I like the article and your extension of the stream methaphor. It aligns nicely with work we are doing in this area at the Centre for Next Generation Localisation (CNGL) in Ireland. I have a question though: People are obviously happy (or not ticked off enough to move) with the social contracts they have with the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, etc. They are willing to let providers silo their data in exchange for easy to use and access applications (the daily new account rates of these providers attest to this). So my question is, can we actually make the technology you describe transparent, user friendly and free enough so that it will be attractive to the masses (without the need to install or manage stream servers or pay for third party provisions)?

Regards,
Declan.

I emailed the diaspora guys with a few suggestions based on my vision above. In brief, the disapora project needs to embrace Semantic Web technologies, with a particular focus on FOAF+SSL backed WebIDs. I do hope to have some sort of a dialog with them about this in the near future.

I am aware of Project VRM. I a firm believer in pushing the boundaries of the current thinking about the Internet’s–and the Web’s—potential and probable future.

In order for some semblance of my vision to come to fruition, I believe that there needs to be a shift in the formulaic Web-2.0 meme. What it means to create Social Web platforms will have to be remapped to actually encompass the Web, and not myopically remain focused on the internal networks of each social networking startup.

In my view, there is a distinct difference between creating social network platforms and Social Web platforms. The first does not preclude closed data silos. The second does not allow closed data islands.

It’s time to return to the original concept of the Web-based Internet—an interconnected, decentralized and distributed, open and independent cacophony of individuals who control their own Webspace, operate their own communication channel, and freely communicate with others without having to worry about a central point of failure.

Reading it, it’s natural to me thinkin on Project VRM.
Have you ever seen some Project VRM stuff? ( it’s the natural evolution of the Cluetrain Manifesto ) – Project VRM

There is a natural combination with the tools based on semweb technologies, and particularly talking about SMOB, and the implementation of the VRM vision.
It’s time to make something more explicit, probably.
And to make more connections between scenarios of usage of semweb stuff in the VRM Market vision.

-> VRM with FOAF + OpenID
-> VRM sketchnotes

Thanks for the comment and in expanding the concept to the mobile platform!

However, Stauts.net might be a good example of what I call a Community Stream Server in my article above. If users could also create their own solo instances of Status.net on their website–an instance that would only serve their posts and would not allow for other user signups–then that might be the start of the system I detail above. Of course, the Semantic Web stack is another, very important piece that needs to be added.

I have my account on Kvitre.no, but can still follow all norwegians who reside on identi.ca, and they can follow me back.

Thanks for the information and article link. Your article is very interesting! As I mentioned above, I think one of the key pieces of technology that could help bring this vision to fruition is the use of a graph DB for part of the system. This is obviously a place where Neo4j could be leveraged to provide a much-need, user-centric solution.

the http://www.linkedprocess.org project is using XMPP and total decentralization of the data sources to cope with this kind of infrastructure. Some of these thoughts remind me of the scenarios where inidviduals or systems own their data and then provide a processing and access format infrastructure for others, have blogged a bit more on that under http://www.internetdagarna.se/track/media/social-computing-or-let-the-bots-talk

Cheers,

/peter

That’s an interesting idea to create a graphic showing Drops being filtered based on Channels. I’ll see what I can do!

I’ve responded in more detail to both you and Alex below.

Thanks for your comments. I appreciate your input and additional insights.

I can’t believe I failed to see the sioc:follows property in the SIOC specifications. The sioct:Microblog and sioct:MicroblogPost classes are great additions to the Types module.

I do still wonder whether the FOAF specs need to be extended. The foaf:knows property is not sufficient in capturing the nuanced relationships in microblogging networks. Although, using foaf:Person with sioc:follows I guess does properly classify the relationship. I will amend the section above to include this thought.

Regarding the Anatomy of a Drop section, it is a first attempt at creating a sufficiently viable Drop architecture. Although the concept of decentralized semantic microblogging is rather simple, there are numerous details that need to be worked out. One of those is how each Drop (micropost) should be encoded.

I would love to develop this idea into a more concrete, workable platform. If the Social Semantic Web is to be fully realized, I believe something along these lines is vitally needed. I believe your SMOB platform is a fantastic start.

I completely agree with one of your initial comment, re. “But what if a user who was interested in what you had to say could simply subscribe to your microblog, in essence subscribe to you?” and this is actually the reason of the new SMOB architecture, based on decentralised hubs that anyone can install to publish updated and that can be subscribed to. While SMOB can be used as a Twitter client, directly subscribing between hubs creates this new network of distributed hubs, that interact together independently of major microblogging services.

Then, the ocean feature can be provided with services such as Sindice that aggregate all distributed SMOB contributions so that you can built new services on it.

Regarding the models, there’s actually a sioc:follows property in SIOC, that is used for the purpose you describe. We’re also using it in SMOB, so that such links are created each time you follow someone and each time someone is following you – once again these links appear in both hubs so that you control everything in your own microblog client. You may also check some classes of the SIOC Types module, where we introduced sioct:Microblog and sioct:MicroblogPost to represent these messages, and implemented in that way in SMOB.

Talk soon

I like the move from a model that subscribes to users to one that allows you to subscribe to topics from the people you follow. It’d be cool to see the extension of the pictures you have that show those drops being filtered based on the channels identified in the Stream Management Layer.

A short note: sioc has a follows property that links User(Accounts) to other User(Accounts); we also have the MicroblogPost and Microblog classes but they by no means fulfill all the requirements in your Anatomy of a Drop section – normally, we’ve modelled based on existing systems, but I think this could require a new semantic model on which a new decentralised microblogging platform could be built.

Great article – it deserves more coverage!

John.

Thanks for your comment.

The point is that the Web–as a manifestation of human activity, thought, and interaction–does not need a few big players deciding how issues such as data ownership, privacy, identity, and communication should be offered up and controlled. The Web should provide a means, a mechanism, whereby individuals can decide what they want and need, and how best to accomplish that. One way to offer that is by the concept I outline in this article.

As I state in my article, Privacy in the Facebook Era:

There are compelling reasons why opening up personal data to the world is desirable. But it should not be up to governments or corporations to make that choice on behalf of their citizens and users. In a free society, it should be the citizens who drive the push toward more open data, not a few elite power players who force the issue.