Activity Pingback

[Sandeep Shetty]

Would love to get feedback on Activity Pingback:
http://activitypingback.org/

It's a lightweight method for URI addressable resource owners to
request and receive unsolicited (JSON Activity Streams based)
notifications about remote (off-site) activities on their resources
with an explicit goal of being easy to implement to encourage the same
level of adoption as Trackback & Pingback.

This is part of a larger project I'm working on:
http://activityweb.org/

--
Sandeep Shetty
Founder, Simpthings
http://simpthings.com/
http://sandeep.shetty.in/p/about.html

[Melvin Carvalho]

On 30 September 2012 03:47, Sandeep Shetty <sandeep...@gmail.com> wrote:

Would love to get feedback on Activity Pingback:
http://activitypingback.org/

It's a lightweight method for URI addressable resource owners to
request and receive unsolicited (JSON Activity Streams based)
notifications about remote (off-site) activities on their resources
with an explicit goal of being easy to implement to encourage the same
level of adoption as Trackback & Pingback.

This is part of a larger project I'm working on:
http://activityweb.org/

Very nice!

We are using an enhanced version of pingback for the majority of our messaging right now in the read write web group.  Some documentation you may find interesting:

http://www.w3.org/community/rww/wiki/Pingback
 

--
Sandeep Shetty
Founder, Simpthings
http://simpthings.com/
http://sandeep.shetty.in/p/about.html

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[Melvin Carvalho]

On 30 September 2012 13:45, ☮ elf Pavlik ☮ <perpetua...@wwelves.org> wrote:

Excerpts from Melvin Carvalho's message of 2012-09-30 09:02:05 +0000:

> On 30 September 2012 03:47, Sandeep Shetty <sandeep...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > Would love to get feedback on Activity Pingback:
> > http://activitypingback.org/
> >
> > It's a lightweight method for URI addressable resource owners to
> > request and receive unsolicited (JSON Activity Streams based)
> > notifications about remote (off-site) activities on their resources
> > with an explicit goal of being easy to implement to encourage the same
> > level of adoption as Trackback & Pingback.
> >
> > This is part of a larger project I'm working on:
> > http://activityweb.org/
> >
>
> Very nice!
>
> We are using an enhanced version of pingback for the majority of our
> messaging right now in the read write web group.  Some documentation you
> may find interesting:
>
> http://www.w3.org/community/rww/wiki/Pingback

how this one relates to: http://aksw.org/projects/semanticpingback ?

AKSW pingback is the inspiration.  Embrace and extend :)

[Melvin Carvalho]

On 30 September 2012 14:01, ☮ elf Pavlik ☮ <perpetua...@wwelves.org> wrote:

Excerpts from Melvin Carvalho's message of 2012-09-30 11:50:22 +0000:

http://www.w3.org/community/rww/wiki/Pingback
http://aksw.org/projects/semanticpingback

currently don't link to each other...

Thanks, fixed!

BTW this is mainly the work of bergi, which was announced here: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rww/2012May/0017.html ... very happy to hear further feedback on this work

[Evan Prodromou]

Hey, Sandeep!

We've talked previously, but: I think this is important; I'm doing something similar with pump.io now, as you know.

Two big things:

1. I think decoupling the authentication mechanism from the endpoint is important; that's why I did dialback authentication.
2. I think overloading the "Pingback" name is a bad idea. Not only is the brand pretty weak, and using the same name for a very different protocol confusing, but also it implies that the protocol is only useful for replies -- which it's not.
   

Instead of the HMAC signature, how about just using Dialback? I could support that.

-Evan

[☮ elf Pavlik ☮]

Excerpts from Melvin Carvalho's message of 2012-09-30 09:02:05 +0000:

> On 30 September 2012 03:47, Sandeep Shetty <sandeep...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > Would love to get feedback on Activity Pingback:
> > http://activitypingback.org/
> >
> > It's a lightweight method for URI addressable resource owners to
> > request and receive unsolicited (JSON Activity Streams based)
> > notifications about remote (off-site) activities on their resources
> > with an explicit goal of being easy to implement to encourage the same
> > level of adoption as Trackback & Pingback.
> >
> > This is part of a larger project I'm working on:
> > http://activityweb.org/
> >
>
> Very nice!
>
> We are using an enhanced version of pingback for the majority of our
> messaging right now in the read write web group. Some documentation you
> may find interesting:
>
> http://www.w3.org/community/rww/wiki/Pingback

[☮ elf Pavlik ☮]

Excerpts from Sandeep Shetty's message of 2012-09-30 01:47:40 +0000:

>
> Would love to get feedback on Activity Pingback:
> http://activitypingback.org/
>
> It's a lightweight method for URI addressable resource owners to
> request and receive unsolicited (JSON Activity Streams based)
> notifications about remote (off-site) activities on their resources
> with an explicit goal of being easy to implement to encourage the same
> level of adoption as Trackback & Pingback.
>
> This is part of a larger project I'm working on:
> http://activityweb.org/
>

Hi Sandeep,

I find your work interestin!

Please consider joining Federated Social Web - Community Group at W3C
http://www.w3.org/community/fedsocweb/

Evan Prodromou have posted there lately about:
ActivityPump API - http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-fedsocweb/2012Sep/0044.html
Dialback authentication - http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-fedsocweb/2012Aug/0004.html

Thanks for sharing updates about your work!

[☮ elf Pavlik ☮]

Excerpts from Melvin Carvalho's message of 2012-09-30 11:50:22 +0000:

[Sandeep Shetty]

Hey Evan,

>    1. I think decoupling the authentication mechanism from the endpoint is

>    important; that's why I did dialback authentication.

Could you elaborate on this a little?

>    2. I think overloading the "Pingback" name is a bad idea. Not only is

>    the brand pretty weak, and using the same name for a very different
>    protocol confusing, but also it implies that the protocol is only useful
>    for replies -- which it's not.

I did consider this especially given the existing association with
SPAM (a common wordpress recommendation is to disable pingback/
trackback) but I'm hoping that the Activity prefix hopefully makes it
distinct. I wanted a name that makes it feel familiar to the existing
base of pingback implementors, while also communicating that it's the
next natural evolution of Pingback to the social web. I'm open to any
suggestions for a better name.

> Instead of the HMAC signature, how about just using Dialback? I could
> support that.

I did consider this and was going to make two requests:
* "URI" element in addition to "host" and "webfinger".
* Additional requirements on token to discourage implementors from
sending the same token everytime.

The reason I didn't send out those requests and went with the HMAC sig
is to keep the spec as simple as possible (which is the most important
goal of the project). It might be cool to have these in Dialback
though.

--
Sandeep Shetty

[Sandeep Shetty]

> We are using an enhanced version of pingback for the majority of our
> messaging right now in the read write web group.  Some documentation you
> may find interesting:
>
> http://www.w3.org/community/rww/wiki/Pingback

I've looked at this and semantic Pingback while searching for
something to satisfy the needs of Activity Web (http://
activityweb.org). Here are some of the things that I think Activity
Pingback does differently compared to the other approaches (including
Trackback, Pingback, Salmon):
* Small surface area with a minimal number of concepts/options for the
benefit of implementors.
* Agnostic to representation/content-type, which is why it uses a
custom HTTP Header (which is also a trade-off with using the Link
header to make it as easy as possible to implement). This allows it
to send Activity Pingbacks for anything that is URI addressable and is
interested is receiving them.
* The Activity Stream payload allows it to communicate any type of
activity and is not limited to linking, commenting, etc.

This is a very early draft and I have a long way to go and I'm pretty
sure there are things that need improvement.

--
Sandeep Shetty

[☮ elf Pavlik ☮]

Excerpts from Melvin Carvalho's message of 2012-09-30 12:14:52 +0000:

thx! :)

i wish now your page on w3 wiki could pingback referenced resource at aksw.org ;D

>
> BTW this is mainly the work of bergi, which was announced here:
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rww/2012May/0017.html ... very
> happy to hear further feedback on this work

thx for pointer!