Re: The "Social Web" vs the "Fediverse"

> But what does that mean exactly? How would bbc.com look exactly if it
were a first-class participant of the “social web” that “supports and
fosters social interaction”?
>
> I know what I would want to do … but there are a bunch of
conventions/protocols/standards missing to do that. On the other hand,
nobody is really working on those, at least not here, so perhaps my vision
is different from other’s vision.

ActivityPub is a protocol for that.

   - An ActivityPub Client would retrieve (see Section 3.2)
   <https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/#retrieving-objects> the ActivityPub
   Object with URL https://bbc.com.
   - An ActivityPub Server MUST then serve an Actor Object if that URL is
   resolvable via ActivityPub.
   - If the retrieved object is an Actor Object
   <https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/#actor-objects>, the client can send
   messages or follows to the inbox linked to from the Actor Object. (Actor
   objects MUST have an inbox property, see S 4.1
   <https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/#actor-objects>).
   - If the retrieved object is e.g. an Article
   <https://www.w3.org/TR/activitystreams-vocabulary/#dfn-article>, the
   client can follow the attributedTo
   <https://www.w3.org/TR/activitystreams-vocabulary/#dfn-attributedto>
   relation to an actor to display info about the author and/or show
   affordances to follow the author.

Here is an example for a different domain, but, fortunately, the same
protocol applies to the rest of ActivityPub Actors on the fediverse.
```
bengo@bengo ~ ⚡  curl -s https://socialweb.coop/ -H 'Accept:
application/ld+json; profile="https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams"' | jq .
{
  "type": [
    "Organization"
  ],
  "inbox": "https://socialweb.coop/inbox",
  "outbox": "https://socialweb.coop/outbox",
  "id": "https://socialweb.coop/"
}
```

Does this answer your question?

On Tue, Dec 26, 2023 at 4:44 PM Johannes Ernst <johannes.ernst@gmail.com>
wrote:

> 1. We know how the Fediverse looks like:
>
> You want to socially interact with your friends without a central server
> in the middle? Set up a Fediverse instance, or find an account on somebody
> else’s, follow your friends on other instances and microblog (and more)
> away.
>
> So if the BBC wanted to do that, for example, they would (and have) set up
> bbc.social, in addition to their primary website at bbc.com.
>
> 2. In contrast, the vision of the “Social Web” is broader and less
> “separate” from the rest of the web.
>
> E.g. Wikipedia says "The social web encompasses how websites and software
> are designed and developed in order to support and foster social
> interaction.” [1]
>
> So if the BBC wanted to be part of the “Social Web”, for example, they
> would augment/change bbc.com to be a first-class social web participant
> rather than setting up a separate fediverse site.
>
> 3. Roughly agree so far?
>
> But what does that mean exactly? How would bbc.com look exactly if it
> were a first-class participant of the “social web” that “supports and
> fosters social interaction”?
>
> I know what I would want to do … but there are a bunch of
> conventions/protocols/standards missing to do that. On the other hand,
> nobody is really working on those, at least not here, so perhaps my vision
> is different from other’s vision.
>
> I’d appreciate pointers or explanations that outline various points of
> view on how the “social web” would ideally look like, and also how the
> fediverse could morph into it over time. Assuming people think that is
> still a worthwhile goal.
>
> (With apologies to the BBC for using them as my example vehicle here …
> obviously it has nothing to do with the BBC per se)
>
> Cheers,
>
>
>
> Johannes.
>
> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_web
>
>
> Johannes Ernst
>
> Fediforum <https://fediforum.org/>
> Dazzle Labs <https://dazzlelabs.net/>
>