Compilation of resources for social application development:

• http://code.google.com/p/opensocial-resources/
• http://developer.myspace.com/
• http://www.hi5networks.com/developer/
• http://opensocial.ning.com/
• http://pulse.plaxo.com/pulse/gadgets/
• http://code.google.com/apis/orkut/
• http://developers.facebook.com/
• http://20bits.com/2007/06/19/5-facebook-application-gotchas
• http://padrenel.blogs.experienceproject.com/3459.html
• http://www.stevetrefethen.com/blog/DevelopingFacebookApplicationsInCWithASPNET.aspx
• http://www.liverail.net/articles/2007/6/29/tutorial-on-developing-a-facebook-platform-application-with-ruby-on-rails
• http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/Main_Page
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/showcase/default.aspx#walkthrough
• http://services.tucows.com/developers/2007/07/25/getting-started-with-facebook-application-development/

I will keep it updated. Please suggest more listings…

1. Social app should be viral & contagiousness in nature
2. Social app business idea should be social in nature eg. reviewing together 
3. Social app need to be  designed with scalable architecture, should be able to handle millions of users in case of success
4. Social app should be launched together on multiple social platforms like Facebook, OpenSocial, etc . so as to avoid to copycats.

Very good article by google on Social design best practices. I encountered it while reading on openSocial.

http://code.google.com/apis/opensocial/articles/bestprac.html 

If you’re new to developing social applications, it can be difficult to immediately grasp how good applications facilitate fun and meaningful social experiences. To accelerate your learning, Google ‘ve come up with a list of a few light-hearted recommendations around building good social applications. Not all of these “best practices” are necessary in every case, but they might spark thoughts about finding new users, keeping old ones, and leveraging the social graph for fresh content and viral spread.

 I personally found them very useful as a starting point. If you are looking for making a career in social networking apps design &  development, make sure you dont miss it!

Hello,

Welcome to blog on Social application development updates!