Leveraging Social Network APIs

Online social networking aficionados have always known that the future of the medium would include third-party developers. For example, when Friendster opened up their network to a few select developers late last year, their month-over-month unique visitors increased 17.76%. Allowing users to make additions to a social networking site’s functionality adds value and gives the community more say in how the site works for them. With Facebook’s launch of the new “platform” functionality, the proverbial chickens have come home to roost.

These open APIs create numerous opportunities for businesses and organizations by enabling them to reach millions of passionate users without buying advertising by simply creating a useful application that adds value to a user’s experience of their favorite social network.

In this session, you will learn:

• How the big online social networks work, who their users are, and which ones have APIs for you to use.
• What other organizations have done and what the results have been.
• Finding the right developer to work with the API
• Adding real value rather than just peddling your product or service