Diaspora as a backend option

[Mike Sofaer]

Hi,

I want to suggest that we think about Diaspora as a backend option.
It's an already-existing federated social network, meaning you can
host your own server and keep your own data on it, or use a community
server and export your data if you need it.

It's already got tags and following tags. It already has some RSS
functionality. It's got the concept of resharing, and commenting on
posts.

It's a workable thing to unify on, with an existing userbase that
likes free software and knowing you won't lose your data, and it would
be a way to fragment as little as possible.

It's also got a sweet image-sharing plugin (http://cubbi.es) that
demonstrates how you could share into your stream.

I'd be up for helping on the API integration, I think it would be
pretty easy, and an epic win for freedom.

-Michael

[Emmanuel Pire]

It sure looks very interesting.
Do they use RSS for feeds ?
This is a must-have to me. standard.

--
Emmanuel Pire
Web development
http://lipsumarium.com/

[Alex Chaffee]

I'm up to my eyeballs in OAuth and Reader APIs right now, but when we get a minute I'd love to get together with you and talk through the Diaspora API and how it could integrate with our vision.

By the way, did you know we have a vision now? Emmanuel wrote it. http://sharebro.org/vision

My vision mostly converges with his, though I also want synced comments and a few other features. And a common lexicon like "Shares" and "Sharers" (not "Shared Items" or "Link Blogs" or "People You Follow").

 - A

[Emmanuel Pire]

Comments are in the vision page, aren't they ? if not they should !

Totally agree on the new lexicon too.

[Lucas Wiman]

You all may have already seen this, but these were by far the best resources I've been able to find on the unofficial Google Reader API when I was looking at it this weekend:

http://blog.martindoms.com/2009/08/15/using-the-google-reader-api-part-1/

http://blog.martindoms.com/2009/10/16/using-the-google-reader-api-part-2/

http://blog.martindoms.com/2010/01/20/using-the-google-reader-api-part-3/

Best,

Lucas

[Juan Luis Chulilla]

Indeed. The distributed architecture of diaspora is the ideal for the post-google era of sharebros. It would be nice of we never, ever suffer another pearlharbouresque blow to our daily lives.

My problem is conceptual: I don't need any OSS replacement for Facebook, plus or any other so-called social network or personal time blackhole. I was in reader for the sharing and discussion of thoughtful, interesting contents. There, I don't care about most of diaspora functionalities and services.

As I said before, I quickly raised a temporary solution for my community using posterous, but this is not the proper tool for our needings. We don't need a literal replacement of Google reader in its former glory, but we do need its core functionalities, as simple and clean as possible. I'm afraid of any solution which is not intended and focused on social curation of contents, and featuritis is also a good recipe for failure and alienation of users

[Emmanuel Pire]

I totally agree with your thoughts Juan.
Searching for a temporary replacement, why not try lipsumarium's plugin ?

It is currently the only plugin to actually work AND that is dedicated on the new vision of sharebro.org
My idea when i made it is that sharers can still use an emergency boat AND get notified when a a truly open and standard way to share and comment arises. Will also provide a 1 click way to switch to the new sharebro service, without loosing anything.

I'm very commited to it. Technically and conceptually.

Still you might have concerns, and I can understand that.