Transcript Slide 1

Implementing
Open Social Web
support on your site
Joseph Smarr
Chief Platform Architect, Plaxo
Future of Web Apps Workshop, Miami, 2/28/2008
Joseph Smarr
Agenda
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1. The emerging Social Web
2. Building blocks for an Open Social Web
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URLs as identifiers
OpenID
OAuth
Microformats
FOAF
MicroID
Social Graph API
OpenSocial
RSS / Atom
Friends-list portability
3. Control and privacy issues
4. A clear vision for the (near) future
5. Q & A / Discussion
Joseph Smarr
1. The emerging Social Web
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“Who you know” is becoming important for a
large and rapidly growing number of apps…
…but finding who you know on a new site is still
too hard
Current social networks are a glimmer of things
to come when the web itself becomes social…
…and the building blocks for an open social web
are already emerging and converging
Joseph Smarr
2. Building blocks for an open social web
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URLs as identifiers
OpenID
OAuth
Microformats
FOAF
MicroID
Social Graph API
OpenSocial
RSS / Atom
Friends-list portability
Joseph Smarr
What
it does
Why
you should use it
How
it works
Who
is using it
Where to learn more
URLs as identifiers
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What
 Provides
additional (safer) ways to identify
yourself and find people you know from other
sites
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Why
 Consolidate
your identity (blogs, social
network profiles, etc.)
 Make it easier to find people you know
 Avoid spam (URL has no inherent
capabilities)
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URLs as identifiers
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How
 Maintain
lookup via profile / blog URL in addition to
mailto:email or aim:screenname (xmpp:, skype:, …)
 Let users maintain as many identifiers as they want
 Verify identifiers using OpenID, rel=me (more later)
 Can use hashed identifiers for lookup (and MicroID)
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Who
 Plaxo,
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Pownce, Digg, …
Where
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http://epeus.blogspot.com/2008/01/urls-are-people-too.html
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URLs as identifiers
Plaxo:
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Some of my identifiers
 mailto:[email protected]
 http://josephsmarr.com
 http://twitter.com/jsmarr
 aim:josephsmarr
 =josephsmarr
Joseph Smarr
Pownce:
OpenID
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What
 Protocol
for proving you own a URL
 Providers and consumers (“relying party”)
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Why
 Lower
friction to sign up / sign in (no
password, simple reg)
 Enable trusted cross-site mashups
 Conduit for data transfer (attribute exchange)
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OpenID
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How
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Who
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Consumer and provider exchange shared secret
Consumer redirects to provider to log in
Provider logs user in and asks if they trust RP
Provider redirects to consumer with assertion
Consumer keeps mapping of OpenID(s)  user id
Providers: Yahoo, AOL, Blogger, LiveJournal, MyOpenID, …
Consumers: Plaxo, Ma.gnolia, Blogger, O’reilly, …
Libraries available in most popular languages
Where
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OpenID.net
Internet Identity Workshop
http://www.plaxo.com/api/openid_recipe
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OAuth
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What
 Standard
protocol for browser-based authorization to
grant access to protected resources via token
 Evolution of auth from flickr, yahoo, Google, etc.
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Why
 Let
users access and share private info without taking
passwords, scraping, or writing custom auth code
 Quickly gaining momentum as the de facto standard
Joseph Smarr
OAuth
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How
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Who
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Consumer and provider exchange app key and secret
Consumer redirects to provider to ask for authorization
Provider logs user in and asks to grant permission
Provider redirects to consumer with token
Consumer exchanges token for permanent token
Consumer passes token to API calls (or via auth header)
Plays well with OpenID (draft AX extension)
Support planned by Google, Yahoo, AOL, Plaxo, Twitter, others
Some library support, still under rapid development
Where
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OAuth.net / oauth google-group
Internet Identity Workshop
Joseph Smarr
Microformats
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What
 Light-weight
semantic markup that can be embedded
directly in HTML to make info machine-readable
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hCard: contact info
hResume: job history, etc.
XFN: links to friends, me-links
Why
 Share
and consume data from profile pages without
needing a separate API
 Very low overhead to produce
 Assert linkages between online identities
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joseph.myplaxo.com: to humans
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joseph.myplaxo.com: view source
<div>
…
<h1>Joseph Smarr</h1>
<img
src="http://images.plaxo.com/fetch_image?p
ath=4294967299_0_418762113" />
…
</div>
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joseph.myplaxo.com: view source
<div class="vcard">
…
<h1 class="fn">Joseph Smarr</h1>
<img class="photo"
src="http://images.plaxo.com/fetch_image?p
ath=4294967299_0_418762113" />
…
</div>
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joseph.myplaxo.com: to computers
BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:3.0
PRODID:-//kaply.com//Operator 0.8//EN
SOURCE:http://joseph.myplaxo.com/
UID:plaxo-4294967299-0
NAME:Joseph Smarr's Public Profile - Powered by Plaxo
N;CHARSET=UTF-8:Smarr;Joseph;;;
ORG;CHARSET=UTF-8:Plaxo, Inc.
FN;CHARSET=UTF-8:Joseph Smarr
TITLE;CHARSET=UTF-8:Joseph posted a blog entry
BDAY:0000-02-14
PHOTO;VALUE=uri:http://images.plaxo.com/fetch_image?path=4294967299_0_418762113
URL:http://joseph.myplaxo.com
URL:aim:goim?screenname=josephsmarr
URL:skype:jsmarr?call
URL:http://joseph.myplaxo.com/
EMAIL:[email protected]
EMAIL:[email protected]
ADR;CHARSET=UTF-8;TYPE=work:;;;;;;
TEL;TYPE=work:650-254-5406
TEL;TYPE=cell:858-442-2353
TEL;TYPE=fax:650-254-1435
NOTE;CHARSET=UTF-8:As part of my ongoing work to help open up the social web,
we've just released a full implementation of the new OpenSocial APIs in Plaxo
Pulse! Exciting times are ahead!
END:VCARD
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Microformats
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How
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Who
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Standard CSS class names for common pieces of data
Embedded in DOM structure of web page (only maintain one
copy, rich copy/paste, etc.)
Parse with tidy/xpath (soon: use Social Graph API)
Plug-ins available to view / use microformats (operator, tails)
Can “subscribe” to URL  check for updates, pull them down
Lots of side produce them
Some sites consume: dopplr, satisfaction, plaxo, …
Open-source parsers, technorati proxy parser
Planned support in Firefox 3
Where
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Microformats.org
Joseph Smarr
FOAF (“Friend-of-a-Friend”)
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What
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Why
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Look for FOAF files and parse them
Can produce FOAF files for users and link to them from profiles
Who
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Easy way to make social graph data portable
Single file format for who I am and who I know
Data can be distributed across the web and joined together
How
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RDF spec for representing profile and friends-list info
LiveJournal, Hi5, Plaxo, PeopleAggregator, …
Where
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foaf-project.org
Joseph Smarr
MicroID
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What
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Why
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Hash of two identifiers to verify linkage / ownership
Validate that a user owns a given profile page, or that two identifiers
represent the same person
Broadcast validated linkages without leaking raw information
How
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uri+uri:algo:hash, e.g. mailto+http:sha1:sha1(
sha1(“mailto:[email protected]”) +
sha1(“http://joseph.myplaxo.com”)) =
mailto+http:sha1:a70039016279cc5a7839e47fa
d2f8d597080a3a4
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Who
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Verify by computing hash and comparing
Publish in head of pages: <meta name=“microid” content=“…” />
ClaimID, Last.fm, Ma.gnolia, Wikitravel, Plaxo, …
Where
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MicroID.org
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Social Graph API
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What
 API to access public social data (XFN, FOAF, …)
 Open-source library for canonicalizing profile URLs
Why
 Quickly lookup public info for users 
build meta-profiles, find out what sites they use
How
 Google already crawls the web 
parse it and make data available via JSON API
 Can add fme=1 to get transitive closure of me-links
 Can get back-links (who links to me?)
 Only uses data in public web crawl
Who
 Google (Brad Fitzpatrick), Plaxo, …
 Intended to be copied by others
Where
 http://code.google.com/apis/socialgraph/
 http://bradfitz.com/social-graph-problem/
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Me on the web
http://josephsmarr.com
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Social Graph API
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What
 API to access public social data (XFN, FOAF, …)
 Open-source library for canonicalizing profile URLs
Why
 Quickly lookup public info for users 
build meta-profiles, find out what sites they use
How
 Google already crawls the web 
parse it and make data available via JSON API
 Can add fme=1 to get transitive closure of me-links
 Can get back-links (who links to me?)
 Only uses data in public web crawl
Who
 Google (Brad Fitzpatrick), Plaxo, …
 Intended to be copied by others
Where
 http://code.google.com/apis/socialgraph/
 http://bradfitz.com/social-graph-problem/
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OpenSocial
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What
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API spec for building “social gadgets” that live inside social
networks and have access to profile, friends, and activity stream
Open-source “shindig” project for turning any site into an
OpenSocial “container”
Will be supported by most major social networking sites
Why
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Write-once, run everywhere  more distribution, less code
Containers: network effects of developers across all OpenSocial
sites  don’t need to build a custom API and woo developers
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OpenSocial
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OpenSocial
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How
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Who
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JavaScript + HTML, lives in iframe,
callback-style for accessing social data
Gadgets can live in profile box or full canvas page
Generating activity goes into sites’ activity stream
Support for custom extensions to data, surfaces
Planned support for server-to-server REST APIs
MySpace, Orkut, Hi5, Bebo, LinkedIn, Plaxo, Ning, SixApart, …
Developers: Slide, RockYou, Flixster, iLike, Shelfari, …
Spec is at 0.7 now; still work in progress
Planned rollout in Q1/Q2 for many sites
Where
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http://code.google.com/apis/opensocial
OpenSocial hackathons
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RSS / Atom
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What
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Why
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Publish: list most recent activities with title, description, etc.
Subscribe: periodically poll for updates; check for new items
RSS feeds can be private (obscure URL, OAuth, …)
Who
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Publish activity from your site so it shows up elsewhere  drives
awareness and attention back to you
Subscribe to user activity from other sites  richer profiles
How
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Standard formats for syndicating user activity
(not just for blogs!)
Tons of publishers, feed readers, Pulse, SixApart Action Stream
Where
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Google for RSS or Atom
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Friends-list portability
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What
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Recipe for finding who you know on a new site based on your
existing relationships
User-centric, distributed approach to building and consuming social
applications (“facebook-like platform for the web”)
Why
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Lower friction to finding friends, drive engagement and retention
Social networks become a platform where relationships are
leveraged instead of a dead-end; syndicate social app activity back
Joseph Smarr
Friends-list portability
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How
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Who
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Let users maintain list of discoverable identifiers
Provide users with API access to their current friends list
(can be protected, e.g. by OAuth)
Provide lookup API to find local members by identifiers
Users can pull in existing identifiers from one site and look up
who they know on your site with the discovery API
Can be run persistently in the background  notified when new
people join the site or you meet new people who use it
Most sites support pieces of this  need to move to open
standards (possible but hacky today)
Plaxo planning to release technology to make this easier
Where
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http://blog.plaxo.com/archives/2007/12/a_practical_vis.html
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3. Control and privacy issues
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Private vs. public info
 Portable
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!= public
Who owns your data?
 Address
book vs. social network?
 Social contracts vs. technical restrictions
Discoverability (how findable am I?)
 Maintaining multiple personas
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4. A clear vision for the (near) future
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A user-centric Social Web with durable, portable identity
Social apps are easier to build and sccle because
technology and user data are both readily available
Social apps can remain on independent web sites and/or
as embedded gadgets in social networks
Users can control which sites have access to their data
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Don’t need to start from scratch each time
Relationships become richer and more durable
Users will start to delegate responsibility for maintaining
aspects of their social graph (business, family, etc.)
Users will maintain multiple personas (professional,
personal) that stitch together info from multiple sites
Activity from social apps will be syndicated across other
sites and drive attention and discovery back
Joseph Smarr
4. A clear vision for the (near) future
 We’ve
seen this movie before…
 The pie is about to get a lot bigger
 room for everyone to win
Joseph Smarr
5. Q & A / Discussion
Joseph Smarr