Interview With David Li on China’s Open Platform

Written by Tangos on July 20, 2008
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This year will be a big year for open platform concept in China, with Xiaonei, Comsenz, 51.com, Taobao launching their open platform. In last week, I have chance to have an interview with David Li, who developed some very popular apps on Facebook platform. So we asked his opinion on open platform of some Chinese websites.

China Web 2.0 Review: Would you please briefly introduce yourself and your team?
David: I am a programmer in 42friends which is one of the leading Facebook apps developers. I have over 10 years experience in designing and developing large scale network system.

CWR: What widgets your team have developed on Facebook?
David: We have Growing Gifts and Hatching Eggs and others with over 10 millions installation on Facebook.

CWR: How do you compare Xiaonei’s platform with Facebook’s developer platform?
David: Xiaonei platform is a nice attempt but the whole platform feels rushed. The APIs are not ready for serious use and the platform team are not prepared to deal with third party developers. Xiaonei has improved quite a bit in the past week. However, Xiaonei today would hardly be comparable to Facebook a year ago, but it’s making progress.

CWR: Why do you think Xiaonei’s API s are not quite ready for serious use?
David:Xiaonei’s platform is at best an alpha version and was launched in a rush. The API and the system is still under rapid change as we speak. The collection of functionalities are barebone and the integration with the UI are not finished. The Xiaonei development team was very unresponsive to the developers in the beginning with almost no communications with any developer community in June, the first month of the opening of the platform. As the result, Xiaonei’s poor treatment of the third party developers, it sparked the gathering of over 80 angry third party developers in Beijing in June 28th.

Right before I started to response to this email, Xiaonei has announced their next generation interface which is a complete copy of the new Facebook UI which has been expected to create some major impact on the apps. Xiaonei has not even communicated with the third party developers on such change.

CWR: If your resource only allows you to put effort into one platform in China, which one you will choose, Xiaonei.com, MYOP from Comsenz, OpenSocial from Google, or others?
David: First, there is also 51.com’s open platform and OpenSocial is only a spec. The only Open Social site in China is myspace.cn. At the current time, there is no real viable platform for third party commercial developers. Myspace.cn has the except comprehensive platform and commercial policy.

Xiaonei has created quite a controversy with its first release of the term of service for the developer platform. We are still waiting on the new TOS from Xiaonei and hopefully it would be a more third party developer friendly. 51.com’s platform looks interesting but won’t go online for another month or so. I don’t see a business case for the MYOP from Comsenz.

This is still a very early stage of platform opening up in China and good time to experiment and learn about the platforms and the sites. It’s too early to talk about putting resource into any of these platforms.

CWR: You said you are waiting for the new TOS from Xiaonei to be more developer friendly, what you expect from the TOS?

David:The TOS released on the 7/8 basically prohibit any commercial activities of the third party apps, no ads, no e-commerce, no links to outside Xiaonei and the worst clause in the TOS is third party developers would have to agree to transfer all intellectual properties rights of the apps to Xiaonei and are prohibited to create the same apps for other social networks. Moreover, Xiaonei also demand the right to any works created by the users with all third party apps. Yes, the graffiti you created with the third party apps on Xiaonei belongs to Xiaonei!

The TOS released on 7/8 angered so many developers and it caught the attention of some IT press and Xiaonei did one modification to the TOS which basically return the right of the apps to their developers. The no commercial activities clause is still on the TOS today; although Xiaonei has announced the further improvement of the TOS in a month.

CWR: As a widget developer, how do you evaluate and choose a platform?
David: Stable system, responsive platform team and a viable business model for the third party developers.

CWR: In China’s market environment, how can widget developers make money?
David: Advertising such as Google Adsense is one way. The more interesting approach unique to China would be the virtual currency. QQ has already proven that Chinese netizens are willing to pay for the network service and entertainment with USD $ 200+ millions sales of QQ coin. SNS sites such as 51.com and Xiaonei already have virtual currency system in place. It would be beneficial for both SNSs and developers if SNS would open up this system and allow the apps developers to tap into it.

Open platform isn’t a new business. It just lower the barrier of entries of the old partnership model by letting everyone in.

2 Responses to “Interview With David Li on China’s Open Platform”

  1. China Journal : Best of the China Blogs: July 21 on July 21st, 2008 11:22 am

    [...] –An interview on the newly open platforms of some Chinese Web sites with David Li of 42Friends, creator of popular Facebook applications such as Growing Gifts and Hatching Eggs. [China Web 2.0 Review] [...]

  2. wutao on July 21st, 2008 6:17 pm

    is there some ideas about taobao open platform?

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