Salmon Protocol

[John Panzer]

All,

You've probably seen a mention of Salmon in the meet-up notes from last week.  I did a quick presentation and demo of Salmon for the people in the room at the time, but neglected to actually send a message to this list as well.  Here's the background:

The Salmon Protocol (http://salmon-protocol.org) is a real time, decentralized commenting and annotation system.  The basic idea is that commentary swims upstream to the thing being commented on, which can then redistribute comments back out to interested subscribers.  It's based on Atom and is intended to be compatible with Activity Streams -- using thr:in-reply-to and crosspost:source for example -- and is also intended to allow for reverse syndication of activities such as likes, ratings, etc. that are about an object that has registered a Salmon endpoint.  That is, if you like an item you discover in a Salmon-enabled feed, your agent of choice can push the "like" activity up to an endpoint specified by the original item, providing more visibility and potential re-publishing of activities around the web.

There's a demo available at http://salmon-playground.appspot.com/ros which posts comments back to a Blogger blog (by proxying to an existing API, just for demo purposes).  Feedback and comments welcomed.

With regard to activities, I'm interested in a few things:

• Making sure everything is compatible (so far this has been done by being compatible with Atom, which Activity Streams also does, but now we need to pick and choose extensions like crosspost: so things get trickier)
• Optionally augmenting authorship (I'm interested in standardizing how to push an author representation that includes nickname of choice and url of an avatar picture along with the comment.  These can change over time so pulling from a profile is both insufficient and inefficient.)
• Standardizing a JSON format!  (Salmon has held off on this because I want to just adopt what Activity Streams does.)

On a side note, it could also be useful to have a structured activity indicating someone has flagged something as spam/offensive/etc.  Sort of the inverse of a like, with the results depending on the identity and reputation of the author.  (Distributed spam control.)  I think this could be useful for things beyond Salmon, and it has come up in the context of PubSubHubbub for general feeds already.

--
John Panzer / Google
jpa...@google.com / abstractioneer.org / @jpanzer

[Monica Keller]

I think this is great ! I am loving http://www.salmon-protocol.org/home

We are adding comments to the MSP activity stream so specifying how
consumers comment back is a great next step

On Oct 23, 12:51 pm, John Panzer <jpan...@google.com> wrote:
> All,
> You've probably seen a mention of Salmon in the meet-up notes from last
> week.  I did a quick presentation and demo of Salmon for the people in the
> room at the time, but neglected to actually send a message to this list as
> well.  Here's the background:
>
> The Salmon Protocol (http://salmon-protocol.org) is a real time,
> decentralized commenting and annotation system.  The basic idea is that
> commentary swims upstream to the thing being commented on, which can then
> redistribute comments back out to interested subscribers.  It's based on
> Atom and is intended to be compatible with Activity Streams -- using
> thr:in-reply-to and crosspost:source for example -- and is also intended to
> allow for reverse syndication of activities such as likes, ratings, etc.
> that are about an object that has registered a Salmon endpoint.  That is, if
> you like an item you discover in a Salmon-enabled feed, your agent of choice
> can push the "like" activity up to an endpoint specified by the original
> item, providing more visibility and potential re-publishing of activities
> around the web.
> There's a demo available athttp://salmon-playground.appspot.com/roswhich
> posts comments back to a Blogger blog (by proxying to an existing API, just
> for demo purposes).  Feedback and comments welcomed.
>
> With regard to activities, I'm interested in a few things:
>

>    - Making sure everything is compatible (so far this has been done by

>    being compatible with Atom, which Activity Streams also does, but now we
>    need to pick and choose extensions like crosspost: so things get trickier)

>    - Optionally augmenting authorship (I'm interested in standardizing how

>    to push an author representation that includes nickname of choice and url of
>    an avatar picture along with the comment.  These can change over time so
>    pulling from a profile is both insufficient and inefficient.)

>    - Standardizing a JSON format!  (Salmon has held off on this because I

>    want to just adopt what Activity Streams does.)
>
> On a side note, it could also be useful to have a structured activity
> indicating someone has flagged something as spam/offensive/etc.  Sort of the
> inverse of a like, with the results depending on the identity and reputation
> of the author.  (Distributed spam control.)  I think this could be useful
> for things beyond Salmon, and it has come up in the context of PubSubHubbub
> for general feeds already.
>
> --
> John Panzer / Google

> jpan...@google.com / abstractioneer.org <http://www.abstractioneer.org/> /
> @jpanzer

[Tosh Meston (MySpace)]

Hi John,
I can see lots of value in what salmon protocol is trying to do.
Great!

About the JSON format... We (MySpace) are experimenting with a JSON
format to extend our OpenSocial 0.9 REST Activities endpoint. We'd
love to get some feedback on this from you and anyone else who is
interested.

Sample JSON:

"activity": {
"actors": [
{
"id": "tag:myspace.com,2009:/Person/81472123",
"links": [
"http://www.myspace.com/bmblack34"
],
"objectTypes": [
"http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/person"
],
"title": "Brandon Black"
}
],
"detail": "<div class=\"activityBody\"><h5 class=\"activityHeader
\"><a href=\"http://www.myspace.com/bmblack34\">Brandon Black</a>
added a new photo to the Misc album.</h5><div class=\"activityMedia
ActivityTemplateMediaGallery\" ><ul class=\"activityDetailList\"><li
class=\"activityDetailItem\"><a href=\"\" class=\"thumbnailLink Photo
\"><img src=\"http://c2.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/6/
s_be8b724c87254f6bbb690eedcb9414f1.png\" alt=\"\" class=
\"thumbnailImage\"/></a></li></ul></div></div>",
"objects": [
{
"id": "tag:myspace.com,2009:/Photo/1816998/76453118",
"links": [
"http://c2.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/6/
s_be8bb90eebb4c8725724f66dcb9414f1.png"
],
"source": {
"id": "tag:myspace.com,2009:/Photo_Album/1816998",
"title": "Misc"
},
"title": ""
}
],
"target": {
"id": "tag:myspace.com,2009:/Photo_Album/1816998",
"title": "Misc"
},
"time": "2009-10-24T09:15:41",
"verbs": [
"http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post"
]
}


XSD (extends the OS 0.9 Activity schema --
http://www.opensocial.org/Technical-Resources/opensocial-spec-v09/REST-API.html)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xs:schema xmlns:tns="http://ns.opensocial.org/2008/opensocial"
elementFormDefault="qualified" targetNamespace="http://
ns.opensocial.org/2008/opensocial" xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/
XMLSchema">
<xs:complexType name="Activity">
<xs:choice minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded">
<xs:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded"
name="actors" type="tns:ActivityObject" />
<xs:element minOccurs="0" name="context"
type="tns:ActivityContext" />
<xs:element minOccurs="0" name="detail" type="xs:string" /
>
<xs:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded"
name="links" type="xs:string" />
<xs:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded"
name="objects" type="tns:ActivityObject" />
<xs:element minOccurs="0" name="source"
type="tns:ActivityObject" />
<xs:element minOccurs="0" name="target"
type="tns:ActivityObject" />
<xs:element minOccurs="0" name="time" type="xs:string" />
<xs:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded"
name="verbs" type="xs:string" />
</xs:choice>
</xs:complexType>
<xs:complexType name="ActivityObject">
<xs:choice minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded">
<xs:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded"
name="actors" type="tns:ActivityObject" />
<xs:element minOccurs="0" name="detail" type="xs:string" /
>
<xs:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded"
name="links" type="xs:string" />
<xs:element minOccurs="0" name="source"
type="tns:ActivityObject" />
<xs:element minOccurs="0" name="time" type="xs:string" />
<xs:element minOccurs="0" name="id" type="xs:string" />
<xs:element minOccurs="0" name="title" type="xs:string" />
<xs:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded"
name="objectTypes" type="xs:string" />
</xs:choice>
</xs:complexType>
<xs:complexType name="ActivityContext">
<xs:choice minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded">
<xs:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded"
name="location" type="tns:Address" />
</xs:choice>
</xs:complexType>
</xs:schema>

On Oct 23, 12:51 pm, John Panzer <jpan...@google.com> wrote:

> All,
> You've probably seen a mention of Salmon in the meet-up notes from last
> week.  I did a quick presentation and demo of Salmon for the people in the
> room at the time, but neglected to actually send a message to this list as
> well.  Here's the background:
>
> The Salmon Protocol (http://salmon-protocol.org) is a real time,
> decentralized commenting and annotation system.  The basic idea is that
> commentary swims upstream to the thing being commented on, which can then
> redistribute comments back out to interested subscribers.  It's based on
> Atom and is intended to be compatible with Activity Streams -- using
> thr:in-reply-to and crosspost:source for example -- and is also intended to
> allow for reverse syndication of activities such as likes, ratings, etc.
> that are about an object that has registered a Salmon endpoint.  That is, if
> you like an item you discover in a Salmon-enabled feed, your agent of choice
> can push the "like" activity up to an endpoint specified by the original
> item, providing more visibility and potential re-publishing of activities
> around the web.
> There's a demo available athttp://salmon-playground.appspot.com/roswhich
> posts comments back to a Blogger blog (by proxying to an existing API, just
> for demo purposes).  Feedback and comments welcomed.
>
> With regard to activities, I'm interested in a few things:
>

>    - Making sure everything is compatible (so far this has been done by

>    being compatible with Atom, which Activity Streams also does, but now we
>    need to pick and choose extensions like crosspost: so things get trickier)

>    - Optionally augmenting authorship (I'm interested in standardizing how

>    to push an author representation that includes nickname of choice and url of
>    an avatar picture along with the comment.  These can change over time so
>    pulling from a profile is both insufficient and inefficient.)

>    - Standardizing a JSON format!  (Salmon has held off on this because I

>    want to just adopt what Activity Streams does.)
>
> On a side note, it could also be useful to have a structured activity
> indicating someone has flagged something as spam/offensive/etc.  Sort of the
> inverse of a like, with the results depending on the identity and reputation
> of the author.  (Distributed spam control.)  I think this could be useful
> for things beyond Salmon, and it has come up in the context of PubSubHubbub
> for general feeds already.
>
> --
> John Panzer / Google

[Chris Chabot]

Looks great & very much in line with what I've been experimenting with.

The one thing I'm missing in the example json is the conversion of the activity:object-type entry, without the knowledge that this is a photo it's hard to render correctly.

[Tosh Meston (MySpace)]

Thanks Chris, here is an update JSON sample.

"activity" = {

"actors": [
{
"id": "tag:myspace.com,2009:/Person/81472123",
"links": [
"http://www.myspace.com/bmblack34"
],
"objectTypes": [
"http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/person"
],
"title": "Brandon Black"
}
],
"detail": "<div class=\"activityBody\"><h5 class=
\"activityHeader\"><a href=\"http://www.myspace.com/
bmblack34\">Brandon Black</a> added a new photo to the Misc album.</
h5><div class=\"activityMedia ActivityTemplateMediaGallery\" ><ul
class=\"activityDetailList\"><li class=\"activityDetailItem\"><a href=

\"\" class=\"thumbnailLink Photo\"><img src=\"http://c2.ac-
images.myspacecdn.com/images02/6/s_be8b724c87254f6bbb690eedcb9414f1.png
\" alt=\"\" class=\"thumbnailImage\"/></a></li></ul></div></div>",

"objects": [
{
"id": "tag:myspace.com,2009:/Photo/1816998/76453118",
"links": [
"http://c2.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/6/

s_be8b724c87254f6bbb690eedcb9414f1.png"
],
"objectTypes": [
"http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/photo"

],
"source": {
"id": "tag:myspace.com,2009:/Photo_Album/1816998",
"title": "Misc"
},
"title": ""
}
],
"target": {
"id": "tag:myspace.com,2009:/Photo_Album/1816998",

"objectTypes": [
"http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/photo-album"
],

"title": "Misc"
},
"time": "2009-10-24T09:15:41",
"verbs": [
"http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post"

],

> > s_be8b724c87254f6bbb690eedcb9414f1.png<http://c2.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/6/%0As_be8b724c87254f6bbb...>\"

> > alt=\"\" class=
> > \"thumbnailImage\"/></a></li></ul></div></div>",
> >    "objects": [
> >        {
> >            "id": "tag:myspace.com,2009:/Photo/1816998/76453118",
> >            "links": [
> >                "http://c2.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/6/

> > s_be8bb90eebb4c8725724f66dcb9414f1.png<http://c2.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/6/%0As_be8bb90eebb4c87257...>

> > "
> >            ],
> >            "source": {
> >                "id": "tag:myspace.com,2009:/Photo_Album/1816998",
> >                "title": "Misc"
> >            },
> >            "title": ""
> >        }
> >    ],
> >    "target": {
> >        "id": "tag:myspace.com,2009:/Photo_Album/1816998",
> >        "title": "Misc"
> >    },
> >    "time": "2009-10-24T09:15:41",
> >    "verbs": [
> >        "http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post"
> >    ]
> > }
>
> > XSD (extends the OS 0.9 Activity schema --
>

> >http://www.opensocial.org/Technical-Resources/opensocial-spec-v09/RES...
> > )