Google Releases Real-Time Gadget APIs
The Google developer conference has been chock-full of announcements, but one that we are particularly excited about is a "20% time" project from software engineer, Moishe Lettvin. The gadgets.realtime is a Javascript library on top of a collection of APIs based on Google Talk. Right now implementation is limited to Orkut and Google Gadgets, but we'd love to see the framework opened up to the web at large.
The idea is that developers can build mini-applications that can allow real-time user interaction through the instant messaging foundation of Google Talk IM. Lettvin showed off an example of a chess game that was not only discussed over IM but played through an interface with IM-like communication infrastructure running underneath it. That's pretty hot.
University of Amsterdam student, Sander Dijkhuis, already built a collaborative text editing gadget using one of the APIs and we expect to see more interesting examples emerge shortly. Just picture ease of development plus real-time communication across different installs of little applications. There are lots of things that APIs like that could make possible.
While we're sure that developers engaged in Google social networks will enjoy these APIs (though Flash is out of the picture, it's just Javascript) we would love to see them available outside their current confines.
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I would also like to see Google's custom search service brought out of its current confines as well.
It is a great idea for spawning lots of niche search engines, if only it pulled from the same search results as Google's main search engine. It still does not return the same amount of results.
It would be interesting to see Gmail on Windows Surface and these real time API(s) in action. Immense possibilities.
Thanks for sharing.
Marshall,
This sounds similar to a product we have at IZEA called CloudShout. Basically a communication layer that people can install on their sites (with a snippet of JS), CloudShout allows developers to create real time multiuser Javascript widgets. For instance, the core app is a MyBlogLog type widget, but in real time... you see visitors coming and going live. There are also chat/im applications for people to communicate with others... not just at the current site, but any CloudShout powered site. The communications layer can also be used to build games like chess or checkers, etc.
In you are interested, visit the CloudShout Vimeo channel @ http://vimeo.com/channels/26270
I hope you have a chance to check this out. I'd really love your feedback on it.