch testing period will ensure that users are introduced to apps in
> > the best way possible.
>
> > If you have any questions about this new launch plan, let us know in the orkut

> > developer forum <http://groups.google.com/group/opensocial-orkut>.
>
> > --
> > Posted By Peter Harbison to orkut Developer Blog<http://orkutdeveloper.blogspot.com/2008/02/launch-plan-update.html>at 2/26/2008 11:04:00 A

>
> --
> Jesse Stay
> The Social Media Guru
>
> Partner, Co-founder: SocialOptimize.com

> Author: O'Reilly's FBML Essentialshttp://www.amazon.com/FBML-Essentials-Jesse-Stay/dp/0596519184/
> Co-Author: I'm on Facebook -- Now What???http://FacebookAdvice.com
>
> Blogger:          http://www.jessestay.comhttp://www.socialoptimize.com/blog
>

[Alex Epshteyn]

Thanks for your post, Arne! You've explained what we've all been
wondering about.

[Suhail Doshi]

If hear you correctly then Lane, there will be absolutely no advantage
to those of us who finished quickly just to meet that friday deadline
for you guys because we thought you would launch other than possibly
getting a review from you. Additionally, there will be no slow
whitelisting of apps and easing into the inclusion based on a FIFO
style.

I am a bit disappointed if that's the true, I think we all worked hard
for your deadline and didn't get paid for it at all. We are the
biggest fans, supporters, and backers of opensocial this is a big
shame. If this is true, any application made today is now on the same
playing field as the applications we've spent weeks developing to meet
a certain deadline that never made it live.

On Feb 27, 10:55 pm, "Lane LiaBraaten (Google)"

[Dustin...@gmail.com]

Lane,

Thank you for taking the time to clarify this blog post, and for being
up front with the developer community.

-Dustin / www.iwiddit.com

On Feb 27, 9:55 pm, "Lane LiaBraaten (Google)"

[victorc]

Hi all,

I have just created a non-official application directory here :
http://www.osocial.net/apps

As the Orkut launch plan is postponed, add your application so that we
can test and use all applications we have built in Orkut sandbox.

Have fun!
Victor

[JevS]

Thanks Victor for this great opportunity!
As an addition, to provide more information about your application and
to receive feedback from users, I can recommend to created Intense
debate page (see http://www.intensedebate.com/dash/3071 for example, I
just created for my app). It is a bit buggy, but working.
You can also create a group at www.webwidgets.ning.com to add more
information and to discuss directly with your application users (see
again http://webwidgets.ning.com/group/welcome as an example, no users
yet). Please contact me if you need help for second option (only
admins can add javascript widgets there).
Cheers.
Jevs

[tobym...@gmail.com]

thanks lane for the clarification.

what you say above is very reasonable and fair.

On Feb 28, 12:55 am, "Lane LiaBraaten (Google)"

[tomk]

I'm still trying to figure out how to submit an app for considerarion
in the directory.

[Dustin Jorge]

Here's that link :: http://code.google.com/apis/orkut/submission.html

-Dustin / iWiddit.com

[tomk]

Thanks for the link Dustin.