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transcript

The open, social web

Chris Messina

Twiiste.be

May 15, 2009

Leuven, Belgium

Friday, May 15, 2009

45 minutes

now, i have 45 minutes to talk to you today. and there are a couple subjects that i hope to cover with, ideally a bit of time left over for questions at the end.

I struggled with how to put this talk together, as it’s a totally new format for me. But there are a couple metaphors that I’m going to introduce, and then use to describe a concept or idea or tell a story. This could go short, or go long. I don’t know which. But let’s see how it goes.

Web 2.0

The first topic is Web 2.0.

“Web 2.0 is the network as platform, spanning all connected devices; Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the

intrinsic advantages of that platform: delivering software as a

continually-updated service that gets better the more people

use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual users, while providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others, creating

network effects through an “architecture of participation,” and

going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user

experiences.”

— Tim O’Reilly, Web 2.0: Compact Definition?

Photo credit: Adam Tinworth

“Web 2.0 is the network as platform, spanning all connected devices; Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform: delivering software as a continually-updated service that gets better the more people use it,consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual users, while providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others, creating network effects through an “architecture of participation,” and going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences.”

Photo credit: Adam Tinworth

“Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry

caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new

platform. Chief among those rules is this: Build applications

that harness network effects to get better the more people

use them. (This is what I’ve elsewhere called ‘harnessing

collective intelligence.’)”

— Tim O’Reilly

Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform. Chief among those rules is this: Build applications that harness network effects to get better the more people use them. (This is what I’ve elsewhere called “harnessing collective intelligence.”)

• The perpetual beta becomes a process for engaging customers.

• Share and share-alike data, reusing others’ and providing APIs to your own.

• Ignore the distinction between client and server.

• On the net, open APIs and standard protocols win.

• Lock-in comes from data accrual, owning a namespace or non-standard formats.

Five rules

Tim also laid out five rules that accompanied his definition from back in Dec 2006.

The perpetual beta becomes a process for engaging customers.Share and share-alike data, reusing others’ and providing APIs to your own.Ignore the distinction between client and server.On the net, open APIs and standard protocols win.Lock-in comes from data accrual, owning a namespace or non-standard formats.

and this was all aimed at speaking to open source developers who saw the world through the lense of Linux and hardware — and weren’t yet taking the network as a platform seriously.

Open source

and so if we consider the last 10 years of open source, it’s really been about a slow, grudging migration from a hardware-based perspective to the cloud.

most people know of open source because of the public battle between mozilla’s firefox and internet explorer.

sure, maybe some people have heard of linux, but few people actually use it in day-to-day computing.

but there has also been something of a religious fervor in the open source community, rejecting all that which is not 100% open and free.

however, gone is the time when open source software ALONE is enough to have freedom.

richard stallman has been a staunch advocate of open source, outlining the contours of ONE vision of “open”, but I believe that the in the era of the social web, we need a new narrative...

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”

—Thomas Jefferson

we can learn from stallman’s example,

AND we must not forget that the “the price of freedom is eternal vigilance”.

and so when we see things like this, where camel is using the open brand to advertise their cigarettes, we must call them out.

this is not “open” as we think of it.

this is an example of what i call “open washing”. it’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

What does open mean?

but i think that camel’s use of the term “open” shows how little “open” really means to people.

it’s a catch all phrase that’s simply less nerdy than “web 2.0”.

so for ourselves, we must define what open really means.

Competition & freedom of choice

for me, openness is about competition and freedom of choice

• data portability

• multi-homing

• roaming

• disaggregation

lowering switching costs

increasing reliability

incurring off-network costs

service substitutibility

Social networks & monopolies

Bertil Hatt in Paris, working on his Ph D in economics... talked to me about social network monopolies.

gave some good ways to think about this.

data portabilility -> lowering switching costs.multi-homing -> increasing reliability of service by parallelizing accessroaming -> the ability to access your service from someone else’s networkdisaggregation -> the ability to substitute services

Photo by Mary Beth Griffo RigbyFriday, May 15, 2009

phone number portability — concept of being able to switch providers without incurring a switching fee. we don’t have the concept of social network switching.

furthermore, when the industry was left to its own means, it didn’t make this possible for free... and so governments had to step in a regulate the industry to ensure this kind of freedom.

multi-homing... parallelizing our networks to improve robustness.

this is a service called ping.fm — it lets you publish to many networks all at once

making sure that people have access to your data. it might not be ideal, but it’s a good example of parallelizing access.

here’s an example of roaming.

at&t sent me a text message telling me that they wanted to charge me $20 a megabyte to access their service because i was on someone else’s network.

it’s expensive; carriers don’t like it. they don’t want to deal with someone else’s customers.

and so this is one of OpenID’s challenges: we have lots of providers, but few relying parties.

PicnikFriday, May 15, 2009

disaggregation: the ability to choose the service that I want to use without having to import EVERYTHING AND without having to even create an account.

this is in contrast, for example, to being forced to use a default service, like Photos on Facebook or how Apple refuses to let apps that compete with their own apps enter the AppStore.

cloud computing

what does open mean in the era of cloud computing? (CLICK)

icon by Seedling DesignFriday, May 15, 2009

we’re going from owning our own hard drives with our data... (CLICK)

http://

icon by Seedling DesignFriday, May 15, 2009

to relying on someone else to host our data for us.

having the ability to move data from place to another — while retaining metadata will be essential.

Opencloud computing?

and so the question here is:

can we prevent cloud monopolies by applying the principles of open source?

Social web

where this all will make the most difference is in the social web.

it’s one thing if you want to move your application from one company’s cloud instance to another.

what happens when you want to move your identity and friends?

the reality is, the web was built for sharing documents... (CLICK)

not for connecting people — at least like people connect today.

WWW???

not for connecting people — at least like people connect today.

I think we can start to see where this is going — in a very basic way — by studying FriendFeed. Already they’re doing a lot of work to minimize the emphasis on services and are instead focused on two things: People and what they’re sharing. (next: feed formats)

But they’re ending up spending all kinds of resources just getting the basics working, since our feed formats like ATOM and RSS were designed with blog posts in mind, but people are doing a lot more on the web today, beyond blogging.

this is really the premise behind the Diso Project:

to make it make it easier to build social experiences on the web

by deriving standards and formats from popular trends.

1. identity & profile

2. discovery & access control

3. contacts & friends

4. activity streams

5. messaging

6. groupings & shared spaces

Diso Components*

*subject to changeFriday, May 15, 2009

(DON’T CLICK)

identity & profile

discovery & access control

contacts & friends

activity streams

messaging

groupings & shared spaces

A standard in practice is worth more than a standard in theory

but adoption of these technologies is key.

Ubiquity of a standard allows an industry to move the level of

competition to a new layer

Photo by grendelkhanFriday, May 15, 2009

why take the approach of creating standards when we could instead be building sweet apps?

because we don’t want to compete on the level of social apps that exist today.

we want to move up to a higher level of competition by commoditizing aspects of the social web that are hard today, but are also basic or fundamental.

creating new opportunities for innovation on user experience

Photo by Chris MetcalfFriday, May 15, 2009

in so doing, we create new opportunities to compete on the basis of offering better service and experience without relying on user lock-in.

Identity

but all of this is predicated on developing a means for estabishing durable, cross-site identity on the web.

the individual is basic atomic unit of society.

You can’t have “social” without “society”

and you can’t get to social without having a society.

and since change happens at the level of the individual

a building block technology like openid is critical.

the architecture of the social web must have the individual as its cornerstone.

Real identity

it’s interesting to look at a current trend

people are starting to use their real identity online.

No where is this more obvious than on Facebook.

Here is a list of three people that Facebook has recommended to me.

The second one was suggested because we went to the same high school. Kind of a stretch, right? I mean, what is that in the photo? A pillow? I have no idea WHO SHE IS

So let’s say I actually dive in and ask Facebook to list ALL the people it thinks I might know... this is where it gets interesting.

(click)

Now, here I see someone I know. I’ve met Eric in person; I could probably add him as a friend... but is it really him? It’s not like I have some shared secret with him to verify that this is actually an online representation of his...

So let’s say I actually dive in and ask Facebook to list ALL the people it thinks I might know... this is where it gets interesting.

(click)

Now, here I see someone I know. I’ve met Eric in person; I could probably add him as a friend... but is it really him? It’s not like I have some shared secret with him to verify that this is actually an online representation of his...

so I decide to do a search — and lo, out of 444 results, he comes up first. Sure, but this is the same guy from the previous page.

(click)

If we have 63 mutual friends, well, that’s starting make this more plausible...

so I decide to do a search — and lo, out of 444 results, he comes up first. Sure, but this is the same guy from the previous page.

(click)

If we have 63 mutual friends, well, that’s starting make this more plausible...

Ok, now I’m feeling pretty confident. In lieu of a shared secret between us, a familiar social graph is a reasonable substitute. Get that: by revealing one’s social connections I get closer to someone’s real identity.

your social graph is essentially a kind of identity fingerprint for people who know you and know who you know.

but this is really only possible because my mutual friends shared their identities first.

@factoryjoe

so some of you might know that I use “factoryjoe” as my username on the web.

But, no one in the real world has any frigging clue who “factoryjoe” is, especially without context.

And so people have come up to me and called me “Joe” without even thinking about it.

This online identity was becoming better known than me!

@factoryjoe@chrismessina

So I killed it. At least on Twitter. And now I’m just @chrismessina.

Like I was before, and always have been.

But I’ve seen other people do the same thing since I made this change.

And it looks like it’s only becoming more common.

Let’s take a look at another example.

Compare the chat list on the left with the one on the right.

With AIM, you’ve got all these foreign-looking usernames... whereas on the right you have real names.

CLICK - focus on pirillo

[talk about Facebook’s early decision to swear off usernames]

Let’s take a look at another example.

Compare the chat list on the left with the one on the right.

With AIM, you’ve got all these foreign-looking usernames... whereas on the right you have real names.

CLICK - focus on pirillo

[talk about Facebook’s early decision to swear off usernames]

“l0ckergn0me”vs.

Chris Pirillo

understand that this DESIGN decision was as important as Flickr’s public-by-default decision.

Heck, I don’t even know what a “locker gnome” is. But here’s the change.

We’re moving from these weird (CLICK) computer-driven identities...

...to using our real names (CLICK) across the web.

EventboxFriday, May 15, 2009

and you can see this in software like eventbox

why does this option even exist?

This to me proves that we are in a transitional period, from assumed aliases to one of real, public, transparent identities.

why does this option even exist?

This to me proves that we are in a transitional period, from assumed aliases to one of real, public, transparent identities.

Self-actualization

Esteem

Love/belonging

Safety

Physiological

morality, creativity,

spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice,

acceptance of facts

self-esteem, confidence, achievement, respect of others,

respect by others

friendship, family, sexual intimacy

security of: body, employment, resources, morality, the family, health, property

breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, homeostasis, excretion

Mazlow’s Hierarchy of NeedsFriday, May 15, 2009

now, I think this what this means is that we’re seeing a shift to using real identity because the social web is becoming a increasingly important piece of many people “self-actualization”.

self-actualization is from mazlow’s hierarchy of needs and is at the top of the pyramid here.

• facebook.com/chrismessina

• friendfeed.com/chrismessina

• google.com/profiles/chrismessina

• twitter.com/chrismessina

You can see this people try to “claim” their identity across the web (CLICK)

• facebook.com/chrismessina

• friendfeed.com/chrismessina

• google.com/profiles/chrismessina

• twitter.com/chrismessina

and course, companies are jumping over each other to be namespace for people on the web.

Five rules

remember Tim O’Reilly’s rules? Yeah, this one.

Five rules

remember Tim O’Reilly’s rules? Yeah, this one.

let’s look at what these namespaces look like on the web today.

this is how facebook presents me to the world.

note that i can’t change this.

sure i can change my photo... but i can’t alter what’s presented here. this is all left up to facebook’s discretion.

friendfeed present an activity-centric view of me.

i can’t change how this looks, but at least it represents parts of what i’m actually doing

Google now lets me have quite a bit of control over my profile, but it makes me look like a google employee.

oh, and everyone looks the same.

Meanwhile, Twitter at least lets me customize the colors and background image... but otherwise, that’s about it.

and without context, it can be a bit jarring.

So what if I wanted to just do something like this? I’m not saying this is the best webpage evar, but the point is, when I host my own identity, it’s up to ME how I present my identity to the world.

And I believe that it’s at the level of the individual that all change and innovation begins and so the web’s architecture should reflect that.

and so this is why i use factoryjoe.com as my OpenID. It means that I, as an individual, am in charge of, and own my own identity.

and what we need to develop, over time, is a way for people who own their own identities — regardless of whether they delegate to a service or not — to connect to the people and services that matter to them. (next: asshole)

*Friday, May 15, 2009

now, do you know what this is?

it’s the asshole of the universe.

* Connect

and like assholes, it seems that everyone wants to have a connect API these days.

Photo by Timothy VogelFriday, May 15, 2009

the result is what we call the “OpenID NASCAR” where everyone wants their brand shown on login forms.... (CLICK)

...like this.

when people really just want this.

their goal is to get access to their account

To be fair, this is merely an uncomfortable transitional step along a much longer path towards open identity on the web. it is a means to an end, but not the end that we seek.

when people really just want this.

their goal is to get access to their account

To be fair, this is merely an uncomfortable transitional step along a much longer path towards open identity on the web. it is a means to an end, but not the end that we seek.

• What’s your address?

Eventually, I think people will know their OpenID, just like their address, phone number, screennames, email, and so on... until we get to their OpenID.

And just to be clear, an OpenID shouldn’t have to look like a URL. We’re working to fix that actually.

But the primary thing you should take away from this point is that we’re creating a standard to make it possible to have durable, lasting identity on the web.

• What’s your phone number?

• What’s your AOL screenname?

• What’s your email address?

• What’s your MySpace?

• Twitter?

• Are you on Facebook?

• Twitter?

• Are you on Facebook?

• What’s your OpenID?

Why standards?

The open, social web will be built on standards that are free to implement and that encourage competition at the layer of service and user experience.

so, one example of this is email standards like SMTP and IMAP. These protocols are dinosaurs... (CLICK)

but have allowed services like Gmail to be started relatively recently and widespread adoption by creating the incentive to innovate on top of a basic set of features.

where they’ve created this amazing experience in the iphone version of Gmail. Largely because of standards.

similarly, Twitter has grown in large part because of its use of SMS, a standard feature of phones that has been around for ages — that few had previously taken advantage of.

Ironically, you could argue that RSS on Blogger was what lead Ev Williams to his original success. So, he just seems to be at the right moment leveraging standards as they become ubiquitous in the marketplace.

of course, one of the best examples of my point is Apple.

I’ve shown applications and uses of the iPhone, but it itself is the benefactor of years of open standards development.

International Mobile Telecommunications-2000 (IMT-2000)IEEE 802.11 (WiFi)

Short Message Service (SMS)

MPEG-4 Part 14, ISO/IEC 14496-14:2003 (MP4)

MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 (MP3)

Bluetooth

HTTP, CSS, JS, etc

vCard, etc

SMTP, IMAP

SQLite, TXT

I’ve shown applications and uses of the iPhone, but it itself is the benefactor of years of open standards development.

Furthermore, WebKit is the rendering engine that powers the Safari browser.

this is an open source project

webkit is also the rendering engine that powers Google’s Chromium/Chrome open source browser project.

the Palm Pre’s applications are also all webkit apps.

see how important standards are here?

So, just as WebKit is becoming the new operating level,

the underpinings of Mac OS X itself is UNIX, which is open source.

Apple leverages open source and community-based peer-production and ostensibly sells an experience on top of it.

The value is not in the software, per se, but in the designed experience and vision carried through Apple products.

The open, social web

and so, hopefully I’ve given you a clear picture of why OPEN standards are critical to innovation on the SOCIAL web —

that really the aim of the Diso Project and similar initiatives are to move the realm of competition to a higher level so that we can actually begin to

build social experiences at the level that Apple builds hardware experiences today.

SO WHY THE OPEN SOCIAL WEB?

Our challenge is to build technologies that enhance the network and serve people so that they in turn can build better and richer societies.

BECAUSE

Our fundamental challenge is to build technologies that enhance the network and serve people so that they in turn can build better and richer societies.

The way internet is supposed to

which, if we’re successful, brings us full circle back to what we’ve been talking about today:

the way the internet is supposed to be.

chris@citizenagency.com • @chrismessina • factoryjoe.com

Typeface: FTF Flama™ by Mario FelicianoColor palette: oddend by martin

so that’s it. questions?

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