Developer's Guide to Social Programming: Building Social Context Using Facebook, Google Friend Connect, and the Twitter API, The (Developer's Library) 1st edition by Hawker, Mark D. (2010) Paperback
“The Developer's Guide to Social Programming” is like three mini-books in one. It covers Twitter, Facebook and Google Friend Connect. The three sections read a bit differently from each other, but there is only one author. Not disruptive enough to be a problem, just odd.
The book assumes you know PHP, JavaScript, CSS and assorted feed technologies. You don't have to be an expert, but you should be comfortable reading code in these languages.
My favorite things in the book were the flowcharts for the authentication/authorization model and the intro to some concepts. In particular, Twitter's OAuth really stood out as an excellent chapter.
The twitter chapters felt more rushed than the rest of the book. In some ways, I felt like the API was being thrown at me. The diagram form was mostly good, but the descriptions were very rapid fire. I say “mostly” because two of the UML like diagrams were in a font that was too small to read. [Edit: clearer images were posted on the socialprogramming.info]
The author does recognize technology changes quickly and says to follow his blog/site for updates.
--- Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for writing this review on behalf of JavaRanch.