Re: Question: User Story -- Bootstrapping Facebook

In the social networking space, it is important to remember that a webpage
is dynamically assembled from disparate data resources. The content
displayed is an amalgam of contributions from different people. Thus it is
rarely the case that the contents of an entire page will be owned and
controlled by a single person (entity).

It is also important to remember that social networking is about user
streams--the assemblage of content contributions that coalesce to create a
conversation, to capture interaction between users. That is what makes it
a social experience.

> On 10 Feb 2011, at 15:11, Stéphane Corlosquet wrote:
>>
>> The fact that on the Web, you do not know who authored each bit of a
>> page.

With regards to not knowing “who authored each bit of a page”, that can
easily be addressed. Each piece of datum can be marked up with a WebID to
indicate the owner of a particular content contribution. So, even on a
given user’s profile page, any data that was not created by and is not
owned or controlled by the profile owner, can clearly be indicated. Of
course, implementing that facility would be up to the overall platform
owners.

> On February 10, 2011 9:39, Henry Story wrote:
>>
>> (This thread is a bit skizzo. Here we are in the part of this thread
>> giving advice to FB)

With regards to discussions about FB, I believe that we should not make
any assumptions about what they will or will not do when it comes to
WebID. They created their own customized ontology with OGP instead of
using the already available open ontologies. Some speculate that they may
be trying to “win” the identity wars by turning their platform into the
largest, proprietary identity protocol broker on the Web. They will do
what is in their best business interest. If WebID serves a business
purpose, then they will implement it to the extent that they see fit. All
we can do is put forth a series of WebID use cases and then let the
various social networks, including FB,  decide how and if they will use
it.

Since the Social Web is about the global conversation and usage space and
not just about what happens within a single, often siloed, social network,
I suggest that at this time we concentrate more on the fundamentals of
WebID, and not on how a particular space may or may not implement WebID.
Our WebID use cases should provide a sufficient width and breadth so that
current and future open and proprietary Web-based systems can properly
evaluate the virtues of WebID for their specific use.

Whereas I do agree that conversations like this are informative and useful
in helping us craft our WebID use cases, I think that trying to solve very
specific and unique technical WebID implementations for a particular,
proprietary player, such as FB, may not be in our best interest at this
time.


Jeff

http://jeffsayre.com/

Received on Thursday, 10 February 2011 16:57:51 UTC