The Widgets Shall Inherit the Web Widget Summit 4 November 2008.

The Widgets ShallInherit the Web

Widget Summit4 November 2008

Widget authors: You’re ahead of your time!

Widgets thrive in an environment with:- existing users, data, social graph, and activity- It’s a symbiotic relationship

Widgets have had to live where the data is: - embedded in existing social network pages- (and often without good APIs)

But soon, the data will come to you!- Thanks to the rapidly emerging “Open Stack”

In a world with lots of socially-aware sites…

…and lots of “open social web” building blocks…

…how do the pieces fit together?

…and what will the new

Social Web look like?

Reminder: The social web today is broken…

On each site, we still have to:-Re-create an account-Re-enter our profile info-Re-find our friends-Re-establish our relationships

New social apps have limited options:-Create yet-another-silo (and start from scratch)

-or--Make a widget inside an existing walled garden

…but we know how to make things better!

Create a portable, durable online identity

OpenID- Sign up / sign in with an existing

account- Link / share your profile data between

sites

Example: Sign up for Plaxo with OpenID

Create a portable, durable online identity

OpenID- Sign up / sign in with an existing account- Link / share your profile data between sites

rel=me (XFN)- Consolidate your online identity with me-links

Social Graph API- See what your users said about themselves

Public profiles enrich online identity

Build and maintain real relationships

Contact APIs- Find people from your current address book- Leverage previously established relationships

OAuth- Share private data between trusted sites

Friends-list portability- Continuous discovery across multiple sites

“A periodic check of new people from your networks on other sites”

Stay up-to-date with the people you know

OpenSocial- Build social apps that can run anywhere

OpenSocial

OpenSocial: Large and Growing Rapidly

Stay up-to-date with the people you know

OpenSocial- Build social apps that can run anywhere

RSS / Atom- Syndicate your activity to share with others

Jabber (XMPP)- Real-time update stream between sites

How does friends-list portability work?

Tell the site your Social Graph Provider

Site fetches your data to find local friends

Site lets you connect to people you want

How does friends-list portability work?

Tell the site your Social Graph Provider- XRDS-Simple (discovery) + OAuth (access)

Site fetches your data to find local friends

Site lets you connect to people you want

How does friends-list portability work?

Tell the site your Social Graph Provider- XRDS-Simple (discovery) + OAuth (access)

Site fetches your data to find local friends

Site lets you connect to people you want- Can periodically look for new matches

How does friends-list portability work?

Tell the site your Social Graph Provider- XRDS-Simple (discovery) + OAuth (access)

Site fetches your data to find local friends- ??? (no standard way to do this…yet)

Site lets you connect to people you want- Can periodically look for new matches

Portable Contacts: The missing piece

Effort underway to standardize:– contact schema– discovery / auth– common operations

Focused on ease & speed of adoption

– Active involvement from large & small players

More info & current draft spec:http://portablecontacts.net

Building blocks in action: contacts portability

User signs in with an OpenID- Site fetches OpenID URL looks for X-XRDS-Location- Site parses XRDS-Simple doc to discover available APIs

Site tries to access contacts API gets a 401- WWW-Authenticate response header specifies OAuth- OAuth Discovery (via XRDS) provides OAuth endpoints

Site sends user though OAuth flow to grant access- User returns to site with authorized access token- Site can now access users’ contacts data via API + token

…so how do these building blocks fit together?