

What is jsHub? - jgrahamc
http://www.jgc.org/blog/2009/10/what-is-jshub.html

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pmichaud
I read your explanation, understood that it's a kind of external javascript
combining machine to limit http requests and size, while increasing
reliability.

I then went to your site to check out the demo and found a page with lots and
lots of external javascript requests, and something about a microformat.

I'm still confused.

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willwagner
I think his point is the same thing I'm having a problem understanding. I went
to the demo site and saw 17 scripts loaded on the page using firebug; I
assumed from the description there would be only one.

Microformats aside, I'm trying to understand the solution to the hub part
because that sounds like a problem many people would be interested in fixing.

~~~
jgrahamc
The problem jsHub is trying to solve is not "only ever load one piece of
JavaScript in a page" it's "only have one piece of JavaScript for tracking,
ad-serving, behavioural targetting, ...".

The reasons to do that are laid out in my blog post but the most important is
consistency. If one piece of JavaScript gathers the data once and passes it to
various vendors, then you know that the same data was sent, and was actually
sent.

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eli
So lets say I maintain some medium-to-large corporate websites (because, well,
I do).

I want jsHub because it makes my sites load faster, right? How much faster?
Any way to get some test cases or examples?

Differences in hit counts and visits between products are indeed annoying, but
it serves as a check. How else would we know if traffic dipped overnight or
jsHub went down? Also, I think part of the difference in those counts is due
to different algorithms for what constitutes a "visit" and different filtering
for bots.

And for the microformats, I hope you realize that's an uphill battle. I can't
justify redesigning my pages to use some new format without a material
benefit.

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jgrahamc
There is no 'jsHub' to go down. The entire thing is JavaScript inside the
browser. There's no dependency on anything at jshub.org.

Microformats aren't asking for a page redesign. They are just class names. Our
argument is that a clear specification is many times better than obscure
JavaScript variables inside a Omniture tag, or parameters in a comScore
Beacon, ...

Finally, the whole point of jsHub is that won't have to tag your site again.
Adding a new product to a jsHub tagged web site means just changing the
plugins in your jsHub set up.

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eli
Thanks, I could have sworn there was a hosted version, but clearly I'm
mistaken.

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jrockway
Good idea, but how about not collecting tracking data at all? If you want to
know about my web habits, ask me, or pay me to participate in a controlled
study. But just spying on anything that you have access to is just going to
get you blacklisted in noscript with prejudice.

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metafeather
Disclaimer: I'm a jsHub.org founder

One of the key reasons for using a microformat (hPage) is the principle to
"design for humans first and machines second".

We provide an Inspector tool on our Demo store to meet this principle and hope
that, with the microformat's community's help, we can make the data visible in
many other tools.

We would like to make website publishers and users more aware of the data
being declared and collected so it can be more accurate and therefore more
beneficial to all involved.

Currently many users are unaware data is being collected at all.

~~~
_phred
This is a noble goal — letting the user and site publisher know what data is
collected — however, I don't see what the benefit is to the ad providers or
data collectors on the sites, other than that they might possibly be able to
simplify their Javascript and reduce the load time in pages with that use
their scripts.

Am I missing something? Unless consumers start demanding to know what
information is collected about them, I don't think that the benefits jsHub has
for ad providers are important, and that they won't implement a plugin until
they're pushed by some other forces. In other words: the merit of technical
innovation isn't enough for them to change their behavior, and they need a
bigger incentive in order to consider using jsHub at all.

