Big switch in direction from Microsoft, it would appear they are now planning to use AtomPub instead of Web3S for Windows Live service APIs they’ll formally be announcing at Mix’08. As usual, Dare has all the details.
This is a huge endorsement for AtomPub – I’ll bet Bill is delighted (hey, I can even tell him in person at his IWTC talk in an hours time…)
The word ‘open’ has been abused terribly in recent months (I’m looking at you OpenSocial and you AT&T/Verizon) but the recently completed OpenID 2.0 and OAuth Core 1.0 specifications are truly open. They really should be on the radar of every self respecting web developer that works on websites/APIs that require authentication (OpenID) and authorization/access-control (OAuth). Both are integral to any hope we have of evolving the existing world wide web into a truly open social network (or the giant global graph as timbl now calls it)
If you are looking for primers then you need go no further than Simon Willison’s How To use OpenID screencast (5 mins) and Explaining OAuth.
That said, minimal OpenID implementations won’t solve all authentication headaches. Phishing is a problem so I suspect OpenID enabled sites will need to employ white list providers as Tim and Dare highlighted this a while back.
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Now we (the web community that is) need two things to happen.
Note the overlap in the two lists above – yep, those guys own this part of the web. Which will be brave enough to move first? With final specifications in hand, no excuses, please go forth and implement and lets end this www account/data access hell we all live in.
Interesting analysis by Jeremy Crane of how web searches are distributed by user:
the top 1% of searchers performs a full 13% of all searches in a given month. If you extend this to the top 20% the number of queries increase to roughly 70%
I suspect I’m in that top 1%, CTRL-K is probably the Firefox keyboard shortcut I use most of all. This does imply that search engine usage stats would swing dramatically if these power-searchers were to switch engines…
A lazyweb request for anyone out there who knows – where did Project Astoria go? The Astoria website on MS Live Labs seems to be, err, gone!
ValleyWag kick up a storm, Om is sorry, Mike Arrington is unapologetic. With so much spin in play it’s hard to figure out what even happened.
Jeff Jarvis has a very insightful write up. It also outlines how Federated Media previously approached him to help get Cisco’s name onto a Wikipedia article on their ‘human network‘ slogan. Interesting tactics. (Update: it gets worse for FM and they respond)
Jeff has always had a pretty open and comprehensive about page (for as long as I’ve been reading) but in the blogosphere nobody can hear you cheat until you are caught. A look at Federated Media’s author list is also worth a quick scan. Damn, I read a lot of feeds from that gang!
It all smells, doesn’t it? I’m expecting a mega-iPhoneGate in 3-6 months time (I was hoping not to mention that thing before next week but alas). I mean, c’mon, all that hype, for free? Hilarious!
Update 2: Mark Pilgrim has a fantastic translation of a rather ill-advised comment by a FM VP on the original Valleywag piece.
From Read/Write Web (comment # 2 was NOT from me):
The core future media concept is the Agav – an Agent-Avatar, which “finds information, people…
I love these videos, Lawrence Lessig (a future US Secretary of Justice) declares copyright illegal, Google buys Microsoft, Google buys everyone and so on. But it has some style so it is worth watching:
The concept of the avatar has been around for centuries, long before Ultima IV – man, that was a blast. This video extrapolates the concept nicely into derivatives of digital properties that most computer users should now be familiar with, now that social networking and MMORPGs are the prevelant forms of online communication.
The evolution of the prosumer will continue. I for one like being a prosumer – or maybe it’s just that I like knowing that I’m a prosumer. I’m not sure, best be aware of these things though…
amazon, avatar, future, google, internet, media, microsoft, yahoo, youtube
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