Decentralized Social Networking

Decentralized social networking

Barcamp Brussels

1 dec 2007

Blogging versus social networks

Platform & software

Same server or different server

Several clients

Self-controlled or hosted

Identity ! (missing piece)

permissions and authorisations

Private posts

Pictures for friends & Family

T ransactions

Yahoo Games

Facebook applications

Collaboration...

Access (messaging)

Ability to comment

Ability to see availability, status

…

Identity

Identity exists within silo's

Identity = local accounts

Disadvantages (of silos)

Social network fatigue *

Reputation jacking

Security (lots of usernames/pswd's)

Solution 1: Separating identity from social network

Identity providers

Google account

Yahoo BBauth

Live.com ID's

OpenID

Silo's want our attention/demographics data!

Solution 2: Social network as application platform

Facebook: applications via a proxy

OpenSocial: embedding widgets and javascript

(making the silos even more sticky)

What do we want

We geeks long for a world where these connections are made regardless of system. Where you can endorse someone even if he's on another social network like you can send an email to someone if he's with another internetprovider .

What do we want (2)

You can make a connection with someone just like you can put a link from your blog to someone else's blog, even if he's with another internet provider. You can give someone permission to see private content, not by asking him to register to your system and by provide permission to the newly created account, but by giving permission to his openID that is hosted elsewhere.

What do we want ( 3 )

We geeks dream from a world where relationships between our digital identities exist regardless of the platforms and systems that host them, just like website and blogs and rss feeds exist regardless of the server software and blogging platforms they're hosted by.

Decentralised <> "open" <> public

OpenID and Identity

Prove that you are who you are

Trust? (no, everything is self-claimed)

blog comments, forums...

Export/reuse your social capital

multiple personas

Typical use cases:

bloggers

second life

...

OpenID against social fatigue (website perspective)

1 username/pswd

attribute exchange

you have millions of accounts already (openid = useraccount for the web)

portable social networks with xfn

Several people in the O penI d world have been advocating Microformats here as a way of publishing personal and social network information on "authorative pages" (aka their OpenID urls).

http://microformats.org/wiki/social-network-portability

portable social networks with xfn ( 2)

An Hcard-formatted on the OpenID url, could be scraped by all kinds of applications where this OpenID url has been used to login, XFN is a way of publishing your friends list, HCalendar the events you're going to attend etc... All of these being "the authorative sources" for address, friends and calendar data that are syndicated across all kinds of long- or shortlived social networks you participate in.

Another option would be all kinds autodiscovery: meta tags in the html pointing to the OpenID provider (obviously!), Public key, FOAF friends list, sites that store and manage other preferences (like LastFM for music taste, del.icio.us for link list...).

Objections to portable social networks

Do you have the right to export your friendlist?

Closed social networks are successful because they protect and provide that context - relationships do not exist outside context

OpenID and Access (to your content and time)

pre-approved accounts *

private posts

whitelisting and xfn *

OpenID and attention data

Claiming attention data and moving it around

There's a movement around the concept of "attention data" (= all the data you produce by your actions online, such as your search queries, the stuff you read...) that advocates the idea that you're the owner of that data and you should be able to take it with you (export it out of a service), and be able to "rent out" access to your attention data.

OpenID and attention data (2)

Doc Searls coined the term "Vendor Relationship Management" http://cyber.law. harvard . edu / projectvrm /Main_Page indicating tools and practices with which you have vendors come to you with their best offerings based on your attention data (and only their best offerings, because your time/attention is scarce!).

One could imagine trusting this to an intermediary party paying you for your attention (an ad broker like Google...) with which you have a more or less permanent relationship (but still the ability to switch). Exotic idea? It was Bill Gates himself who once suggested it... *

Vendor relationship management