Come ye all into the Frogansphere. Let the adventure begin. Frankly, what’s in it for me, the candy-maker, the baker, the man on the street?

To describe your role in the Frogansphere let’s start with STG Interactive’s limited role.

Imagine a community where everyone is welcome to visit (sounds too good to be true). It resembles the Web in that way, and from the end-user’s point of view that’s how we can look at the Frogansphere.

Imagine you want to build a house, a business, set up an association in that community. In the Frogansphere you’re free to do anything (legal) that you like. You can invite as many people as you like, and be as big, small, crazy, conservative, cool, ugly, even as lucrative as you like. You simply need a special address so that the rest of us can find you. That’s the frogans address that you register with STG Interactive. The subscription rate is the same for everybody ($12 per year, $20 for two, plus taxes where applicable, by the way).

The community, the Frogansphere, is built on the Internet. STG Interactive provides the elementary tools at no charge and makes sure that the point of entry stays open to visitors by operating the Main Frogans Network and by making the (free) Frogans Player available to everyone. As a content provider you create frogans of your own and register one or more frogans addresses so that Frogans Player users can marvel at the amazing things that you’ve done.

To be more specific:

What does STG Interactive do?

STG Interactive creates Frogans Technology which is made up of:

• FSDL (Frogans Slide Description Language) for authoring frogans
• The Frogans Player for visiting, displaying and navigating frogans
• FNSL (Frogans Network System Language) for creating frogans networks.

STG Interactive operates the MFN (Main Frogans Network).

• With the Frogans Player anybody can access a frogans on the MFN.
• Anybody who has registered at least one frogans address with STG Interactive can publish a frogans on the MFN.

STG Interactive has set up a frogans address registration affiliation program

• Operated through the Commission Junction platform this program offers commissions on frogans address registrations actuated by affiliates.

What does STG Interactive not do?
(You might think of the following as a list of frogans-biz opportunities ripening on the vine.)

STG Interactive does not create frogans

• Sure, we may do a few demos, but that’s just to help get the ball rolling for everyone else. STG Interactive provides the framework, but not the content. That’s for you to do.

STG Interactive does not publish frogans authoring tools

• We’ll be putting a frogans creation tool online with limited functionality fairly soon: the Frogans Start Service. But again, this is just to get the ball rolling. We’d much prefer that others take the torch. It’s just not our line of work. We’ll do our best to see that software developers have the resources they need for making tools that help the rest of us make frogans.

STG Interactive does not determine the content of your frogans

• Use your frogans to say whatever you want (within the laws of your country). We don’t oblige you to put ads, or anything else in your frogans. Your frogans content is your responsibility and your right, so go crazy.

STG Interactive does not host frogans

• You register your frogans address with STG Interactive, but where you host you frogans is entirely up to you.

STG Interactive does not publish FSDL user guides

• We publish the FSDL Specifications to be as complete and as accurate as possible. Anybody who wants to publish more intuitive explanations (tutorials, books, code examples, FSDL Specification translations, etc.) is free to do so.

STG Interactive will not create a frogans search engine or directory

• Frogans search services can be freely created by anyone on the Internet. Leaving that role to the specialists, STG Interactive will not provide these services to end-users, and will not provide lists of registered frogans addresses to third parties.

STG Interactive does not sell you anything besides frogans address registration subscriptions (or licenses for creating private frogans networks of your own)

• We’re not out for a piece of your action. That’s why frogans address registration fees are the same for everybody, whether you have one, or a zillion frogans addresses, and whether your frogans are visited by the entire world, or by just a few acquaintances.

In short, if the Frogansphere is to grow, it has to be without barriers. STG Interactive provides the addressing service and the format specifications. It’s up to you to decide what you do, and how far you want to go. It’s way cool, so knock yourself out!

Like I’ve said before, despite several visual and functional similarities, frogans and widgets are not the same thing. I like to imply that we live in a happy universe where frogans and widgets can peacefully coexist. Like Rodney King said, “Can’t we all… just… get along?”

Well, wouldn’t that be nice. But can you really, really trust a widget?

According to the Q3 2007 Web Security Trends Report from the Finjan Malicious Code Research Center (MCRC), you can never be too sure if a widget is as cute and cuddly on the inside as it is on the outside:

“Our findings suggest that new attacks that exploit the insecurities of widgets and gadgets are imminent, and that a revised security model should be explored in order to keep users protected from such attacks.
All types of widget environments (OS, 3rd party applications, and web widgets) were found to be plagued with inadequate security models that allowed malicious widgets to run.”

What? Next, they’re going to tell us not to let them get wet; nor to feed them after midnight!

It’s not as if the writing wasn’t already on the wall. All these proliferating mini-apps, cruising the Info-way to and from your computer, often accessing your system resources and running JavaScript of unbeknown intent. Yikes!

Among other things, the MCRC suggests that organizations limit the internal use of widgets, and even go so far as blocking the downloading widget and gadget file types at corporate network gateways.

Is there any hope for those of us wanting an interactive, online desktop pal without fearing that it might stab us in the back?

Frogans, like widgets, have a knack for being cute and cuddly and for displaying content in a small, unobtrusive format. (For a look at their major differences, see “Frogans vs.Widgets”.)

However, in Frogans Technology development, and apparently unlike with widget engines, end-user security has been a major consideration from the start. While not impossible, a malicious attack from a frogans, is really, really improbable. Here are a few reasons why:

• FSDL (Frogans Slide Description Language) – Written in XML this is the only language in which a frogans can be authored. No Flash, no JavaScript. FSDL provides no references to end-user system resources.
• No disc cache – Frogans slides are loaded into active memory only (and they don’t take up very much of that) – never onto your hard drive.
• Image and FSDL parsing – Here the Frogans Player trades off a bit of speed for iron-clad parsing security.(Given the size limitation requirements for frogans resources, this is a minimal speed issue). The Frogans Player simply rejects corrupt files and corrupt images.
• Fonts – The FSDL specifications (v.3.0) permit only certain typographic fonts to be used in a frogans slide. These fonts are integrated into the Frogans Player which has exclusive access to them. Principally implemented as an access and compatibility feature this is also an insurance against corrupted fonts which could eventually be used in an exploit attempt.
• The frogans address – Each frogans publisher on the Main Frogans Network obtains their frogans address at frogans.com and agrees to the terms therein. This allows STG Interactive to suspend a frogans address (and consequently the frogans concerned) should an FSDL document or an image at that address be used in an attempt to exploit a possible Frogans Player security flaw.
  Moreover, frogans addresses are secured by means of digital signatures.
• We encourage the developer community to go looking for any security flaws they can find in the Frogans Player. Anybody who informs us of one will be cited the release notes of patched Frogans Player upgrades. What more could you ask for? A free frogans address with a cool name like “frogans*DemonHacker”? We’re open to suggestions on that front.
• All the above points apply to all three of the principal platforms for Internet end-users. Linux users won’t be left to fall by the wayside. Mac OS X users won’t be out in the cold. Windows users won’t be left blowing in the wind.

We’re pretty sure that Frogans Technology is going to be a hit in corporate environments because of its clear advantages in terms of security, and what’s good enough for them should well do for the rest of us.

So if you happen to come across a cute and cuddly widget, take heed that looks can be deceiving. On the other hand, your favorite frogans can look like Dracula’s nightmare and still be the perfect pet. I’d like to know what the MCRC will have to say about that.

A crazy week has passed since the crazy week that passed since I last posted a word about frogans (or about anything else, which usually has something to do with frogans). That makes two crazy weeks. By my best estimates I have a crazy week ahead of me, making three crazy weeks of near silence on Froganeyes. The up-spin is that I’ll have three crazy weeks worth of info, commentary and pontifications to spill across your browser, kicking off next crazy week.