Don’t get me wrong, I love Google’s Social Graph API, it’s a great way to speed up the discovery of XFN data by using Google’s cache. What does not make sense to me, however, is their ‘NodeMapper’ concept that is built in to the API. It maps multiple URLs from a site on to, not a single URL, but a SGAPI-only URI scheme. It maps using URL patterns that are known about the site, so it doesn’t even work on the web in general. When it does work, what is it useful for? URL consolidation. The problem is, that the only thing you can do with a nodemapped URI is (1) use it as a unique key or (2) turn it back into a URL to get data.
I don’t get it guys. How is this better? Is there even a reason to consolidate things like FOAF files backwards to the main page, since most people will enter the main page itself as input anyway? Even if it was useful, shouldn’t it actually map to the main page and not to some proprietary URI scheme?
Thoughts? Anyone see a use for this that I’m missing? Or is this misfeature just adding a layer of data that someone might use and that we’ll have to hack around again later?
I knew others were talking about distributed social networking, but Messina is working on code, and even code for WordPress! The Kilroy concept (an “I was here” plugin) looks excellent. Avatars looks like exactly what I’ve been saying I should do since I installed Gravatars on this blog. The contactlist plugin looks like basically what I have here (his code, I believe), but I’ve hacked mine some. His delegation looks a lot like what I want to add to my XRDS plugin. Pempeth would go great with his contact form concept.
Other cool stuff there too — overall just excited that things seem to be picking up a bit in this field — I’m writing some bookmarklets just now, and really should clean and release some of the remaining WordPress code.
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!
I need a feed reader that recognises different reading preferences for different feeds.
Let me back up.
There are two kinds of feeds — feeds of content (blogs) and feeds of notifications (calendars, del.icio.us popular, digg, forums). The first kind you want to read all of — even if I miss checking my feeds for awhile I want to see what the blogs I read said. I won’t care tomorrow what was on del.icio.us popular today, there’ll be 100 new items!
Google Reader does a great job on the first kind of feed, holding content until I read it. Firefox’s LiveBookmarks does a good job on the second kind, showing only current content. What we need is a nice interface for both.
I’ve heard the new Bloglines might… perhaps I’ll check it out.
I’ve been reading Marc Andreessen’s blog for some time now, and have been ever impressed by the quality and range of content he’s putting out. One of his recent posts dealt with some meta-conversation about blogging. Is it better to comment or to post about something on your own blog?
He makes some great point against commenting. Comments require filtering and moderation. Comments also seem to encourage poorly written posts or small ‘me too’ which are not worth reading.
He also makes a rather big point about blogging. Anyone can do it. There are a number of free services (Blogger and WordPress.com among them) that let ANYONE EASILY blog.
I’m not ready to turn off comments here just yet, but I must say that this makes sense to me. If you link to me I’ll find what you said. If you trackback it still shows up here on the post. I think there’s a place for commenting, maybe, but it’s definitely worth thinking about.