Notes from ASms meet-up in San Jose today

Rob Dolin

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Jul 24, 2009, 9:38:06 PM7/24/09

to activity...@googlegroups.com, Monica Keller, Martin Atkins, Ryan...@google.com, Chris Messina, da...@sixapart.com

Hey all,

Below are my relatively rough notes from this afternoon’s Activity Streams meet-up. If folks can add more color or correct anything I may have missed, please don’t hesitate to reply. Thanks much—

--Rob

Attendees: Chris Messina, Martin Atkins, David Recordon, Monica Keller, Rob Dolin, Greg Biggers, Silona Bonewald, Kevin Marks, Chris Schock, Ryan Boyd

Primary discussion was around creating an “Implementer’s Draft” (ID) or “ship branch” of the spec while continuing to evolve a “Latest Working Draft” (LWD) or “working branch.” Notes below with “ID” indicate a general desire of the meetup participants to encourage inclusion of this in the “Implementer’s Draft”

Implementer’s Draft

· Verbs

o Post à ID

o Share (public post) à ID

o Save (local post) à ID

o Favorite (star) à ID

o View à LWD? (covered by play)

o Start follow à ID

o Stop follow à LWD?

o Confirm connection à ID

o Join à ID

o Leave à LWD?

o Invite à ID

o Tag à ID (people (object-type) in a content (subject); may need some clarification in spec)

o Like à LWD?

o Paid for / bought à LWD

o Donate à LWD

o Play à ID (Covers earlier View verb; spent chunk of time enjoying the object, could have duration)

· Object-types

o 3.2.1. Article à ID

o 3.2.2. Weblog Entry à ID

o 3.2.3. Note à ID

o 3.2.4. File à ID*

o 3.2.5. Image à ID* (Discussion of if one of Image or photo should be deprecated)

o 3.2.6. Photo à ID*

o 3.2.7. Photo Album à ID

o 3.2.8. Playlist à ID

o 3.2.9. Video à ID

o 3.2.10. TV Episode à LWD (use video)

o 3.2.11. Movie à LWD (use video)

o 3.2.12. Audio à ID

o 3.2.13. Bookmark à ID Change to “Link”? (Martin to check with Jerry Cain, but general preference for Link)

o 3.2.14. Person à ID

o 3.2.15. Group à ID

o 3.2.16. Place à ID*

o 3.2.17. Comment à ID (generally is text that is in-reply-to an object)

o Book à ID; Need to post example to the list (Author, Title)

o Games (objects & verbs) à LWD

*Indicates a desire to continue discussion around

4. Event Schema
    4.1. Event Verbs
        4.1.1. Positive RSVP à ID
        4.1.2. Possible RSVP à ID
        4.1.3. Negative RSVP à ID
    4.2. Event Object Types
        4.2.1. Event à ID
5. Products and Services Schema
    5.1. Product and Service Object Types
        5.1.1. Review à ID (can be in-reply-to)
6. Music Schema
    6.1. Music Object Types
        6.1.1. Music Album à LWD
        6.1.2. Song à ID

Music Artist à LWD?
7. Podcasting Schema
    7.1. Podcasting Object Types
        7.1.1. Audio Podcast (we tailed-off and did not cover this, but Martin is sitting next to me as I type these and he is suggesting LWD)
        7.1.2. Video Podcast (we tailed-off and did not cover this, but Martin is sitting next to me as I type these and he is suggesting LWD)

What do we call the “ship branch” of the spec:

· Activity Streams 1.0 Implementer’s Draft

· Main website (http://activitystrea.ms) should HOST implementer’s draft

· Main website (http://activitystrea.ms) should link to latest “bleeding-edge” working draft

Suggested homework (any volunteers?)

· What are the top activities posted by the Top Apps on MySpace, OpenSocial, Facebook, etc.?

· Implementer’s guide

· Implementer’s draft ready for final review and rough publishing at next face-to-face meeting

Next: ideally continue work on the mailing list (and wiki); and possible face-to-face in ~3-4 weeks (~Friday, Aug. 14 or Friday, Aug. 21)

Future tentative agenda items; probably for LWD and not ID:

· JSON representation

· Other teams/people to involve? FriendFeed, NY Times

· Microformats coordination

· OpenSocial coordination

· Publishing (push) (vs. pull)

· Profile photo

· Update profile vs. post profile-update

· Games

Monica Keller

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Jul 24, 2009, 11:04:54 PM7/24/09

to Activity Streams

Thanks Rob.

Hi Martin and I are going through the schema spec and noticed that at
the last IIW meetup we decided to consolidate "make-contact" and
"confirm-connection" into "make-friend" however this was not properly
recorded on the spec does anyone have an issue if we address this for
our first implementors draft ?

On Jul 24, 6:38 pm, Rob Dolin <robdo...@microsoft.com> wrote:
> Hey all
> Below are my relatively rough notes from this afternoon's Activity Streams meet-up. If folks can add more color or correct anything I may have missed, please don't hesitate to reply. Thanks much-

> --Rob
>
> Attendees: Chris Messina, Martin Atkins, David Recordon, Monica Keller, Rob Dolin, Greg Biggers, Silona Bonewald, Kevin Marks, Chris Schock, Ryan Boyd
>
> Primary discussion was around creating an "Implementer's Draft" (ID) or "ship branch" of the spec while continuing to evolve a "Latest Working Draft" (LWD) or "working branch." Notes below with "ID" indicate a general desire of the meetup participants to encourage inclusion of this in the "Implementer's Draft"
>
> Implementer's Draft
>
> · Verbs
>

> o Post --> ID
>
> o Share (public post) --> ID
>
> o Save (local post) --> ID
>
> o Favorite (star) --> ID
>
> o View --> LWD? (covered by play)
>
> o Start follow --> ID
>
> o Stop follow --> LWD?
>
> o Confirm connection --> ID
>
> o Join --> ID
>
> o Leave --> LWD?
>
> o Invite --> ID
>
> o Tag --> ID (people (object-type) in a content (subject); may need some clarification in spec)
>
> o Like --> LWD?
>
> o Paid for / bought --> LWD
>
> o Donate --> LWD
>
> o Play --> ID (Covers earlier View verb; spent chunk of time enjoying the object, could have duration)
>
> · Object-types
>
> o 3.2.1. Article --> ID
>
> o 3.2.2. Weblog Entry --> ID
>
> o 3.2.3. Note --> ID
>
> o 3.2.4. File --> ID*
>
> o 3.2.5. Image --> ID* (Discussion of if one of Image or photo should be deprecated)
>
> o 3.2.6. Photo --> ID*
>
> o 3.2.7. Photo Album --> ID
>
> o 3.2.8. Playlist --> ID
>
> o 3.2.9. Video --> ID
>
> o 3.2.10. TV Episode --> LWD (use video)
>
> o 3.2.11. Movie --> LWD (use video)
>
> o 3.2.12. Audio --> ID
>
> o 3.2.13. Bookmark --> ID Change to "Link"? (Martin to check with Jerry Cain, but general preference for Link)
>
> o 3.2.14. Person --> ID
>
> o 3.2.15. Group --> ID
>
> o 3.2.16. Place --> ID*
>
> o 3.2.17. Comment --> ID (generally is text that is in-reply-to an object)
>
> o Book --> ID; Need to post example to the list (Author, Title)
>
> o Games (objects & verbs) --> LWD

> *Indicates a desire to continue discussion around
>

Darren Bounds

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Jul 25, 2009, 7:01:59 AM7/25/09

to activity...@googlegroups.com

I'm curious why you decided to go with 'make-friend'. I would expect
that we've been very purposeful in not using the term 'friend' as it's
someone specific interpretation of the connection context. There are
many types of relationships/contacts, a 'friend' is just one.

Darren

--
darren bounds
dar...@cliqset.com

Darren Bounds

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Jul 25, 2009, 9:32:28 AM7/25/09

to activity...@googlegroups.com

Sorry, that should read 'somewhat specific' not 'someone specific'.

--
darren bounds
dar...@cliqset.com

Darren Bounds

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Jul 25, 2009, 9:58:25 AM7/25/09

to activity...@googlegroups.com, Monica Keller, Martin Atkins, Ryan...@google.com, Chris Messina, da...@sixapart.com

Thanks for the info, Rob.

I have a few questions for those who attended based on Robs' notes.

- Has 'Play" officially replaced 'View'? If so, wouldn't something
more generic preferred? e.g. 'Consumed' or possibly 'Read'. Both are
more generic than 'Play'.
- What are the differences between 'Favorite' and 'Like'?
- Song is listed as ID. Will we be including a way to describe the
artist and album as part of the ID? I see Book includes similar
information.
- Event is listed as ID. Will xCal artifacts be included as part of the ID?
- Review is listed as ID. Will we be defining a system for
articulating a rating?

Thanks,
Darren

--
darren bounds
dar...@cliqset.com

Monica Keller

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Jul 25, 2009, 11:12:17 AM7/25/09

to Activity Streams

We narrowed to "make-friend" to be very clear of when the activity
should be raised. Before you had to use 2 verbs even. This is
something simple that can be adopted by many today and it is also a
significant action.

Make a friend is still pretty generic, see all the types of friends
here
http://gmpg.org/xfn/intro

For one way relationships ala Twitter use "follow"

Also note this does not prohibit us from having a more generic
implementation for the next version we just need someone wanting to
implement it :)

> dar...@cliqset.com- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

Monica Keller

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Jul 25, 2009, 11:45:52 AM7/25/09

to Activity Streams

-We liked Play over View because View was like a base verb for Listen
which didn't make as much sense. The main use cases for Play are:
Song, Video and Game the latter which we will discuss in the next
draft. Play is more interactive than Consumed. Once again we are
focusing on activities which are likely to appear on a stream. Less
intentional actions are less likely to appear. Of course we may want
to add Read as a verb, reading a book is pretty significant :)

-To make something a favorite means that you are adding it to a list
of your favorite things. Favorite Books, Favorite Movies, Favorite
Friends, etc Its pretty popular concept in social networks at least.
To Like is to give a thumbs up to an item but not necessarily store it
anywhere. You see activities on the stream/wall and you like them/digg
them/thumbs up them/give them kudos but they dont go anywhere. The
assumption is you like many things, fewer things are your favorite.

-As far as having an author for a song we already have a way to do
this with the author atom element. If we have an activity where
someone likes a book, then the book object should have an author which
is the author of the book. It should also have an atom title which is
the title of the book. Rob can you please send us your book atom
example. I don't think we need to add anything new. For album name if
we have something like PearlJam added song X to album Y then we can
use the activity target object to represent the album. Altho we just
moved it to the next version.

-Event needs to have the xCal artifact otherwise its not useful. The
cutoff for ID is Aug 14th (3 weeks from yesterday)
I will add it to the spec working with Martin. The main disagreement
we had was whether it should include the vevent element or not.I
believe it is useful otherwise as we find other schemas we will
continue to absorb properties they have defined into the activity
schema rather than reuse.
This is myspace's implementation:
http://developerwiki.myspace.com/index.php?title=ActivityStream_Events#Band_Shows
I know we have apps on myspace relying on this so hopefully it does
not have to change.

-Same thing for Review we do need a way to convey the rating planning
to use the one from http://microformats.org/wiki/hreview with a scale
and ill work with Martin on getting this into the spec well before the
deadline.

Thanks for pointing all this out Darren

Darren Bounds

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Jul 25, 2009, 1:04:36 PM7/25/09

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Thanks Monica. That was helpful.

Darren

--

Thank you,
Darren Bounds

Max Wegmueller

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Aug 10, 2009, 7:38:19 AM8/10/09

to Activity Streams

Hi,

I'm curious about how 'negative' actives should be described, like
for: stop sharing a document for a group, remove a tag from a photo,
delete a file.
In the notes above are for some such 'negative' activities verbs
defined for the LWD version: Leave and Stop Follow

Should there be a verb for each activity, which can be undone?
Or is there an other way to express such activities, like using the
verb Delete and a reference to an object or an other action?

The 'Remove' or 'Delete' activities are important for systems, which
do capture or mirror somehow content recognized through the feed. For
example a search engine or a activity based equity system,
http://kenai.com/projects/community-equity (I'm working for).

Regards,
Max

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