Since we helped launch a rather complex MySpace application for the Travel Channel early last week, we have learned a LOT about hard core OpenSocial development (on MySpace in particular). Unfortunately there are very few resources available out there to build that have built and understand how to built world-class scalable applications for MySpace! Most of the me-too apps currently put together do not take advantage of any of the rich features the OpenSocial platform has to offer and are buggy and/or simplistic.

During our development process there was really no resources to turn to when we ran into problems, we simply had to solve them ourselves. None of our colleges in the social media have really cut their teeth yet with OpenSocial, so it was basically us. Today we got a call from a fellow developer in Canada working on a similar large project and in a couple of minutes were able to help him out with some of the problems that previously took us days to solve.

Based on that experience, we have decided to create an internal OpenSocial Development Support Collective - a group of OpenSocial developers (we are currently limiting the number to 10) who have similar experiences/expertise on the OpenSocial platform and who can share development best practices and know-how, and when necessary - pick up the phone and call each other. We have used this model effectively before and it makes a lot of sense given that we work closely with other social media developers and marketing agencies on large projects so collaboration has always been key to our success.

If you are an OpenSocial developer (or social media development house) that has successfully developed and deployed one or more applications on the MySpace, Orkut or Hi5 platforms, and would like to join our collective, please contact me.