I would like to try to use OpenSocial (or any other API) for my small project. What I want to create is a small console application that would gather some data from several sites (e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn, Xing, MySpace...) and calculate some things. What I've noticed in all tutorials is that OpenSocial is used for mobile applications, apps inside social networks etc., but I haven't seen it anywhere to be used for a console application. Is that possible? Can I create a simple Java console application which would gather and process data from social networks? Do you know some tutorial that could help me out with it? The biggest problem that I have is the authentication, since (if I understood well) all APIs request to forward the user to the original (e.g., LinkedIn) site to login so to grant permission to use the data for the application. But can I somehow login with my credentials using a console application?
Thanks,
Ivan
Yes, you can access the various data APIs from a stand alone Java application. The standard/protocol you're looking for is OAuth, not OpenSocial.
You will have to give your users some way to grant access to their social network account. (web based applications would redirect them to the social network site, which would in turn redirect them back to the application). OAuth has an out-of-band (OOB) mode especially for non-web based consumers.
I've used Scribe in the past to access the LinkedIn API.