Post on 18-Dec-2015
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”
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
Create a portable, durable online identity
OpenID- Sign up / sign in with an existing
account- Link / share your profile data between
sites
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
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
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