

App.net to support activitystrea.ms, pubsubhubbub, Webfinger, feeds - abraham
http://daltoncaldwell.com/a-response-to-brennan-novak

======
kmf
I understand there's a weirdly huge amount of opposition (like that guy who
freaked out on Dalton over comment a couple days ago) about the project, so
I'd like to say a bit.

I've been on the site for a good week now (@kristian) and there's some
incredible people there. Great conversation, great progress on determining
just _what_ this project is. That's not a bad thing — the nature of a project
like this is that it is evolving constantly.

In that vein, I encourage people to check out an issue filed at the App.net
API page on Github.

<https://github.com/appdotnet/api-spec/issues/33>

The basic idea is a reworking of the API into something more extensible. If
I'm understanding correctly (I'm pretty new at this stuff), the API at this
point resembles the use case of something like Twitter: __users __have many
__posts __, __posts __have __text __, a __date __, etc (Rails associations,
anyone?). This issue proposes that the access control on those posts be
variable, to fit an infinite amount of use cases. A couple examples are
Twitter-style DMs (posts visible between two users), mailing lists (posts
visible between specific, but multiple users), etc.

I think the thing that is causing App.net problems is that people _think_ they
are funding a Twitter clone. The fact is that the basic system of "users" with
"things" goes a lot further than Twitter. It's email, it's chat, it's
notifications, it's whatever you want it to be. And that's what's fascinating
— we're funding an extensible piece of the next phase of the Internet —
something decentralized and more or less living and breathing.

So here comes the part where I tell you to fund it. But I'm not going to. It's
your call. I'm a huge fan of the service already and I can tell you that
within the last two days, we've had a mobile web app, native iOS app, and
streaming web app pop up out of nowhere. It's a crazy active community, and
now's the time to get in. If you want to fund it, you probably know by now
where to do that. There's my 2 cents (though arguably that was like 80 cents).

~~~
icebraining
_something decentralized_

How so? Has anything changed in that regard?

~~~
possibilistic
This is something I would very much like to be informed about. If anyone knows
and wouldn't mind chiming in, I'd greatly appreciate it.

~~~
look_lookatme
Yes, me too. I can't possibly understand why anyone would crowdfund _another_
for-profit, proprietary, centralized platform.

edit: _crowdfund_

------
brajkovic
I hate to be that guy, but who gives a crap? I don't know of anyone who
actually uses any of the first 3 protocols listed here. RSS is somewhat
useful, but when would I not want to use a dedicated client or some client
library?

I'm not a backer but I'd rather they spend time developing their MVP and
building infrastructure so they don't have the same issues that were so
pervasive in Twitter's early years (Fail Whale every hour, anyone?).

~~~
icebraining
Atom is widely used (when you see "RSS", it's often Atom). And in any case,
outputting the data in an extra format takes barely any time.

As for PubSubHubBub, _all_ they have to do is add a tag to the feed with the
Hub's url and send a POST request to the Hub when the feed has updates; that's
it.

For the effort is takes (or should take, assuming they have a decent
architecture), and the advantage of being automatically compatible with a
bunch of existing applications, it'd seem strange _not_ to do it.

~~~
brajkovic
What existing applications besides RSS readers? Who uses PubSub and Webfinger,
and why would I want to use Atom/RSS for this type of service?

I don't see the point in this trying to be everything to everyone sort of
deal.

~~~
icebraining
I had a reply, but I lost it due to session shenanigans, and I don't want to
write it all again.

But for RSS applications: considering they already have more than 14000
Twitter recipes, supporting IFTTT seems an excellent reason for implementing
RSS. Particularly since it should take a few dozen lines of code, if that, in
any decent language.

------
kennywinker
I find myself more and more hoping app.net DOESN'T get funded. I want the
messaging-platform successor to twitter to be an open, distributed platform,
not a single-provider closed platform.

I like what they're planning to build, I just want that to be a layer built on
the open internet...

~~~
wamatt
hmm yeah. I mean I donated, but at the same time, I feel the whole app.net
thing == dalton and his emotions.

The video is "I, I, me, me". And less about "we".

Decentralised would be awesome, with some sort of non-profit organisation
accepting donations and paying bills.

~~~
mbreese
Who needs a non-profit accepting donations? You don't see a foundation setup
to support SMTP. The best solution for a decentralized approach would be a new
protocol (and don't call something that communicates with HTTP a new
protocol).

It could be all decentralized in the same way that email is - with DNS
records. And once the protocol is defined, there _could_ be many
implementations. What would be needed is:

    
    
        1) a server to server protocol (SMTP)
        2) a client to server protocol (perhaps a web interface would suffice, but really a client protocol would be better). (IMAP/POP3)
        3) Implementations of a server and a client (and a web interface for the server). (sendmail, mutt/thunderbird/etc...)
    

Who's up for it? Yes, I know that's a lot... I'm just tired of seeing people
propose a federated version of Twitter and end up going nowhere with a
complicated set of specs that are damn near impossible to implement. You
aren't going to convince the Google's, Yahoo's, and Microsoft's of the world
to support Diaspora. And that's who you need to convince - major email
providers. They are the the most familiar with providing free email/identities
to millions of people.

------
bslatkin
As a contributor to PubSubHubbub, OStatus, and friends, I am extremely happy
to see this. The protocols themselves aren't the important bits (though I like
them); what matters is the commitment to meaningful syndication in and out of
the platform.

------
Steko
Looks like the deadline is going to be tight.

Here's hoping that sometime Sunday night circa 11:55pm Larry Paige hits pause
on the Gangnam Style/Kanye remix he's been marathoning, Chromes his way to
app.net and kicks in the last 75 grand to fully fund it. Like a boss.

~~~
daveasaurus
From their site:

> App.net will only be funded if at least $500,000 is pledged by MONDAY,
> AUGUST 13 at 11:59PM PDT.

Why is this? They aren't going through Kickstarter, it's their own fundraising
system and a deadline chosen by the App.net folks themselves. It's just an
arbitrarily chosen deadline? A self imposed constraint that they can seemingly
modify at will?

~~~
mbreese
It could also be that they are holding people's money (or rather, credit card
info). And if they don't make their pledge goals, they can't collect that
money.

They made their own rules, but now they have to stick to them.

------
Todd
This is definitely a move in the right direction. These are some of the same
protocols that the Diaspora* folks have settled on. It will be interesting to
see the degree of compatibility they can achieve in federating.

------
markkat
Honestly I just want to see this funded because I want to see how it plays
out.

------
mcantelon
At a high level, how's this different from what Diaspora was trying to do
(other than having a clearer funding model)?

~~~
dkasper
Not a decentralized system for one.

~~~
jmathai
Or open source.

I'm not an open source zealot but I've been saying from the beginning that
it's the one piece that's missing here.

~~~
wamatt
Shit, didn't realize it wasn't open source. That sucks.

------
AznHisoka
I have never heard of any of these. Isn't email good enough? We're just
transmitting text from 1 person's monitor to another, not curing cancer here
(not being cynical, but with ALL the press/commotion over this, you'd think he
was doing something very ambitious)

~~~
andrew_simone
because he is doing something very ambitious. if you don't understand why,
that's fine, but don't dismiss it on that account.

------
riffic
OStatus?

