OPENi Graph API Framework in the Social Standards Landscape

Today, the proliferation of social-enabled applications has disrupted the traditional enterprise mobile and desktop application value chain with three major phenomena: a) the migration of part of the generated value outside applications and onto social networks where social graph connectivity matters and there is limited support for context, b) the migration of part of the control of the use of these social data to multiple social networks outside the realm of control of the enterprise, the application developer and sometimes even of the end-consumer, c) the increasing number of old and new social networks that try to cover from a niche area (like Instagram) to the general public (like Facebook). This position paper presents the OPENi approach to a social web architecture that integrates data privacy and application developers data control in its design from its core and provides both: a) a social graph-rooted, OPENi Graph API framework that builds on existing social standards and allows developers to easily source into their applications a broad spectrum of existing cloud-based, user-centric functionality and content without hardcoding integration to specific social web service providers APIs and while retaining part of the generated social web data, b) a Context API framework that allows to build context to the developed applications and extend the social graph connectivity model so that consumers can express both weight and connectivity of their connection to other parts of the social graph. The paper also puts particular emphasis on discussing the key decisions, the challenges and the anticipated added value of the proposed approach that opens new perspectives on mobile and desktop social web enterprise applications development.