Singpolyma

Pempeth is the result of my work based on my previous private messaging TEP.  The protocol draft has matured and there are now implementations! (see the page).  Most notable is a Wordpress plugin, active on this site.

The development of that plugin also sparked an XRDS plugin, which I have also released (despite its somewhat cryptic interface).

Those looking at the main page may also have noticed changes. Yes, that's a mini-feed based on my online activity.  Yes, it's a plugin.  The interface, however, only allows for adding sources (not editing or removing) and is somewhat cryptic, so I have not released it yet.

You can also now log into my blog with your Facebook account (see link in header)!  This uses the API, so I don't got your Facebook password or anything like that.  Also an as-yet-unreleased plugin.

Fun days!  I'm going to be working at AideRSS as a co-op in the coming months, should be fun and more freeing than school!

© 2006-2008 Stephen Paul Weber. Some Rights Reserved.

It's so true!  Many times when using Facebook I find that there's no way to properly describe my relationship to a person with their options!  TechCrunch (and Dave Winer) has some great ideas on what they could do to add some more.  I hope they do it!

© 2006-2008 Stephen Paul Weber. Some Rights Reserved.

Also known as Portable Social Networking, this is the concept of decentralising the social networking functionality of sites like Facebook so that one does not have to use every service to connect with everyone (previously covered here).

Videntity is a wonderful service for this movement, and one that I have been using as the hub of much of my efforts. Explode seems promising, but they're down for upgrade.

So let's talk about my list from last time:

1. hCards and Pingerati : For Blogger I have a wizard. Pingerati pings still manual.  For WordPress there is a widget.  Pings still manual.  For even more professional information (such as my resume) there is an hResume WordPress Plugin.  For other websites/services there is always the hCard Creator.  Of course, Videntity.org supports hCard by default.
2. XFN Friends lists : For Blogger I have a wizard.  This wizard will actually work on any web page or on any service where you can post (X)HTML (including MySpace or Xanga!)  For WordPress there is a nice plugin, although a widget version would be a bonus.  Videntity supports this by default.

   As far as finding/adding friends goes I have a bookmarklet for Videntity that allows one to add hCards, Facebook results, or Wink.com people results as friends/contacts.  Bookmarklets for other services would not be hard.  For Blogger we would need an actual blogroll-producing service beyond just a wizard to make this work.

3. Public/private profiles : Again, Videntity has this built right in (as long as you have the URL that the contact uses for OpenID on the friend list, it does not follow rel=me).  I am working on a solution for WordPress.  Would people be interested in a solution for Blogger/other websites?
4. Messaging : not sure where I stand on this.  Lots of nice contact options, and creating a 'wall'-like interface on WordPress would be easy.  The question is : what is the goal of this?  If it is just the address book features then a way to integrate social networking contact lists with email clients / Gmail might be better.  If it is being able to communicate without revealing your email address a protocol/system for that might be easy enough.

   My brother (and avid Facebooker) says that it is about visibility.  The benefit of Facebook messaging, for him, is the unified notifications area that he KNOWS his friends all check.  He KNOWS that they will see his message.  He is not sure they check their email.

I still promote the idea of supporting rel=tag on hCards.  We need a better hCard search engine, one that takes Pingerati pings, crawls regularly (some of my pings from months ago were never indexed by the Technorati Kitchen hCard search), outputs results as hCards (to facilitate things like my bookmarklet), and recognizes rel=tag.

Perhaps a tagspace could do a rev=tag for members.  If an hCard URL has rel=tag to a page that has rev=tag to it that would give credibility to the category.

Notifications (think Facebook mini-feed) need to fit into this idea somehow.  Events are hCalendar.  Notes/posts/shares are hAtom/xFolk.  Status is something I've blogged about recently too.  Services like Twitter are heading in the right direction.

© 2006-2008 Stephen Paul Weber. Some Rights Reserved.

We need a unified and federated status system.  Something so simple, it should be easy to federate.

Why?  Because right now I set my 'status' (ie, what I'm doing, a small tidbit to share) on my Jabber account, my Twitter account, and my Facebook account.  If I were a member in more places I'd be doing it more.  There needs to be a way to set it in one place and then propagate it.

But wait!  We do have a standard, federated system for this!  Jabber/XMPP itself is a presence (that includes status) protocol.  How could this be made to work?  Rather easily.

Already anything I say to the Twitter bot from Jabber goes into my Twitter.  What SHOULD happen is that whenever I change my Jabber status THAT goes into my Twitter.   Facebook could easily create a similar bridge.

© 2006-2008 Stephen Paul Weber. Some Rights Reserved.

This script now integrates properly with both GMail and Google Reader. Reinstall and enjoy

"What?" you say, "You don't use Facebook, Stephen, you're so cool and geeky!" Ah, but unfortunately not all of my friends are, and I have been drawn in to the service. Mind you, I don't spend hours reading the profiles of people I don't know I do use it, however.

There's one thing I've always hated about Facebook — the notifications system. Many too many emails flooding my inbox about what is happening, either that or I have to check the site regularly. No RSS on the things you actually want notifications of. Worst of all messages, the one thing you REALLY need notification of, won't even send you an email.

The 'official' solution is to install the Facebook toolbar. I tried it, it's nice, but I don't use the service enough to warrant that screen real-estate OR that memory usage.

My solution is a Greasemonkey script. It integrates notifications of messages, group invites, event invites, and friend requests into the side of your GMail view. Install the script, go to GMail, click the Facebook logo and log in. For best results, check the 'remember me' checkbox (funny, you can't have it remember you for logging in to the site, but for a third-party script you can…). Go back to your GMail and click the link that appeared where the Facebook logo used to be. Voila. If you checked the box, next time you go to GMail it should just display the notifications without intervention from yourself.

Die email notifications!

Userscripts.org entry

© 2006-2008 Stephen Paul Weber. Some Rights Reserved.