Social networks landscape and technology

[Karl Dubost]

The recent discussion about academic/industry led me to think that
sometimes there is a lack of knowledge of what some groups are doing.
History, lack of design, discussing it in a small community, etc make
sometimes the technologies and groups unknown. The goals are often the
same (data portability) with local differences. An example is data
portability between big social networks when some are trying to
promote data ownership which can be shared with social networks. Works
include technologies, policies and UX studies. Some technologies are
drowned in Patent hell.

David Recordon listed a few already in a previous mail. I added a few,
and I'm pretty sure I have forgotten many of them (in fact it's quite
amazing to see the landscape around identity management and social
networks). Some have overlaps or address slightly different goals.
Do we have a one liner description for each of them? For example, both
wikipedia and the opensocial fails to explain what it is about in the
first paragraph.

# Activity Streams
an extension to the Atom feed format to express what people are
doing around web
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activity_Streams
http://activitystrea.ms/

# APML
APML allows users to share their own personal Attention Profile in
much the same way that OPML allows the exchange of reading lists
between News Readers.
http://apml.areyoupayingattention.com/

# Bandit
open source collection of loosely-coupled components to provide
consistent identity services.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandit_project
http://www.bandit-project.org/

# Data Independence And Survival Best Practices
How to better share your data by promoting reusability, standards
and clear policies.
http://bit.ly/freedata

# DataPortability
Data portability is the ability for people to reuse their data
across interoperable applications. The DataPortability Project works
to advance this vision by identifying, contextualizing and promoting
efforts in the space.
http://www.dataportability.org/

# DigitalMe
DigitalMe is a set of components that enable users and applications
to interact with InfoCard-compatible web sites and services.
http://code.bandit-project.org/trac/wiki/DigitalMe

# DISO
DiSo (dee • soh) is an initiative to facilitate the creation of
open, non-proprietary and interoperable building blocks for the
decentralized social web.
http://diso-project.org/

# DOAP
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Description_of_a_Project
http://trac.usefulinc.com/doap
Description of a Project (DOAP) is an RDF schema and XML vocabulary
to describe open-source projects.

# FOAF
FOAF (an acronym of Friend of a friend) is a machine-readable
ontology describing persons, their activities and their relations to
other people and objects.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOAF_%28software%29
http://www.foaf-project.org/

# FOAF+SSL
http://esw.w3.org/topic/foaf+ssl
FOAF+SSL is a authentication and authorization protocol that links
a Web ID to a public key, thereby enabling a global, decentralized/
distributed, and open yet secure social network.

# HCARD
hCard is a microformat for publishing the contact details (which
might be no more than the name) of people, companies, organizations,
and places, in (X)HTML, Atom, RSS, or arbitrary XML.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HCard
http://microformats.org/wiki/hcard

# Higgings
Higgins is a browser add-on that helps you log in to websites and
apps, manage your digital identities, and control the sharing of your
personal information.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgins_project
http://eclipse.org/higgins/

# Information Card
Information Card metaphor as a key component of an open,
interoperable, royalty-free, user-centric identity layer spanning both
the enterprise and the Internet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Card_Foundation
http://informationcard.net/

# OpenID
OpenID is an open, decentralized standard for authenticating users
which can be used for access control, allowing users to log on to
different services with the same digital identity where these services
trust the authentication body.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenID
http://openid.net/

# OpenSocial
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenSocial (btw poor wikipage on the
topic)
http://www.opensocial.org/
* general JavaScript API
* People and Friends API (people and relationship information)
* Activities API (publishing and accessing user activity information)
* Persistence API (simple key-value pair data for server-free
stateful applications)

# OAuth
OAuth is an open protocol to allow secure API authorization in a
standard method for desktop, mobile and web applications.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OAuth
http://oauth.net/

# Portable Contacts API
Providing users a secure way to access their address books and
friends lists without having to take their credentials or scrape their
data.
http://portablecontacts.net/

# SAML
Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) is an XML-based standard
for exchanging authentication and authorization data between security
domains, that is, between an identity provider (a producer of
assertions) and a service provider (a consumer of assertions).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAML
http://saml.xml.org/

# SIOC - Semantically-Interlinked Online Communities
SIOC provides methods for interconnecting discussion methods such
as blogs, forums and mailing lists to each other.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantically-Interlinked_Online_Communities
http://sioc-project.org/

# Social Web incubator group
understand the systems and technologies that permit the description
and identification of people, groups, organizations, and user-
generated content in extensible and privacy-respecting ways.
http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/socialweb/wiki/Main_Page

# VCARD RDF
Resource Description Framework (RDF) encoding of the vCard profile
defined by RFC 2426 and to provide equivalent functionality to its
standard format.
http://www.w3.org/TR/vcard-rdf

# XFN
XHTML Friends Network (XFN) is an HTML microformat that provides a
simple way to represent human relationships using links.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XHTML_Friends_Network
http://gmpg.org/xfn/

Some of the missing pieces of technology around sharing data and
access control in the realm of personal Web site as a social network
node.
http://www.w3.org/2008/09/msnws/papers/olivier-karl

--
Karl Dubost
Montréal, QC, Canada
http://twitter.com/karlpro

[Elias Bizannes]

I started writing a position paper with the title 'standards
landscape' earlier this year, but I gave up because it's an absolute
quagmire. That's not to say it's not needed, but it's a complicated
area that gets you down a never ending maze. Would love to collaborate
with some people on one though because I think people will appreciate
it.

The short version is that there is a lot out there, that can
complement each other - but egos, cultural differences, and poor
awareness hold us back.

We are never going to get privacy-respecting interoperability if we
don't try and build better awareness. The Internet is too big for one
solution and it's a mistake to push for only one.

We need to keep with the ethos of the Internet in being decentralized
but interoperable. So if anyones interested, I'd love to help that by
writing concise documents that help build awareness.

Sent from my iPhone

[Peter Ferne]

I've taken the liberty of putting this on the SWXG Wiki for our
reference
http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/socialweb/wiki/OneLiners
--
Peter Ferne, http://jivatechnology.com, http://twitter.com/petef

[Peter Ferne]

>> Do we have a one liner description for each of them?
>>

>> # Activity Streams
>> ...
>> # XFN

Great list. Will this be going up on the OWF website?

[Marc Canter]

Wonderful struct!

[Ben Laurie]

Nice.

Isn't an iCard also a vCard?

And what about XRD (and friends)?

[David Recordon]

The Open Web Foundation is not designed right now to promote specific
specification efforts.

--David

--
Sent from my mobile device

[Elias Bizannes]

The Open Web Foundation is not designed right now to promote specific
specification efforts.

 
But it has a duty to ensure the wheel doesn't get reinvented. If the OWF is going to incubate new specifications, it can't do it blindly and ignorant of what already exists. And if that's the case, then I think that needs to be discussed.

[Stephan Wenger]

This is not my understanding of the OWF’s mission.  Further, I believe it is outright dangerous to think that any group can assume competence or authority to “ensure the wheel doesn’t get reinvented”.  That doesn’t work well in organized big SDOs (with full-time staff and all); why should it work in this unruly grassroots environment?  
Stephan

[Marc Canter]

on this list

so which list would be more appropriate for this thread?

[Melvin Carvalho]

+1

CC: SWXG

[Christian Crumlish]

been meaning to ask folks more deeply involved with OpenID, oAuth, etc.:

Where does the LoginUX initiative fit in with these things (if at all)?
http://kantarainitiative.org/confluence/display/ulx/Charter

On Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 6:21 AM, Karl Dubost <ka...@la-grange.net> wrote:
> # Activity Streams
> # APML
> # Bandit

> # Data Independence And Survival Best Practices

> # DataPortability
> # DigitalMe
> # DISO
> # DOAP
> # FOAF
> # FOAF+SSL
> # HCARD
> # Higgings
> # Information Card
> # OpenID
> # OpenSocial
> # OAuth
> # Portable Contacts API
> # SAML

> # SIOC - Semantically-Interlinked Online Communities

> # Social Web incubator group

> # VCARD RDF
> # XFN

--
Christian Crumlish

Please buy my book, read it, love it, and review it on Amazon:
http://designingsocialinterfaces.com

It's called Designing Social Interfaces. Thank you!

[David Recordon]

I don't believe that major contributors to OpenID or OAuth are participating in Kantara's LoginUX initiative, but maybe I'm incorrect.

The OpenID community has been focused on the User Interface Extension this year which also helps OAuth when they are used together.  The spec is at http://svn.openid.net/repos/specifications/user_interface/1.0/trunk/openid-user-interface-extension-1_0.html and http://openid.net/2009/09/25/more-powerful-and-easier-to-use/ is a good post about its current state.

--David

[Eran Hammer-Lahav]

Actually it has a duty to butt out of any such decisions.

 

Wheels will and should get reinvented and it is the job of the people with existing efforts to show value and accommodate the needs of new communities. Communities have their own personalities and their own way of working. There are many good reasons to have different groups work on competing efforts. At the same time, communication is critical and sharing ideas and experiences will help both sides. But no one gets a monopoly over a space just because they started first. There are plenty of awful specs and stupid solutions out there.

 

We are also completely unequipped to make such decisions or even recommendations.

 

EHL

[Christian Crumlish]

On Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 11:26 AM, David Recordon <reco...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't believe that major contributors to OpenID or OAuth are participating
> in Kantara's LoginUX initiative, but maybe I'm incorrect.

Has there been any contact or attempt at coordination, or are the
efforts going off on cross-purposes, willfully?

-x-

[Lawrence Rosen]

Eran Hammer-Lahav suggested:

> Actually it has a duty to butt out of any such decisions.

 

How can OWF help individuals and companies to make their own decisions? Perhaps we have a duty to collect information about specifications available under our license(s) and publicize that on our website? Perhaps we have a duty to categorize them, and even to include public signed reviews of their adequacy?

 

I guess I'm not so ready as Eran is to give away a duty that the community might find useful, so long as it doesn't involve people like me laying down some law about quality or appearing to make a lot of technical or legal decisions on behalf of other people.

 

/Larry

[Stephan Wenger]

I think that it is fully in the OWF’s mandate and self-interest to document and even promote those pieces of work that are available under our license.  I do not believe that we should comment on work not available under our license.
Stephan

[Gabe Wachob]

I agree Larry, but i worry about focus. The OWF should feel free to
highlight uses of the FSA or other docs that are in alignment with the
OWF's goal.

I compare with the Apache Software Foundation:
Does the ASF highlight software licensed with the Apache 2.0 license
(outside ASF)? Not that I know of.

Does it promote use of the Apache 2.0 license and make it clear the
value of use of that license. Yes!

In this regards, I think the model of the ASF as a host and
promulgator of a license to be a great model.

-Gabe

--
Gabe Wachob / gwa...@wachob.com \ http://beatslacker.com

[Kaliya *]

I am working on a paper about the different standards in the space
I have counted 46 - groups/efforts/projects/standards (there are a few more below that aren't on my list)

along with a proposed way to support information sharing to increase collaboration, coherence and potentially in the long run convergence.

I am working on drafts and since they are doing this conference on Social Network Interoperability and it is a "paper" I figured why not submit it to them.

If you would like to be readers of an early draft with feedback please contact me off list (kal...@mac.com).

-Kaliya

On Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 11:21 AM, Christian Crumlish <xi...@pobox.com> wrote:

[Marc Canter]

Remember Kaliya

Its not just a matter of having an org, an effort or a dream, making open standards involves a long drawn out process of community involvement, market acceptance and alliance building.

It's one thing to collect and have in one place ALL the standards in place - it's another to get the BigCos and marketplace to accept and implement these standards.

:-)

[Kaliya *]

Yes Marc,
 I believe we have a quite interesting combo of standards and BigCo's actually implementing stuff.
 
 IIW has leaned strongly towards this bias of implementation and we are having our 9th event shortly. 

It is also overwhelming to have so many efforts and projects without a common way understand what the different efforts or ideas are ... and it would be great to have a model to help them be more connected that was not an "uber-org" or "controling" or run by one set of interests over another.

-Kaliya

[Lawrence Rosen]

Gabe Wachob wrote:
> I compare with the Apache Software Foundation:

I try to do that also, because ASF is a successful model to which we aspire.
But ASF is a flawed example also. They ("we", since I'm a member of ASF as
well as its counsel) are struggling to find new ways to focus on their
primary public benefit mission while driven in many other directions by the
business of software development. I'm glad to hear that, from the outside at
least, ASF is recognized as a successful model, hiding the growing pains we
occasionally feel on the inside.

> Does the ASF highlight software licensed with the Apache 2.0 license
> (outside ASF)? Not that I know of.

No, but they are always delighted to see it happen. However, a great deal of
time within ASF is spent on "highlighting", through press releases, public
relations, etc., all the software developed within ASF. I suppose if OWF
were developing specifications internally, we'd be more like ASF in that
regard. Instead, if we in OWF have anything to highlight it will be
specifications developed externally.

> Does it promote use of the Apache 2.0 license and make it clear the
> value of use of that license. Yes!

As will OSF demonstrate the value of our license(s), in part by publicizing
all the companies who have released specifications in our way because they
support what we're doing.

> In this regards, I think the model of the ASF as a host and
> promulgator of a license to be a great model.

I agree with you!

/Larry

> -----Original Message-----
> From: open-web...@googlegroups.com [mailto:open-web-
> dis...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Gabe Wachob
> Sent: Wednesday, October 21, 2009 2:31 PM
> To: open-web...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Re: Social networks landscape and technology
>
>