developers

Big surprise: Scrabble manufacturer targets 'Scrabulous' online game

That noise you just heard was the sound of several hundred thousand procrastination-happy Facebook users gasping in panic.

Josh Quittner at Fortune reports that Hasbro, manufacturer of the timeless board game Scrabble, is trying to shut down Scrabulous, an unauthorized electronic version of Scrabble that has gained a rabid following on Facebook. The reasons are obvious: licensing. Scrabulous profits from advertising revenue. Hasbro, citing infringement, wants to see it scrapped.

There's no online version of Scrabble, but as Quittner notes, electronic rights to the game belong to video game manufacturer Electronic Arts. One of Scrabulous' creators confirmed to Quittner … Read more

Wash those Zombies and hamburgers right off your Facebook profile!

It might still be January, but Facebook has decided to introduce a sort of virtual spring cleaning.

The social-networking site, which famously opened its gates to developer applications last May, announced late on Thursday that it will soon be instituting a way for app-happy Facebookers to keep up appearances by relegating many of their widgets to an "extended profile." By clicking the button, you will be able to hide everything except Facebook's own applications and a number of others, and a "Show Extended Profile" button will reveal the entire thing to you or your friends.… Read more

Facebook dumps Secret Crush application over spyware claim

Update at 12:10 p.m. PST: Comment from Zango has been added.

Good riddance: Facebook has banned the "Secret Crush" application due to reports of its affiliation with a notorious spyware manufacturer.

The social-networking site confirmed the breakup on Monday: "Facebook is committed to user safety and security and, to that end, its Terms of Service for developers explicitly state that applications should not use adware and spyware," a statement from the company read. "We have contacted the developers and have disabled the Secret Crush application for violating Facebook Platform Terms of Service."… Read more

Web 2.0 and open source: We've already won

I've spent the last two weeks on the road, meeting with customers and prospects. It has been enlightening, to say the least. One primary theme has emerged: the Web 2.0 revolution is over. The web has already won. Its chief weapon? Open source.

It hasn't "won" in the sense that every application is now social. It hasn't won in the sense of market share. But it has clearly won in the sense of mindshare and intentions.

Today I'm meeting with one of the world's largest and oldest retailers. Old school, right? They're building out social networking/social content tools to bring vendors and consumers together. All those words that are passe in the Valley like "mashup" and "user-generated content"? They've hit this company (and others with whom I've met) and are rapidly being deployed in applications potentially worth billions to this enterprise.

On Thursday I met with a major media company. Same thing. In fact, the passion with which they expressed their ambition was striking:… Read more

Build native iPhone applications in Leopard with Xcode 3.0

While Apple gears for the launch of its own, official software development kit (SDK) for the iPhone, the unofficial application development community continues to thrive. In addition to the continuing surge of new third-party applications available through Installer, the community continues to make headway with regard to more accessible development tools.

Following in the footsteps of Lucas Newman, who developed the first unofficial iPhone SDK and was subsequently hired by Apple, Ben Stahlhood has created a complete guide to building native iPhone applications using XCode 3.0 under Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard). Included are instructions for setting up … Read more

Start-up to Google: OpenSocial's too close to our name

A small New York-based social media start-up called FindMeOn intends to send Google a letter asking that it change the name of its OpenSocial initiative, CNET News.com has learned. FindMeOn founded a project called OpenSN (Open Social Networking) in 2006, and according to founder and CEO Jonathan Vanasco, the similarity of its name to Google's newer project is getting in the way of business.

The company also has tentative plans for legal action.

FindMeOn, which develops technology to aggregate profile data from various social-networking sites, created OpenSN as a way to convert a profile from one social network … Read more

MacHeist II uncovers more great Mac deals

Last year about this time, several independent Mac software developers teamed up to put together a bundle of nine award-winning Mac apps for the vastly reduced price of $49--with 25 percent of the purchase price donated to the charity of your choice (chosen from a list). The whole thing took place at a very well-designed site called MacHeist.com and more than 16,000 users snapped up the limited time offer--it was really a great deal! The fun part about the offer was that the developers of MacHeist made it into a kind of scavenger hunt by letting users search … Read more

The proprietary problem with innovation and scale

Glyn Moody takes Dave Weinberger's Harvard Business Review article on the difficulties singular organizations have with scale and runs with it, arguing:

It is deeply ironic that once upon a time Linux - and Linus - was taxed with an inability to scale. Today, though, when Linux is running everything from most of the world's supercomputers to the new class of sub-laptops like the Asus EEE PC and increasing numbers of mobile phones, it is Microsoft that finds itself unable to scale its development methodology to handle this range. Indeed, it can't even produce a decent desktop system, as the whole Vista fiasco demonstrates.

This flies in the face of Jaron Lanier's ill-advised attempt to discredit open source as an innovative force. As with so many, Lanier completely botches his understanding of open source, which is surprising since he should understand it well. What Lanier fails to recognize is that the "source" part of the equation doesn't change with open or proprietary source - not the initial seed, anyway. It's what happens afterwards that matters.

Hence, Lanier can write:… Read more

Apple hires author of the unofficial iPhone SDK

Although we're hearing that Apple isn't anywhere close to nailing down specifics for its official iPhone software development kit, due in February 2008, the company has begun recruiting some to-notch talent from the unofficial iPhone application development realm: Lucas Newman of Delicious Monster has been hired by Apple as an "iPhone engineer" according to a post from "Chief Monster" Wil Shipley.

Newman is the author of an avid iPhone developer who worked on the first native iPhone game, Lights Off and helped develop iPhone Atlas develop our initial 5-step native application install guide back … Read more