So from using open-source AJAX library DojoToolkit to creating and implementing the widget microformat, they seem to be doing some things right — of course my profile looks like arse, but the possibility for greatness persists.
Category: microformats
Event In a Suitcase and Running Remote S5 Presentations
Continuing the tradition of the “Event in a…” meme, we came up with the notion of “Event in a Suitcase” at the most recent Mash Pit.
The idea is pretty simple: make it easy to walk into a room and make a presentation.
Well, among the five of us, we came to the conclusion that there’s nothing really that makes it easy. There are tools, both hardware and software, that make it possible, and writing them down was a good place to start from. But there really isn’t an open source or free workflow that gets us where we want to be… where everything is affordable and fits in a literal suitcase.
So anyway, we documented our work and could use more help. If you’ve got ideas, tools, solutions, workflows or whatever, add them!
· · ·
So, one of the cool hacks that we brainstormed and that Kevin Marks was actually able to implement before the day was out involved Eric Meyer’s public domain slideshow format S5. Essentially he made it possible for people watching an S5 presentation, like Tantek’s excellent Building Blocks for Independent, to see the slides change as the presenter changes them.
Of course bringing this awesome hack together with a Gizmo call-in means that people can at least watch and listen remotely as presentation happens — and participate in IRC. So voila, it’s like NetMeeting, but open source! Anyway, Kevin’s code is in Twisted and now that I’ve blogged this, hopefully he’ll be incented to clean it up and publish it!
ClaimID makes the OpenID connection
I have to say that it’s things like this that really make me shiver with excitement…
I mean, it’s pretty simple, but it’s also pretty important.
What’s the big deal? Well, for one thing, it’s yet another site adopting OpenID, a decentralized identity system. And, as more and more sites adopt this system (which should remain transparent to end-users if they don’t want an OpenID), we near ever-closer to a lightweight, single sign-on solution.
To be sure, OpenID isn’t a panacea. It’s not intended to be one. The primary attractiveness of OpenID is its simplicity: it’s decoupled the issue of trust from identity and simply offers a way of staking your identity to a given URL. In a sense, if you can trust the credentials of Website X, then you (as a web service provider) can trust accounts created on that domain as well. The benefit for the account holder is that they don’t have to re-register on Website Y.
Note that this is a web-centric solution and doesn’t carry well into the real world where people don’t identify themselves by URLs (hmm, what if instead of a social security number, we were assigned a URL at birth? whoa.).
The other thing that’s great about this announcement is that it’s the work of Scott Kveton’s new startup, JanRain. I brought Scott and Terrell Russell together some time ago, so it’s awesome to see the fruits of this connection already — and that Scott’s going off to do this kind of work full-time.
What I want to see? Well, the proliferation of OpenID across all the various sites that I use. The cost is minimal since the libraries are being developed on all kinds of platforms — and it should integrate fairly well with existing login schemes. Then I want to see either Ma.gnolia or ClaimID add support for XFN (they already support hCards and ClaimID allows for custom rel values). Then, of course, we need to be able to string together (loosely coupled, mind you) my contact list and my group membership list so that I can import and export them wherever I go (obviously this should be done with microformats). Once we’ve got that situation fleshed out, and I’ve claimed my sites with either MicroID or (preferrably) rel=me, I’ll have a pretty portable social network to carry around the web!
Yahoo! Local goes Cuckoo for CoCo Puffs!
The title means nothing, but today at Supernova, Andy Baio announced that Yahoo! Local has added support across the board for hCard, hCalendar and hReview, following Flickr, Upcoming and Yahoo! Tech (blurry video 1, video 2 — turn it up!).
I can’t exactly say what adding 10s of millions of microformatted bits of data will do for the web, but it certainly makes the rush to develop UI around this new opportunity all the greater…
Oh, and bonus: when I was at Flock, I wanted to see ground-level integration of microformats in the browser. Imagine having Lucene indexing all the microformatted content that you come across on the web (whether you know it or not) and then having that data separated out for use in extensions, in filling out forms, in generating new cross-sections and views of your ‘history’. And Rohit gave me another side of that idea: being able to autofill forms anywhere by creating an index of microformat classes-to-input value pairs for specific websites… Yeah, the client/browser part is going to be key to making all this work have obvious value for folks on the web. Can’t wait to see how this moves forward.
MashPit by day, Microformats by night
Today I’ll be hosting the third Mash Pit in San Francisco at the Wharton West, downtown at 101 Howard Street, Suite 500. Things kick off at 10am and go until 5pm (not 6pm, necessitated by the facilities and the fact that we’ll be hungry!).
What can you expect? Well, it’s pretty simple. The goal of the day is work on mashups — particularly ones that work on solving “human problems” — like making it easier to find wifi cafes in the city or autotag your photos based on your Upcoming or EVDB account (which, by the way, is really about making it easier to help folks find your photos later).
Tara and I came up with the agenda this morning. We’ve got a bit of experience now, so we’ll see how it goes!
And of course, after this is all over, tonight is the Microformats 1-year Anniversary Party at 111 Minna. We’re pretty excited about how far this little fledgling community project has come in the last year and want to celebrate! It gets going around 8pm — and, if you can’t be there, you can always order a shirt!
Ah! And before I forget, a big thanks to Tara, Tantek, the Supernova folks (especially Kevin and Jeanne!), and Mozes for helping make Mash Pit possible!
For the rest of the month
…there will be nothing but events. I kid you not.
- June 20, 2006 – 10:00 – 18:00 – MashPit San Francisco III – at Wharton West, 101 Howard Street, Suite 500, San Francisco, CA
- June 20, 2006 – 20:00 – Microformats 1-year Anniversary Party – at 111 Minna Street, San Francisco, CA
- June 21 – 23, 2006 – Supernova 2006 – at The Palace Hotel, 2 New Montgomery Street, San Francisco, CA
- June 23 – 24, 2006 – BloggerCon IV – at CNET, 235 2nd Street, San Francisco, CA
- June 23, 2006 – 19:00 – 24:00 – BarCampSanFrancisco Kick-off Party – at Microsoft Offices, One Market Street 2nd Floor, San Francisco, CA
- June 23 – 25, 2006 – BarCampSanFrancisco – at Microsoft Offices, One Market Street 2nd Floor, San Francisco, CA
- June 29 – July 01, 2006 – Gnomedex 6.0 – at Bell Harbor International Conference Center, 2211 Alaskan Way, Seattle, WA
(And yes, you can add these events to your calendar easily.)
Oh, and cool sidenote, Senator John Edwards will be keynoting Gnomedex. Guess if you can’t get the inventor of the internets, you can at least get a running mate.
Change is good
In case you missed it (and I don’t really blog too much about personal stuff much, but it’s okay to be a little human once and again), Tara and Riya have bid each other their farewells and both are moving on to the next chapters of their storied Web 2.0 lives. Not unlike a certain fella you may know. Hmmh. Funny, n’est-ce pas?
We also packed up most of my stuff from Teh Langpad this weekend and moved it over to Tara’s place where I’ve pretty much been livin’ anyway. But yeah. Ho boy.
And, as you know, Teh Space is off and running. Like, a real workspace (but it’s still not the same as finally having something of a home). But still.
Oh, and tomorrow I leave for France until Sunday. Yowza.
And did I mention Picoformats (shuddup, yes I am serious)?
Well, anyway, this whole post is really about Tara and how brave she is to be going out on her own in all this. There’s a lot that she has to figure out, but even more opportunity that she needs to figure out how to make the most of it… I’m proud to be her PiC and to watch eagerly as she ponders her next steps and where she’ll lead the Pinko Brigades from this point onward.
I’ll tell you one thing, it only gets more interesting from here.
Egg, meet chicken
For all you nay-sayers out there waiting for some reason to implement microformats, you now have no excuse.
Not only can you search for microformats (like my hcard — search for “messina“) but you can also submit your content for indexing to the newly launched Pingerati site. The search so far covers hCard, hCalendar and hReview… and I’m hoping to get more conversations kicked off around better interfaces for microformats as well as more practical ways of implementing and making use of microformats (like Jeremy Keith’s austin.adactio.com page).
In any case, we finally have a use besides filling your address book for all those conference speaker pages that Tantek has converted!
Scrambled, thoughts
Microformats capture creativity. It inspires imagination.
Those things which inspire rethinking what’s possible generate energy.
Tools that succeed enable the harnessing of that potential power.
. . .
Blue Bottle Coffee is magical.
. . .
My Blackberry has increased my productivity elevenfold.
I need more elevenfold productivity increases.
. . .
How will we deal with the deluge of information raining down upon us?
The torrent is upon us, those of us beneath the wave are struggling for air; sucking it out of each other’s lungs.
. . .
What is the cost of perspective?
. . .
If I were Steven Colbert’s mum, I would be extremely proud.
Out of Towner Meetup: Teh Boris & ClaimID
Everyone’s favorite hand waver, Boris Mann of Bryght is here as well and Fred Stutzman and Terrell Russell of ClaimID for Startup School and IIW and are huuuuungry!
It’s last minute, I know, but if you can make it to tonight’s Out of Towner at Osha Thai at 7:30pm you can expect some great food and very captivating conversation!
…specifically:
- Identity 2.0
- Drupal
- Microformats
- NP Tech
- Coworking
- Open source
- …other yadda yadda!
Ok, c u there. Kbai!
Factory Joe 