Re: FaceBook taking over the web, and semantic web

Readers of this thread might be interested in this article in Wired:
Facebook’s Gone Rogue; It’s Time for an Open Alternative
http://bit.ly/aHWMuI

Adam


On 28 April 2010 17:09, adasal <adam.saltiel@gmail.com> wrote:

> BTW going over the Newsweek<http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/techtonicshifts/archive/2010/04/22/facebook-f8-internet-open-social-graph-semantic-web-twitter.aspx>article again, it is as full of gasps as a circus act.
> There's nothing much to it in reality, apart from what we already know
> which is that facebook will invest in semantic technology.
>
> Adam
>
>
> On 28 April 2010 12:56, Stephane Corlosquet <scorlosquet@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elgg_%28software%29>Drupal and Wordpress
>>>> also have a lot of what you're looking for. If you like Twitter, you'll love
>>>> StatusNet.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Drupal is going RDFa, with some good developers behind it.  Satus,net has
>>> FOAF support.
>>>
>>
>> Besides RDFa, all users have an automatic WebID, and they can also host
>> their FOAF+SSL certificate on their user profile page [1].
>>
>> Steph.
>>
>> [1] http://github.com/scor/rdf/tree/master/rsapublickey/
>>
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Facebook have also opensourced some great code, eg.
>>>> http://cassandra.apache.org/
>>>>
>>>> This current situation is not for shortage of lines of code, or ability
>>>> to re-use it.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Several organizations have asked us in the past if an open access open
>>>>> source alternative to the FaceBook functionality could be created.
>>>>>
>>>>> How about creating a global open source code coop to develop such an
>>>>> alternative?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The GNU project are just launching something in this direction - see
>>>> http://groups.fsf.org/wiki/Group:GNU_Social ... it sounds just what
>>>> you're looking for.  I suggest joining the list
>>>> http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/social-discuss  --- I won't
>>>> repeat my views here, but see
>>>> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/social-discuss/2010-03/msg00034.html where
>>>> I argue that federation and standards are more important than creating set
>>>> another software toolkit.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Dozens of business models out there to make money. If we just consider
>>>>> the following
>>>>> - Usability on Blackberry, Eclipse and Android platforms
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Who pays, how much, how often and how reliably?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>  - Open Feeds to other Social Networks
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Who pays, how much, how often and how reliably?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> - Linked Data standards for meta data encoding
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Who pays, how much, how often and how reliably?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>  - Interfacing capability with Google functionality
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Who pays, how much, how often and how reliably?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> - External Formats Compatibility e.g. for professional networks like
>>>>> LinkedIn
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Who pays, how much, how often and how reliably?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>  - Feature Import for Email Providers like Yahoo!, Gmail
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Who pays, how much, how often and how reliably?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> It's the business / sustainability / bill-paying story that's
>>>> interesting. Someone has to cover all those bandwidth bills if you're really
>>>> going after 1% of humanity. Not to mention salaries, if your quality of
>>>> service and support is going to cope with the burden of  100s of 1000s of
>>>> non-technical users blundering around messing things up. Which means that
>>>> charging $ for a 'pro' account or putting in advertising will soon be
>>>> discussed. And then the folks with MBAs show up and what starts as idealism
>>>> blends into the pre-existing landscape...
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Most of features on FaceBook are a nuisance to professional users.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> "most?" :)  what list are your working from here...
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>  How many academically and technically trained professionals are there
>>>>> out there, on a global scale?
>>>>>
>>>>> If we assume 1% of the global population, that would still be 65
>>>>> million potential users!
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I'm not sure the answer to "we don't like this megasite" is "so we'll
>>>> build a better megasite, all free and open". I don't think the answer is
>>>> "we'll build the one true distributed social-stuff toolkit" either (ie. my
>>>> fear w/ current GNU Social). The answer - if there is one - is perhaps more
>>>> boring. To do the dull but worth job of integrating, modernising and
>>>> cross-linking the existing social infrastructure of the Web. How do we
>>>> persuade people to put unthanked time into beautifying eg. MailMan or
>>>> migrating the big IRC networks to XMPP, when instead they could be trying to
>>>> "beat Facebook" and build another Web site bigger than many countries...
>>>>
>>>> cheers,
>>>>
>>>> Dan
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>