Future of Web APIs:
The Social Cloud
Kevin Marks

My generation draws
the Internet as a cloud
that connects
everyone.
Kevin Marks me

instead of having to navigate phone
lines from one computer to the
next, you could write programs as
though the net were just one
big cloud, where messages went
in at your computer and came out
at the destination one.
colleague
Tim Berners-Lee contact

Connections between
Computers -TCP/IP
and
Web Documents -HTTP
Somebody Else's Problem Field

The younger generation
experiences it as
oxygen that supports
their digital lives.

child
friend
met
co-resident
Andrew
Marks

My generation draws the Internet as a
cloud that connects everyone.
The younger generation experiences it as
oxygen that supports their digital lives.
The old generation sees this as a
poisonous gas that has leaked out of their
pipes, and they want to seal it up again

URLs are
people too

Links are relationships
friend friend
me me
rel=\"me\"

Social Graph API
Indexes public websites that are people
Shows the 'me' and 'friend' links between
them
Supports the open XFN and FOAF
standards
Uses the standard Google crawler

Social Graph API
finding me
and my public friends
on the web

but my friends
are all here

Friends
Activities
Data

OpenSocial
Take your Application to
where the people are
over 200 million people

OpenSocial
People, Friends,
Actions,
Data in Context

Person info
Name
uid
photo
profile url

Person info
A ge
Name U RLs
uid Books
photo
Mo vies
profile url
Smoker

Friends
Viewer friends

Friends
Owner friends

Friends
Owner not a person?

Activities
Things people
do in your app

Data store
data tied to
people

Registration

Scaling
data tied to Things people
people do in your app

Relationships
contact acquaintance friend
met co-worker colleague
co-resident neighbour child
parent sibling spouse kin me
muse crush date sweetheart

OpenSocial
People, Friends,
Actions,
Data in Context

danah
colleague
boyd friend
met

Brad co-worker
friend
Fitzpatrick met

Of course you can’t ‘trust’ what
people tell you on the web
anymore than you can ‘trust’ what
people tell you on megaphones,
postcards or in restaurants.
met
co-worker
Douglas Adams muse

Working out the social politics
of who you can trust and why
is, quite literally, what a very
large part of our brain has
evolved to do.
met
co-worker
Douglas Adams muse

Trust
Friendship
Context

The Social Cloud
OpenSocial in your head
People, Friends,
Trust
Actions,
Friendship
Data
Context

Links and credits
http://globalnerdy.com/2007/07/23/kids-say-email-is-only-
for-talking-to-the-man/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/platinum/6056978/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/416449908/
http://xkcd.com/c256.html
http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html
http://flickr.com/photos/scobleizer/2212387929/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joestump/1845957929/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Image:Pride_and_Prejudice_Character_Map.png
http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/LitNote/Pride-and-
Prejudice-About-the-Novel-Character-
Map.id-147,pageNum-7.html
brain - Leonardo Da Vinci

Further reading
Video version of this:
http://epeus.blogspot.com/2008/02/social-cloud.html
Social Graph API:
http://code.google.com/apis/socialgraph/
OpenSocial:
http://code.google.com/apis/opensocial/
danah boyd on Social network history:
http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html
Douglas Adams on the web and trust:
http://www.douglasadams.com/dna/19990901-00-a.html
XFN relationships:
http://gmpg.org/xfn/11
Tim Berners-Lee on web and global graph:
http://dig.csail.mit.edu/breadcrumbs/node/215