Re: Social APIs (was: Rechartering WebApp WG)

On 17 Feb 2010, at 00:19, Harry Halpin wrote:

> On 17 Feb 2010, at 00:19, Harry Halpin wrote:
>
> Yes, we over in the Social Web XG would be happy to provide some space
> where efforts like this one can be done, in particular a "Social API
> requirements" telecon and e-mail discussion with WebApps would be
> great. Looking at the list made earlier:
>
> "* access to contacts on a specific device: Contacts API (DAP WG) [4]"
>
> This is obvious an important point, but we need to make sure that
> Contacts API is compatible with PortableContacts/vCard, and maybe even
> look at FOAF.

Or simply that there is a reasonable abstraction over different  
approaches to handling contacts at the app/widget level

E.g. Wave Gadgets has an extremely simplified user info model: id,  
display_name, thumbnail_src that would map easily onto any of the  
contact schemes discussed (and is surprisingly useful). By contrast,  
OpenSocial has a maximal scheme that encompasses all manner of bizarre  
attributes (SCARED_OF, HAPPIEST_WHEN etc), presumably the superset of  
everything the initial OS members stored about people!

> " * access to relationships between contacts, etc.: no current work,
> but  possible as an online service (XHR), or locally through markup
> like RDFa or microdata" - I think this could be covered by some new
> API.
>
> Agreed, and we could also make sure that those in RDF have a
> declarative metadata approach that is compatible with some new API,
> but that users of such a API would not have to know about or use, i.e.
> compatible but orthogonal.

+1

> Personally, I believe that if the relevant stake-holders can be
> brought on board, this would be a very worthy area for future
> standardization and will do everything I can to help. Looking at our
> schedule, we were hoping to have a call on this topic (i.e. W3C
> Widgets and OpenSocial), March 10th (5 PM GMT) still works [1].

Yes, the 10th is still good for me too.

Would you like me to ask the Apache Shindig developers if any of them  
can join us?

> For a general update on our work, take a look at our minutes [2] and
> wiki [3]. We'll have a draft final report out by end of March, but
> expect the XG to be extended by 3-6 months as we are still in the
> middle of a number of conversations.
>
>  -harry
>
> [1]http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/socialweb/wiki/Schedule
> [2]http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/socialweb/
> [3]http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/socialweb/wiki/