Inside Facebook

The web is becoming increasingly social, and new platforms are spurring that progression. We spoke with Shaun Connolly of Ringside Networks about their Social Application Server and their efforts to make the web - outside of major social networks like Facebook - more social.

Tell me a bit about Ringside. How did you get started?

The idea for the company germinated a little over a year ago from the premise that while currently there are a few major social networking hubs out there, many websites are going to want to tap into the social web for their business needs. One of our founders has a running shoe store and was looking for a way to engage the runners and create a vibrant community. By integrating a social application directly into his site, for example, he could make a much deeper connection than creating a group or application that runs on Facebook and add value to his existing customers.

For site owners, how is integrating with Facebook Connect different than integrating with Ringside?

We feel that what Facebook and Google are doing with Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect is really important. Basically what they’re doing makes our job kind of easier. These services make it easier for people to reach out and leverage their identities. Our focus however is a bit different, as we are intent on the creation of temporal, ad-hoc networks.

What are some key highlights of the Ringside Network?

Our initial focus as a company was around creating a social application platform that was compatible with the Facebook APIS. We aren’t focused on creating a service that is a simple install it and then you have a white label social network, so we don’t consider Ning or any of the other stand alone competitors white label creators to be competitors. Our social application service is a base infrastructure that is designed to federate your social footprint and apply that within the context of a particular website.

How difficult is it for an existing Facebook app to run on Ringside?

In some instances the integration is as easy as embedding in a widget. We’ve have other examples of full blown applications that have been built to run on other sites. We implemented a good chunk of the Facebook APIs, so you can have an application render itself normally on Facebook and still render on another web site.

What do you see as the core market need here?

Since we’ve been in business by necessity we’ve built up this open source platform. With the underlying platform in place, we build applications and widgets that leverage common social activities and interactions. Our implementation leverages the fact that users have built up their Facebook identities but the social graph manifests itself in these micro-networks. For the regular user the micro network arises, you do the social activity within the context of the site, and maybe a few months down the line that micro network disappears.

What is the status of the most recent beta release?

The platform has been built up over a variety of betas. We are focused on getting these cloud based services done. Sometime in September you will begin to see the manifestation of the platform technology. We will use that process to help us determine to go live date on the core platform. Our goal is for integration with the application server to be something as easy as dropping paypal into your site.

Are partners lined up already?

We have had a few sites deployed and active on earlier betas of the platform. We are in the process of reaching out to system integrators who are working with their customers on a variety of use cases in an  e-commerce context. They are looking to our platform as a means to build up this social graph across their own site.

For more information visit www.ringsidenetworks.com.