W3C Workshop on the Future of Social Networking

[Chris Messina]

In case you've not seen it:

W3C Workshop on the Future of Social Networking
15-16 January 2009, Barcelona

Call for Participation: http://www.w3.org/2008/09/msnws/cfp

The problem statement is particularly interesting, since it mentions many initiatives near and dear to us:

http://www.w3.org/2008/09/msnws/problem

I'm interested in writing a position paper (or several) as time allows. Indeed I feel as though writing position papers for each of the Open Stack technologies would be wise and a good first start. Are others interested in such work? Would it be possible to coordinate on such an effort?

Chris

--
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 Open Technology Advocate-at-Large
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[Elias Bizannes]

I'd be interested. I by no means am an expert to anything in the
stack, but I'm keen on any excuse to apply research with a goal so I
can learn something as I do it.

[Nicolas Toper]

I am interested too and I am not an expert but I know the standards and I worked in the mobile industry.

What do you suggest Chris to work on this?

Best,
Nicolas

--
A+
Nico
http://www.deviant-abstraction.net

[Jack D. Robinson]

Hi Chris:


Thanks!  I'll definitely go to this! 


Jack


Jack Robinson
President
ADDnCLICK, Inc.
1079 Crystal Springs Drive
Vacaville, CA  9568
Cellphone:  415-518-8268

[Jack D. Robinson]

Hi Nicolas:


I would recommend that instead of creating small commuties for social networking (like MySpace), that instead there be a way to enable the entire internet into a MASSIVE, live social network -- and that can be done. 


Best,


Jack

[Ben Metcalfe]

Does anyone know for sure whether this event is solely about the Future of Social Networking in the mobile space or whether it encompasses all SocNet stuff, ie on the wider web in general?


Having looked at the W3C site for this event, I notice that it is being organized by the W3C Mobile Initiative and makes reference to the notion that "social networking on mobile phones is nearing critical mass".

But then the rest of the agenda/statements appear to talk about data portability and similar issues in abstract and refer to the data "on the web".  It doesn't seem clear what the boundaries of the problem space are for this.


Thanks,
Ben

[Chris Messina]

I don't know specifically, but I'd say that the call looks aimed at the wider social web, which is implied will end up on mobile devices via HTTP. The audience list is useful:

• social networks operators,
• handset manufacturers,
• mobile network operators,
• developers and providers of social applications or services,
• experts in usability, security, privacy and accessibility as applied to social networks, and
• industry organizations working on standardization around social networking.

Chris

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[Ben Metcalfe]

Yeah, I'm really concerned that *they* don't know. Or that it's a bunch of mobile guys who are trying to stimulate a wider area than their remit.

I think this is a great initiative but want to make sure that I'm potentially contributing to something that goes beyond mobile as the issues being raised here are not limited to the mobile space (but of course to encompass them).

I wrote to D...@w3.org who is the contact for this to find out, I'll report back.


Ben

[Chris Messina]

Agreed. And even if there is a leaning towards mobile, it's critical that we're there to represent the work we've been doing so mobile can benefit from it!

Chris

On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 5:21 PM, Joseph Smarr <jsm...@gmail.com> wrote:

Nevertheless, it does seem like at least one of us working on the Open Stack should be there to represent this whole ecosystem we're involved in, and how we all see it playing out. I think anything to reduce fragmentation in people trying to work on the future of the social web--at least so we're aware of one another and our respective ideas--is well worth the effort.

 

Thanks, js

[Elias Bizannes]

So next steps?

What are potential positions papers we can write?

As for how, do we allocate sections of the paper/cowrite the whole
thing via a wiki/allocate people to people issues based on their
interest

On Oct 16, 12:22 pm, "Chris Messina" <chris.mess...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Agreed. And even if there is a leaning towards mobile, it's critical that
> we're there to represent the work we've been doing so mobile can benefit
> from it!
> Chris
>
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 5:21 PM, Joseph Smarr <jsm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Nevertheless, it does seem like at least one of us working on the Open
> > Stack should be there to represent this whole ecosystem we're involved in,
> > and how we all see it playing out. I think anything to reduce fragmentation
> > in people trying to work on the future of the social web--at least so we're
> > aware of one another and our respective ideas--is well worth the effort.
>
> > Thanks, js
>

> > On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 5:06 PM, Ben Metcalfe <ben.metca...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> >> Yeah, I'm really concerned that *they* don't know. Or that it's a bunch of
> >> mobile guys who are trying to stimulate a wider area than their remit.
>
> >> I think this is a great initiative but want to make sure that I'm
> >> potentially contributing to something that goes beyond mobile as the issues
> >> being raised here are not limited to the mobile space (but of course to
> >> encompass them).
>
> >> I wrote to D...@w3.org who is the contact for this to find out, I'll
> >> report back.
>
> >> Ben
>

> >> On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 5:03 PM, Chris Messina <chris.mess...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> >>> I don't know specifically, but I'd say that the call looks aimed at the
> >>> wider social web, which is implied will end up on mobile devices via HTTP.
> >>> The audience list is useful:
>

> >>>    - social networks operators,
> >>>    - handset manufacturers,
> >>>    - mobile network operators,
> >>>    - developers and providers of social applications or services,
> >>>    - experts in usability, security, privacy and accessibility as

> >>>    applied to social networks, and

> >>>    - industry organizations working on standardization around social
> >>>    networking.
>
> >>> Chris

>
> >>> On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 12:25 PM, Ben Metcalfe <ben.metca...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> >>>> Does anyone know for sure whether this event is solely about the Future

> >>>> of Social Networking *in the mobile space* or whether it encompasses

[Chris Messina]

I think it would make the most sense if those of us interested in writing picked a topic area in which we're familiar and interested in and proposed it on the wiki (which is in the process of moving). I've begun a page here:

http://wiki.diso-project.org/position-papers

Please either request access or add your area of topical interest and we'll get going.

Papers are due Nov 20, so we should get crackin'!

Chris

[iankennedy]

I've been on this list for a while now but have not had a lot of time
to contribute - hopefully that will now change. I left Yahoo last
week and am starting at Nokia on Monday to work on making their
devices "socially aware" so Chris, thank you for pointing out what
looks to be a highly relevant workshop. Ben, I look forward to reading
what you hear back from the event organizers.

I've thrown my name in there to present a survey of verbs and nouns
used across social networks (ie. do you "friend" someone or "follow"
them?). Given the international nature of the audience as well as the
mix of mobile and web folks, it should be a unique opportunity to get
some feedback on what works and what doesn't. We could also use this
paper to present the action verbs in a lifestream that have been
worked on (do you "post a photo" or "share a photo").

Let me know if you all think such a survey would be useful.

Ian Kennedy
http://everwas.com

On Oct 15, 10:14 pm, "Chris Messina" <chris.mess...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I think it would make the most sense if those of us interested in writing
> picked a topic area in which we're familiar and interested in and proposed
> it on the wiki (which is in the process of moving). I've begun a page here:http://wiki.diso-project.org/position-papers
>
> Please either request access or add your area of topical interest and we'll
> get going.
>
> Papers are due Nov 20, so we should get crackin'!
>
> Chris
>

[Ben Metcalfe]

This is what I received from Dom @ W3C who is organizing this event:

It is more general than in the mobile space - the mobile web initiative
took the lead on setting up this workspace since the mobile space is
particularly active there, and some of the discussions in the workshop
are likely to focus around it, but it certainly won't be the sole focus
of the workshop - the call for participation is indeed open to a much
broader scope.

To Eran's point as to the weight of the W3C in this area, I have to add that I'm concerned about whether a predominantly mobile platform-orientated project holding an event about the implications in a wider scope than just mobile will have much weight as they move outside their remit.

Indeed, I do wonder who the audience of the outcome of this event is really aimed at - as I'm not particularly interested in participating just to give the leg up to a load of mobile phone carriers and handset providers (no offense to Ian now @ Nokia, congrats on your new post btw - but I hope you see my point that this important stuff is not just about mobile phones).


I'm still undecided as to whether I will participate, as I don't yet see exactly what the return (to the community/industry) on (my) investment would be given the limited mandate of this group.



Ben

[Danny Ayers]

fyi, Harry Halpin's proposed a W3C Social Web Incubator Group, draft
charter at [1], though given the crossover with different areas
(semantics, policy, mobile...) there's a possibility of more than one
group being created. Details/decisions are likely to be hammered out
at the W3C Tech Plenary next week.

Cheers,
Danny.

[1] http://www.ibiblio.org/hhalpin/homepage/drafts/soccharter.html

--
http://dannyayers.com
~
http://blogs.talis.com/nodalities/this_weeks_semantic_web/

[Yishay Mor]

Congratulations Ian! I just came back (well, metaphorically. literally it was around the block) from the handheldlearning conference.

You would think it would be all about mobiles, but the keynote was given by danah boyd, and most of the sessions I went to were about social web apps, or at least mentioned social web.

The key message I heard was: the web is going mobile, the web is social, therefore we should be looking at social mobile (I once called this m2.0, or m2o).

If you think about the other %85 of humanity, mobile coverage far exceeds wired IP coverage. Kids in South African townships are creating ad-hoc p2p networks over bluetooth.

___________________________
 Yishay Mor, Researcher, London Knowledge Lab
  http://www.lkl.ac.uk/people/mor.html
  http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=yishaym%40gmail.com
  +44-20-78378888 x5737

2008/10/17 iankennedy <iken...@gmail.com>

[Eran Hammer-Lahav]

I think the question you need to ask (I have no clue myself) is what are the expected outcomes from such a workshop. If this is a mostly academic/philosophical discussion, it is probably of little interest to most people here. If it is likely to produce working group recommendations or even discuss charters, it might be of greater value. Also keep in mind that there are restrictions with regard to W3C for participation and membership that might actually prevent some of you from taking part in such working groups (workshop is open and you just need to get a position paper accepted).

 

EHL

[David Orchard]

My guess is that it is a fact gathering workshop, with possibly vague charter proposals.  A lot depends upon the position papers.  If somebody put in a position paper that proposed working groups and during the q&a session there was some support, the workshop organizer/facilitator/moderator would probably add that question into the wrap up session.  Often a set of desired outcomes is created based upon the papers, and then the attendees can rank their preferences in the wrap-up.

Cheers,
Dave

[Chris Messina]

Ian -- Congrats on the new gig! That's exciting news!

That research sounds both interesting and presently useful, and would
be even more compelling if you were to develop a framework for
understanding how new verbs emerge [organically over time] and how we
can gradually commoditize by baking into social platforms increasing
numbers of user tasks or common functionality.

To put this another way, I just went to a semantic web conference
(literally called Web 3.0) and though I could stay long, it sounded
like the greatest challenge is developing shared, non-proprietary
ontologies. I see a similar challenge for us, for without coming up
with a common set of verbs/actions which are understood to mean some
specific, and without providing a scientificly-driven way to extend
that list, our efforts towards interop will fail.

Ian, would you be able to start a list on
wiki.diso-project.org/activity-stream-verbs?

Chris

[Chris Messina]

While I appreciate what Eran is saying, and there are of course always many different things which require attention, time and effort, it would seem to me that this is as good as any opportunity to set out various positions in written form that could be reused in any number of contexts for various purposes.

Again, that this gives us a deadline to shoot for is what I'm most interested in; if we get papers in, all the better.

I'm actually going to be traveling beginning next week for about a month (speaking in Sydney at the Open Standards conference, then in Perth at Edge of the Web), so it's unclear how much time I'll have personally to devote to these papers, but should anyone else feel motivated, please avail yourself of the DiSo list to brainstorm and develop your theses.

Chris

[B.K. DeLong]

I've tried to do a similar survey on how various social networks allow
the user to control privacy via some sort of groupings. Ideally they'd
have a core ontology similar to that of the FOAF Relationshp
vocabulary[1] and then allow people to create custom ones.

I think Facebook is by far the most robust in how it lets you create
quite a few Friends Groups and then in how many different ways it lets
you specify privacy options for parts of your personal profile,
pictures/videos of you (tagged by others), your status, and each
individual application. It allows for both whitelisting AND
blacklisting for some features (though I'd like to see this done
wholesale) depending on ones needs.

Alas, my experience is that the W3C does not "get it" when it comes to
the present state of the Web and yet they are trying to assert
themselves to maintain some sort of foothold. While they have served
over the years as an incubator for core Web standards that were
critical to get where we are now, their processes simply moved too
slowly and those that once worked within the auspices of the
Consortium have innovated far outside its ability to catch-up.

[1] http://vocab.org/relationship/

--
B.K. DeLong (K3GRN)
bkde...@pobox.com
+1.617.797.8471

http://www.wkdelong.org Son.
http://www.ianetsec.com Work.
http://www.bostonredcross.org Volunteer.
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http://bkdelong.livejournal.com Play.

PGP Fingerprint:
38D4 D4D4 5819 8667 DFD5 A62D AF61 15FF 297D 67FE

FOAF:
http://foaf.brain-stream.org

[Danny Ayers]

2008/10/17 B.K. DeLong <bkde...@gmail.com>:

Long time no see :-)

> Alas, my experience is that the W3C does not "get it" when it comes to
> the present state of the Web and yet they are trying to assert
> themselves to maintain some sort of foothold. While they have served
> over the years as an incubator for core Web standards that were
> critical to get where we are now, their processes simply moved too
> slowly and those that once worked within the auspices of the
> Consortium have innovated far outside its ability to catch-up.

Who on earth does get it? Who moves quickly?

Hixie :
Proposed Recommendation in 2022.
[1]

- and that's just getting a baseline standard for HTML, not actually
moving anything on.

Atom took several years, and then appeared as plain text. C'mon.

My personal experience is that the W3C is full of individuals, many of
whom do have to represent their sluggish worm of a company. But many
others have significantly independent voices.

I haven't a clue about the Web Science and Web Foundation things timbl
has been playing with recently, but I suspect he wants things to move
differently and/or faster.

For myself, it seems obvious the W3C has made mistakes (er, like SOAP)
but is actually quite responsive - initiating Incubator Groups, for
example.

I've really no motive to defend them apart from the fact that (at at
least in the semweb community) they have people interested in getting
things going. Ok, and I like standards.

Cheers,
Danny.

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2006Nov/0045.html

[B.K. DeLong]

On Fri, Oct 17, 2008 at 7:07 PM, Danny Ayers <danny...@gmail.com> wrote:

2008/10/17 B.K. DeLong <bkde...@gmail.com>:

Long time no see :-)

Always here. I like to use the word....omnipresent but there's major ego implied that I oft try to eschew.
 

My personal experience is that the W3C is full of individuals, many of
whom do have to represent their sluggish worm of a company. But many
others have significantly independent voices.

Agreed though truth be told my involvement has been nil the last few years. I watched the activity of their Semantic Web initiative dwindle to near quietude as those individuals involved continued to work external to the consortium.
 

For myself, it seems obvious the W3C has made mistakes (er, like SOAP)
but is actually quite responsive - initiating Incubator Groups, for
example.

I think some of the ad hoc efforts seeking to organize around a more lithe structure like the Apache Software Foundation and Creative Commons are better suited to the present "need for speed" in setting standards within the social networking environment. I think we're where we were in the mid-90s with Netscape and IE; each innovating their own HTML elements muddying the purpose of semantic markup vs stylizing except there are far more social networking sites and models than the major two of the "Browser Wars".

I don't think the W3C can stick a stake in the sand that people will pay attention to. But that's my opinion alone and I can't claim to be an active social network developer - just a grumpy power user who wants to see cross-network portability and better trust relationships combined with public key encryption.
 

I've really no motive to defend them apart from the fact that (at at
least in the semweb community) they have people interested in getting
things going. Ok, and I like standards.

When I had a passing fancy for contributing to the FOAF network it seemed the semweb folks were all working ad hoc outside thr traditional sandboxes of the W3C. While they were still involved none of what they did seemed to really trickle back and get formalized - it just kept moving forward and folded into various efforts.

My observational $0.0 (adjusted for inflation).

[Danny Ayers]

2008/10/18 B.K. DeLong <bkde...@gmail.com>:

>
>
> On Fri, Oct 17, 2008 at 7:07 PM, Danny Ayers <danny...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> 2008/10/17 B.K. DeLong <bkde...@gmail.com>:
>>
>> Long time no see :-)
>
> Always here. I like to use the word....omnipresent but there's major ego
> implied that I oft try to eschew.

They are the reapers of destruction and pain...my toenails, not cut
them in a while.

>> My personal experience is that the W3C is full of individuals, many of
>> whom do have to represent their sluggish worm of a company. But many
>> others have significantly independent voices.
>
> Agreed though truth be told my involvement has been nil the last few years.
> I watched the activity of their Semantic Web initiative dwindle to near
> quietude as those individuals involved continued to work external to the
> consortium.

Apart from occasional cliqueiness, with the folks I've encountered
there's no observable gap internal/external. Case in point myself - I
was on the GRDDL WG invited because I was interested, then I started
working for a member company and nothing changed except it buggered up
all my mail.

>> For myself, it seems obvious the W3C has made mistakes (er, like SOAP)
>> but is actually quite responsive - initiating Incubator Groups, for
>> example.
>
> I think some of the ad hoc efforts seeking to organize around a more lithe
> structure like the Apache Software Foundation and Creative Commons are
> better suited to the present "need for speed" in setting standards within
> the social networking environment. I think we're where we were in the
> mid-90s with Netscape and IE; each innovating their own HTML elements
> muddying the purpose of semantic markup vs stylizing except there are far
> more social networking sites and models than the major two of the "Browser
> Wars".
>
> I don't think the W3C can stick a stake in the sand that people will pay
> attention to. But that's my opinion alone and I can't claim to be an active
> social network developer - just a grumpy power user who wants to see
> cross-network portability and better trust relationships combined with
> public key encryption.

Check Henry Story's recent stuff (Google should provide)

>> I've really no motive to defend them apart from the fact that (at at
>> least in the semweb community) they have people interested in getting
>> things going. Ok, and I like standards.
>
> When I had a passing fancy for contributing to the FOAF network it seemed
> the semweb folks were all working ad hoc outside thr traditional sandboxes
> of the W3C. While they were still involved none of what they did seemed to
> really trickle back and get formalized - it just kept moving forward and
> folded into various efforts.

Which, like, sounds good..?

> My observational $0.0 (adjusted for inflation).

bloody bankers.

Cheers,
Danny.

> --
> B.K. DeLong (K3GRN)
> bkde...@pobox.com
> +1.617.797.8471
>
> http://www.wkdelong.org Son.
> http://www.ianetsec.com Work.
> http://www.bostonredcross.org Volunteer.
> http://www.carolingia.eastkingdom.org Service.
> http://bkdelong.livejournal.com Play.
>
>
> PGP Fingerprint:
> 38D4 D4D4 5819 8667 DFD5 A62D AF61 15FF 297D 67FE
>
> FOAF:
> http://foaf.brain-stream.org
>
> >
>

--

[Chris Messina]

+1. Ok cool.

We've got a couple entries here:

https://diso.pbwiki.com/position-papers

David, Joseph, want to contribute to the list? Anyone else?

Chris

On Sat, Oct 18, 2008 at 11:32 AM, Joseph Smarr <jsm...@gmail.com> wrote:

Yup, I feel the same way. If nothing else, I think it would be a good exercise for us to write a concise and compelling paper on the vision of the Open Stack and the current state of the art. I could imagine lots of people finding that useful. And I'm certainly happy to help participate as well. js

On Sat, Oct 18, 2008 at 11:25 AM, David Recordon <reco...@gmail.com> wrote:

I wouldn't mind collaborating on a paper or two, but agree that traveling to the event most likely will be less impactful than the papers themselves.

--David

[Joseph A Holsten]

I'm down for reputation/trust networks and service discovery. I'll
gladly contribute to any open stack or identity paper, but those look
to be in good hands.

http://josephholsten.com

[David Recordon]

Yeah, happy to help write a paper on the open stack.

[Chris Messina]

Just to follow up on this -- since I'm traveling for the next couple
weeks, please do move forward on this on your own, again using this
list for feedback and support.

I know George already has a draft (and I owe him feedback) but
otherwise I think just getting our voice/message into the conversation
is the goal.

Chris

[Elias Bizannes]

Deadline was 20th November. I asked, and turns out they will extend it
for us forgot-about-the-deadline types.

New deadline: 3 December

Dan Brickley told me we will need to send an expression of interest to
team-msn...@w3.org before Monday EOB (November 24)
stating:
* that we plan to send a position paper (and by when)
* the number of participants they would like to have at the
workshop
* whether or not they wish to make a presentation during the
workshop

Not sure whether we should send a combined e-mail or individually?

[Sean Sullivan]

I'm at the workshop today and tomorrow. You can watch the
presentations online:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/w3c-workshop

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=w3csn