#indiewebcamp 2012-07-29
2012-07-29 UTC
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@brennannovak @aaronpk yes, it is a rad project by @daltonc you should donate as well, as it may be something instrumental in the #IndieWeb taking off!
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@BarnabyWalters @aaronpk @brennannovak Okay, so it's a realtime feed IAAS-type thing with a social network as a facade. I'm not seeing #indieweb relevance…?
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# @brennannovak @aaronpk @BarnabyWalters ah but git is not as ephemeral as a protocol, it's an application- which I think is why #IndieWeb struggles, it is
# @brennannovak @aaronpk @BarnabyWalters of the companies doing such things- thus that trend ended... which gave birth to the idea of the FWS & #IndieWeb
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@aaronpk @brennannovak @BarnabyWalters That's a good point, and is also the reason Wordpress has worked so well for the #IndieWeb.
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barnabywalters aaronpk: hello — haven't spoken to you for a while apart form twitter just now!
# barnabywalters looks like brennannovak's here too - hey
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brennannovak yo
# brennannovak how goes it?
# barnabywalters apart from just having been to a funeral, and being stuffed up with cold, I'm good! You?
# barnabywalters aaronpk: also, the logging here is more useful that the logging on twitter
# brennannovak barnabywalters: yowzers, well hope you feel better
# barnabywalters brennannovak: I have the house to myself for a week so it'll be nice and quiet for me to recover :)
# barnabywalters so, the whole protocols vs apps vs decentralisation vs semi-decentralisation thing…
# barnabywalters I get that protocols confuse people, especially myself when it comes to the Federated Social Internet thing
# brennannovak ok, so?
# barnabywalters but I'm unwilling to accept that going against the principles of the indieweb is a good solution to make it more widely accepted
# brennannovak the way I see it is like email- 98% of people don't host and maintain their own SMTP and POP/IMAP
# barnabywalters but email clients just hide the protocols — the protocols confusing users is not a problem
# brennannovak server- they rely on Gmail or SendGrid or PostMark or Mailgun (or whatever) to make some aspect of the whole thing easier and more reliable
# barnabywalters and whatever provider you use is interoperable with others
# @BarnabyWalters @tylergillies we're continuing the discussion on the indiewebcamp freenode IRC room if you want to join in
# barnabywalters ditto
# brennannovak right... so the problem with the IndieWeb IMHO is one of physics- inertia specifically
# barnabywalters aaronpk: from reading several long blog posts, I think the twitter-like service is kind of a 'sample app' to get people hooked on the platform
# barnabywalters to solve the chicken-egg problem I suppose
# barnabywalters and to help users understand what app.net does (or rather, remove the need for them to understand it)
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# barnabywalters hey TylerGillies
# brennannovak barnabywalters: yes
# TylerGillies barnabywalters: allo
# barnabywalters TylerGillies: might be an idea to have a quick peek at the logs to see what we've been ranting to eachotuerh about for the past 5 mins
# brennannovak yes, but the role of blogging is fundamentally different than that of social networks
# TylerGillies barnabywalters: ok thnx
# barnabywalters brennannovak: care to elaborate?
# barnabywalters are you referring to magazine-blogging as opposed to social/micro-blogging, or is it a different argument?
# brennannovak as Git is fundamentally different as well- neither Git (nor blogging) "rely" on a critical mass of users for its existence to matter- social networks do
# brennannovak yes magazine-blogging, or long articles as opposed to snippets
# barnabywalters okay
# brennannovak the IndieWeb and FSW sprung up out the rise of large free social networks (FaceSpace, MyBook, Tweeters, etc...), these networks all have critical mass (lotsa users) but all of us users are at the whims of these networks
# brennannovak and when these networks do things that threaten the users- in Twitters case the use of the API in the way ppl were naturally using it- and in Facebooks case, the privacy and intentions of the platform itsel
# TylerGillies going back to wordpress vs git
# TylerGillies git protocol was designed to be p2p
# TylerGillies atom/rss is publish subscribe
# brennannovak out of the door App.Net will NOT address the critical mass issue, but (in my thinking) services that could be built on top of App.Net will come to address the critical mass issue
# brennannovak but since the service is "PAID" for by the users, it will not be scrambling to raise a Series N round of $$$,$$$,$$$,$$$ in order to stay afloat- all the while sending tidal waves through the various social networks which have been built on top of it's platform because their new revenue model dictates they need to do such thigns
# barnabywalters brennannovak: right, so we'll end up with a proprietary, paid infrastructure that allows apps to be semi-interoperable. I'm not really seeing how this promotes indieweb!
# brennannovak semi-interoperable is the key
# TylerGillies brennannovak: why question is, can i profit from doing things the app.net way?
# TylerGillies is gonna start SelloutWebCamp
# TylerGillies s/why/my/
# brennannovak lowering that bar of entry- so a simple API with some auth mechanism, some standardized read/write API spec will make it CONSIDERABLY easier than all current methods of federating status updates
# barnabywalters brennannovak: one of the biggest pulls of indieweb (for me) is that it uses the infrastructure that the web provides (familiar, interoperable, mostly standardised) as the platform for a social network
# brennannovak TylerGillies: no, no profits here, bro- go hustle elsewhere ;0
# barnabywalters sure — so the FSW protocols we have are difficult to implement — surely we can come up with a better way of providing that functionality without relying on a central infrastructure other than the web itself
# brennannovak barnabywalters: but that infrastructure which IS the web, and FSW is a nightmare- no one has any interoperable node in place
# barnabywalters brennannovak: IMO due to overengineering and design by committee (*ahem* activitystreams)
# barnabywalters as no-one's got an interoperable node in place, there's nothing stopping us throwing away the FSW crap we have
# brennannovak no one is making Status.Net talk to Diaspora... it's not worth the effort... and aaronpk: making *better* tools- is a lot of damn work...
# TylerGillies democracy is over rated, theres a lot to say for benevolent dictatorships
# barnabywalters aaronpk: and as you pointed out, pingback is really widely implemented
# brennannovak TylerGillies: bugger off you facist
# TylerGillies im not talking governments, the CEO is a benevolent dictator to a certain point
# barnabywalters brennannovak: I have… opinions… about D* that I will write about some other time. You can actually subscribe to a D* user from statusnet (something i figured out when some D* dev was trying to implement syndication to SN), but it works poorly
# barnabywalters aaronpk: i think a solid technique might be to host your own content with MF etc, and then rely on hosted services to provide extra functionality e.g. your pingback/indieauth servers
# brennannovak and everyone is so damn opinionated about *which* practice, ethos, purpose, higher calling, language, framework, god, etc... the tools / protocols should be built on- we end up with too many options and one of which work well together
# TylerGillies aaronpk: all those protocols bundled together is essentially OStatus
# barnabywalters brennannovak++
# TylerGillies brennannovak: i think we all agree that i am god ;)
# brennannovak which is why we end up with a http://xkcd.com/927/
# TylerGillies brennannovak++
# barnabywalters brennannovak: does it say something about me that I know exactly which comic you've linked to without clicking through? :)
# TylerGillies LOLOLOL
# TylerGillies not sure if awesome or really sad
# barnabywalters clicks through to confirm geekiness
# brennannovak heh
# barnabywalters yep :)
# brennannovak barnabywalters++
# TylerGillies isn't that what statusnet enterprise edition is?
# brennannovak centralization vs. dencentralization is this incredible life cycle, almost every industry, service, and product has done complete 180 swings many times over
# barnabywalters aaronpk: I think that was D*'s goal, before it went crap
# barnabywalters brennannovak++
# brennannovak aaronpk: I don't think app.net doing something like that would be out of the question, Dalton is a solid dude and more of an engineer than suit
# brennannovak which is why the idea isn't "Selling" like a hot tamale...
# TylerGillies what about engineers that wear suits?
# brennannovak TylerGillies: posers
# brennannovak can only be one or the other ;)
# barnabywalters hah
# TylerGillies brennannovak: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aaronpk/7158685407/
# barnabywalters aaronpk: that strikes me as being almost the word-for-word opposite of the indieweb mission statement…
# barnabywalters it's also quite a bit more concise than the 'explanation' of what appnet offers… :|
# brennannovak ack, I dunno what more I can really say to explain why I really believe in the idea
# barnabywalters brennannovak: I don't think there's much point in <del>arguing</del><ins>debating</ins> about it any more that we have
# TylerGillies support app.net prevent global warming
# TylerGillies ;)
# barnabywalters we may as well just build/support the things we believe in and see whether or not they work out
# barnabywalters as you have pointed out, it's pretty futile trying to get anyone to agree on mentality/implementation ;)
# brennannovak either my brain is free associating a bunch of stuff that it really shouldn't be (as their is no value), or somehow I am leaving out that one *most crucial* aspect that will make sense to you both
# brennannovak *there
# barnabywalters brennannovak: TBH at this stage I'm finding it really difficult to understand exactly what service app.net are going to provide, to who, who'll pay for it etc
# brennannovak lol, gotcha
# barnabywalters maybe when it's going (if it does) it'll click, one way or the other
# TylerGillies even if they built something as good as twitter i would pay for it
# TylerGillies without building anything else
# brennannovak TylerGillies: would or woudn't ?
# TylerGillies as good meaning the network of my peers was there as well
# TylerGillies i would
# TylerGillies i can't argue about paying for saas
# TylerGillies my customers pay like 1500 a month
# TylerGillies ;)
# barnabywalters goes off to figure out what TylerGillies does :)
# TylerGillies barnabywalters: http://plexusengine.com (shameless plug)
# brennannovak I just reached the answer to my thought experiment- to the BlogCave, bbl
# barnabywalters brennannovak: woo!
# brennannovak dons a cape & mask and enters his secret code
# barnabywalters :D
# TylerGillies didn't realize he was an unwilling participant in a perverted thought experiment
# barnabywalters this was all a thought experiment? damn. I feel cheated ;)
# barnabywalters TylerGillies: so plexusengine is a data-mining/aggregation/processing type thingy?
# brennannovak barnabywalters: yah, don't trust TylerGillies: he's a shifty one
# brennannovak :P
# barnabywalters that could come in really useful for some of my more experimental musical ideas
# TylerGillies barnabywalters: my internet died just got it back
# barnabywalters np
# TylerGillies barnabywalters: essentially you pick a topic of interest and it discovers the top experts in that field
# barnabywalters ah, okay. not what I thought it was then
# barnabywalters does it just look on the web or elsewhere?
# TylerGillies barnabywalters: twitter and blogs right now
# TylerGillies its kinda prototyped, we our building our team right now
# TylerGillies its b2b service our customers are marketing and PR people mostly
# TylerGillies hopefully some ad agencies in the near future
# barnabywalters ah, okay
# barnabywalters sounds cool — not having any experience in marketing or PR, I can't really understand what the use cases are
# TylerGillies our problem is what the use cases _aren't_ and trying to narrow it down
# TylerGillies because i mean everyone everywhere wants to know the top people in their field or an interesting field
# TylerGillies if you don't i feel sorry for you (the proverbial you)
# barnabywalters so they know who to follow, who is respected, sure
# barnabywalters I suppose it's the kind of thing which takes some time to build up naturally, so I can see the benefit
# TylerGillies our pitch goes something like "why spend tons of hours paying tons of money to mine what we can in a matter of minutes, before you do anything, run a plexus report"
# barnabywalters fair enough
# TylerGillies barnabywalters: im secretly honing my pitch on you ;)
# barnabywalters lol — I don't think I'm *quite* your target audience ;)
# TylerGillies barnabywalters: i know, it helps to pitch anyone and everyone im learning, even if you know you won't get anything out of it
# TylerGillies because everyone has a different opinion on whats wrong with it, which is super helpful is tackling those questions when they actually come up in an important pitch
# TylerGillies s/is/in/
# barnabywalters very true. Well, coming from some kid in the UK who makes guitars and websites, my response to your pitch is: Makes sense provided I'm currently paying someone a load of money to find out who the experts are. As I'm not, your service is not particularly valuable to me (not that it matters as I'm not your target audience)
# barnabywalters if I *was*, I'd sign up right away :)
# TylerGillies lol thnx heh
# TylerGillies now i can go to an investor and say "Even some guy in the UK who has no use for my service would buy it, give me money"
# barnabywalters :D :) :D
# barnabywalters I'm happy to have been of service. Please fax me your mailing address so I can send you my consultancy bill ;)
# TylerGillies brennannovak: whats your address?
# TylerGillies ;)
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# brennannovak TylerGillies: i'm not giving you my address... also, you know where I live- which is worse
# brennannovak ah this coffeeshop is playing transmissions of space ships for the last half hour
# barnabywalters brennannovak: you live in a cool place
# brennannovak heh
# brennannovak barnabywalters: speaking of living places- were you able to get a ticket to dConstruct?
# barnabywalters brennannovak: nope, out of choice. Gone a little over my festival/conference budget this year as it is
# barnabywalters still planning to get to IWCUK if it's happening, I have relatives on the way and in London who I havn't seen for a while
# barnabywalters s/havn't/haven't
# brennannovak ah
# barnabywalters did tantek say something about cutting it down to one day?
# barnabywalters okay, I'm signing off for the night. bye for the mo everyone
# brennannovak aaronpk: yah, PHP is being talked about :) I just commented on this feature req https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=40296&edit=2
# brennannovak I dunno *is* that a good argument?
# brennannovak see my response
# brennannovak which is what if (!$value) is saying
# brennannovak eheh
# brennannovak aw
# brennannovak aaronpk: what is the most popular IndieWeb initiatives for "like" buttons?
# brennannovak cool
# brennannovak thnx
# brennannovak aaronpk: where you hackin at?
# brennannovak aaronpk: wanna come up to Anna Bananas on 21st in a lil bit? Amanda is gonna learn some Python... then we could wander over to VoiceBox
# brennannovak oh okie
# TylerGillies i like unless after a statement
# TylerGillies like kill(frog) unless frog.colour == green
# TylerGillies i use or the same way
# TylerGillies kill(frog) or raise "We can't kill this damn frog"
# brennannovak #frogkiller
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