Right from the get go it has been a big which for us to enable third party developers to create apps and extend our core functionality (we have even considered becoming totally open source at some point). There are a bunch of challenges to actually making this happen, but we will get there eventually. First of all we have been revamping our entire architecture so it is now engineered to be open. The next step for us will be to create someawesome API’s and a great SDK and a bunch of documentation and tutorials to help developers create high quality stuff SPML
The most important part of this is Storyplanet Markup Language (SPML). It is an XML-based standard for organizing rich media assets like video, photos, graphics and text and manipulating them with effects, calls, actions and other code based parameters. It is a middle layer between the media assets and the technology used to display the media enabling a separation between content and technology (much like the model-view-controller approach to application development).
Components & apps:
It is a bit of a cliché in web and software development to say that your making a “componetized” architecture, but in our case it is really true. SPML is build out of a bunch of components that can do a wide range of things, from the very simple like displaying a photo or a text block, to advanced features like loading Google maps, YouTube movies and other external data. We will be introducing a number of core components as a start. But eventually we will be opening up the creation of components so third parties can create almost any conceivable feature. Some of the best components might be integrated into our platform as “core” components. On top of this end users will be able to mix and remix existing components and create their own custom “apps”. This could for instance be a Google map component that is mixed with a YouTube component to create a “story-map-app”…potentially only the imagination of the users sets the limits for what can be done.
Player
With SPML as a the conductor we can build a story once and feed it into a myriad of different players spanning from browser based Flash and HTML5 players, to iPad, Android and even old fashioned television (having said that a some platforms might not support the same kind of interactive features, resolutions etc as others). What this means for developers is, that we can potentially give them the SPML documentation, and then they would be able to build their own players and apps displaying content from Storyplanet.
Editor
In the other end of SPML is the editor. This is where non-techical users will be able to drag and drop assets and change settings in an easy way, while the SPML is automatically generated beneath. Just like the player, we will be able to open up for third party development of editing tools, as long as we provide the right documentation. I think the “twitter-model” is a pretty good example of how developers are creating new tools for twittering like Tweetdeck, and also new ways of searching and displaying tweets on blogs and websites.
