Re: Facebok a leader of _federated_ social networking?

Quoting Melvin Carvalho (2013-07-01 19:35:10)
> On 1 July 2013 18:25, Jonas Smedegaard <dr@jones.dk> wrote:
>> Quoting Melvin Carvalho (2013-07-01 17:52:11)
>>> Regarding standarization, I think it's difficult to argue that 
>>> facebook is not the leader in terms of both adoption and 
>>> engineering. Without facebook at the table, I think standarization 
>>> would be a slightly different prospect.
>>
>> Sorry if I am missing something obvious, but how do you see Facebook 
>> as being leader in the context of *federated* social networking?
>>
>
> Facebook is the network everybody loves to hate.

For the record I do not hate Facebook.


> However, within the context of this conversation please note Harry's 
> link on 'social standards' (note: federated, although the theme of 
> this list, is not a pre requisite there).  I dont speak for facebook, 
> but my comment was that it would be difficult to argue facebook is not 
> the leader in this space, both in terms of adoption and in terms of 
> engineering.

If by "this space" you mean the broader "social networking" (i.e. not 
federated), then I agree Facebook is leader there - and apologize for 
the misundertanding.

...I would call it "that space", however ;-)


> 1. Their profiles are 5 star linked data.

Looking at http://www.w3.org/TR/ld-glossary/#x5-star-linked-open-data I 
am not sure I agree with that...

Which Open License (1st star) is explicitly accompanied by Facebook 
profile data?

What useful data sources (5th star) do RDF identifiers link to?


> What would be even better is if you could link from facebook, networks 
> OUTSIDE of facebook, but we need to give them a reason to do that 
> first!

While it might be true that Facebook see no good reason to link outside 
of their own network, I see 5th star as being about actively doing 
exactly that.



> 2. The open graph protocol was developed at facebook, and is pointed 
> out on harry's link as gaining traction.  Open Graph is not related to 
> facebook, anyone can use it.  It's federated out to 100s of millions 
> of sites already, and this is far greater federation than this group 
> has dreamt off.

Ahh, now I get it: Yes, you are right Facebook are leader of federated 
social networking, when that includes federating around a central core.

Those 100s of millions of sites you mention federating with Facebook can 
technically only do so as long as they register with Facebook and treat 
them as central point.

My flaw was in interpreting federation as treating all networks as equal 
(as in the book "Animal Farm", Facebook is "more equal than others").

[additional examples of Facebook "more equal than others" snipped]


> [...] my point about standarization is that it would be good to have 
> facebook at the table.  It would be foolish not to look at a success 
> story and try and find the good parts.

Fair enough.  Boils down to interpretation of "success" or "good parts", 
I guess.  I thought the aim of this mailinglist was a different one.


 - Jonas

-- 
 * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt
 * Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

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