Framework for third-party web application extensibility

Question

I'm interested in people's experiences and opinions about approaches to third-party extensibility in web applications and extending applications into a heterogenous corporate environment. Consider a Salesforce style application. Users want to be able to extend the Salesforce application itself and share data / functionality outside of Salesforce.

Are these very different tasks? Should both internal and external extensibility be done using the same approach? Are there any open frameworks that provide a good starting point?

I've been looking at

• OpenSocial / Apache Shindig
• NetVibes Universal Widget API

but am interested in other options or suggestions. Both the Facebook application platform and the Yahoo application platform roughly fit the bill but aren't open. Is rolling a new solution a good / bad idea?

Answer 1

Looks like a good idea to me!