Open Source Microblogging Evan Prodromou Control Yourself, Inc. Open Web Vancouver 2009

My name is Evan.

My name is Evan. I do microblogging.

I'm not Twitter. That's OK.

100% of money on the Web is made by companies that aren't Twitter.

Not that I'm financially motivated.

Not entirely.

I am a passionate believer in Open Source

And Open Data

And Open Content

And Open Standards

For an Open Web.

Because it's a problem:

Software is moving into a “cloud”

Dominated by a few companies.

We're moving from an Open, distributed, internetworked Web

To a collection of Online services, barely connected.

Facebook 2009 = AOL 1992

Google = Bitnet MySpace = Prodigy Yahoo = Genie Amazon = Compuserv Microsoft = Microsoft

Worst of all, they're usurping our desktop and server software, too.

This is bad for the Web, Bad for business, Bad for society.

Just ask Tim O'Reilly, IBM, Or the Economist.

I'm part of a workgroup called autonomo.us

We are working on this problem from a number of angles.

Franklin Street Statement http://ur1.ca/tz

Open Source + Open Data + Open Standards = Open Software Services

I like starting Web sites. So that's how I'm contributing.

But where to start?

Status matters.

“ Microblogging”

Short notices (<140 characters)

Social network

Multi-channel

Simple

synchronous and asynchronous

Mobile and PC

Twitter grew 900% in the last year, to 30M+ users.

So yeah: it matters.

Public general-purpose site

Enterprise

Community groups

Vertical groups

Public broadcast

But this is the Web...

And everything's gotta be connected.

Monolithic systems suck.

Walled gardens suck.

So let's get to work.

One Big Twitter

Publishers Subscribers Weather Blogger New York Times CNN Google Enterprise Personal ISP Wireless Provider Twitter Identi.ca

Thesis: successful distributed communications media require 1 good protocol and an Open Source server.

Email had SMTP + Sendmail.

The Web had HTTP + Apache.

Blogging has... uh... some stuff... + WordPress.

Instant messaging has 2 protocols, one good server. Problems.

Social networks have no protocol, a couple of good servers. Problems.

Conclusion: my awesome thesis is indisputably correct.

We need some Open Source microblogging software.

Requirements:

Thousands to millions of installations.

Installable anywhere.

Big, fast-moving dev community.

That all means: PHP + MySQL

Other requirements:

Themeable

Extensible

Programmable

Scalable

Small installations on commodity Web hosting Medium installations on virtual or leased servers Large installations on many owned servers 10^0 10^1 10^2 10^3 10^4 10^5 10^5 10^6 10^7 10^8

What I did:

Laconica http://laconi.ca/

Web application Written in PHP Uses MySQL or PostgreSQL

Cloned the Twitter REST API.

(Got lots of the Twitter 3rd-party dev community on-board. w00t.)

Lots of offline processing. STOMP servers

Support Jabber for IM

Use email gateways for SMS

Hooks-based plugin architecture (Like MediaWiki)

Plugins hook events. They can accept, change, or revert results of the event.

OpenMicroBlogging http://openmicroblogging.org/

HTTP-based protocol

Allows a user on one server to subscribe to notices from a user on another server.

Uses OAuth for authorization

Subscription == authorizing a remote server to push notices into your inbox

Other good smells:

Use OpenID for authentication.

Twitter bridge: post notices into Twitter, read friends' timeline from Twitter.

Facebook application and Facebook Connect.

Incorporated lots of microblogging ideas directly.

Incorporated lots of microblogging ideas directly.

#hashtags @replies

Push data out to public downstream users (XMPP, ping, SUP)

Default install uses CC BY 3.0

Also: groups, multimedia sharing, conversation tracking, Comet, user themes.

How are we doing?

50+ contributors

Dozens of plugins.

200+ public sites.

Many private ones: Sun, SAP, Motorola, Mars Inc.

My goal: 1M sites by 2013.

I've made this my business.

Control Yourself, Inc.

Seven people.

Installation Maintenance Service Support Customization

Software-as-a-service http://status.net/ (Next week!)

http://yourname.status.net/ http://micro.example.com/

Venture-funded Revenue-positive

Who's going to use this software?

1. Enterprises.

2. Brands and broadcasters.

3. Communities.

There's a great future for the Open Web. Are you part of it?

http://identi.ca/ http://laconi.ca/ http://status.net/ http://openmicroblogging.org/ http://controlyourself.ca/ http://identi.ca/evan