Microformats Wiki - User contributions [en]

social-network-portability

2007-08-08T13:00:20Z

BrianOberkirch:

<h1> Social Network Portability </h1>
<div style="float:right;margin-left:1em">__TOC__</div>
One of several [[user-interface]] ideas and suggestions for working with microformats.

== The Problem ==
Why is it that every single social network community site makes you:
* re-enter all your personal profile info (name, email, birthday, URL etc.)?
* re-add all your friends?

In addition, why do you have to:
* re-turn off notifications?
* re-specify privacy preferences?
* re-block [http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/04/angrynegative_p.html negative people]?

AKA "social network fatigue problem" and "social network update/maintenance problem".

== The Goals ==
When you join a new site, you should be able to ''import'' or preferably ''subscribe'' to
* your profile information
* your social network
from any existing profile of yours.

In addition it would be nice if preferences around:
* notifications
* privacy
also transferred between profiles.

AKA a social internetwork, a network of social networks.

== Design Patterns and Recipes ==

The "How To" for social network profile sites that want to solve the above problems and achieve the above goals.

# Publish microformats in your user profiles:
## implement [[hcard|hCard]] on user profile pages. See [[hcard-supporting-profiles]] for sites that have already done this.
## implement [[hcard|hCard]]+[[xfn|XFN]] on the list of friends on your user profile pages. See [[hcard-xfn-supporting-friends-lists]] for sites that already do this. (e.g. [[http://twitter.com/ Twitter]]).
# Subscribe to microformats for your user profiles:
## when signing up a new user:
### let a user fill out and <em title="Auto-sync is more than just one-time import, check it and sync-up once a day.">"auto-sync"</em> from one of their existing [[hcard-supporting-profiles]], their name, their icon etc. [http://microformats.org/blog/2007/06/21/microformatsorg-turns-2/ Satisfaction Inc already supports this.]
### let a user fill out and <em title="Auto-sync is more than just one-time import, check it and sync-up once a day.">"auto-sync"</em> their list of friends from one of their existing [[hcard-xfn-supporting-friends-lists|hCard+XFN supporting friends lists]]. [http://microformats.org/blog/2007/06/21/microformatsorg-turns-2/ Dopplr.com already supports this.]

== Social Network Portability FAQ ==
*''Doesn't [http://openid.net/ OpenID] address the re-enter all your personal profile info problem?''
** No it does not. OpenID is fundamentally about proving to one site that you own or control another particular URL. Nothing more. All the profile stuff is extra and even then the specific property set is unspecified in OpenID. That's where [[hcard|hCard]] comes in. hCard specifies a vocabulary of personal profile info (name, email, birthday, URL etc.) based on industry standard vCard. And in fact that's all you need to solve the "re-enter all your personal info" problem for public sites - no need to authenticate public URLs via OpenID, just read them and parse their hCard(s).
*''Doesn't OpenID provide people with a way to create a globally unique identifier for themselves?''
** It is URL (by way of DNS) that creates a globally unique identifier, not OpenID. All OpenID does is add ''authentication'' on top of having a URL that is itself a globally unique identifier, that is, OpenID is a way of asserting that you "own" or otherwise control a particular URL to another service/site. The essential quality of being a globally unique identifier is present in a URL even without OpenID. Thus, no, it is not OpenID that ''creates'' a ''globally unique identifier'', rather, simply using a ''URL'' creates a globally unique identifier. A URL ''by itself'' can be used as a basis for portable social networks, since it provides a way of referring to a single person that makes sense across the whole Web. And as such, people can (and will) create multiple URLs that represent them, so a method of enabling people to tie their URLs together (e.g. XFN's rel="me") becomes important. However, by adding authentication, OpenID can enhance existing globally unique identifier URLs for people, by permitting authenticated access to (perhaps more information in) profiles and social networks represented at those URLs using microformats.

== Issues ==
* For import/subscribe to hCard user profiles, "we need a defined heuristic for picking out the page owner from the friends." - Kevin Marks in IRC.
** There are some thoughts and proposed heuristics for this in [[hcard-brainstorming#Representative_hCard_discovery|hCard brainstorming: representative hCard discovery]].[[User:Tantek|Tantek]] 14:35, 31 Jul 2007 (PDT)

Profile information can be a very broad term judging from some of the horribly long profile forms I have seen on for instancy MyBlogLog. Some stuff should be essential, but optionally you can add pretty much anything as somebody's profile. Some optionals which could be nice to have:
* hResume markup for current (and previous) occupation and school history, maybe also for skills/interests.
* hReview markup to automatically get the favorite books, music, movies of somebody instead of duplicating it across sites.
[[User:Alper|Alper]] 05:44, 3 Aug 2007 (PDT)

== Discussion and suggestions ==
* Jeremy Keith: [http://adactio.com/journal/1209/ Twittering]: <blockquote><p>Here’s what I want: when I go to the latest social networking fadsite, I want it to ask for my URL. Then it can go off and fetch my [[hcard|hCard]] and [[xfn|XFN]] list. A pre-filled form for my details and a pre-filled list of potential contacts can then be presented to me.</p></blockquote>
* Derek Featherstone: [http://www.boxofchocolates.ca/archives/2006/11/21/solving-problems-with-social-networking Solving problems with social networking]
* Jeremy Keith: [http://adactio.com/journal/1212/ More thoughts on portable social networks]
* Glenn Jones: [http://www.glennjones.net/Post/820/Microformatsandportablesocialnetwork.htm Microformats and portable social network]
* Velvetsarah has [http://www.velvet.id.au/2006/11/23/portable-social-networks/ posted a screenshot and brainstorm] about how a site could handle importing XFN enabled contacts.
[http://www.velvet.id.au/2006/11/23/portable-social-networks/ http://www.velvet.id.au/out/wp-content/uploads/2006/11/picture-9.png]
* Jeremiah Owyang: [http://twitter.com/jowyang/statuses/156097392 Twittering]: <blockquote><p>What if we could port all our friends and family from one social network to another. Why do we have to continue to add people = annoying</p></blockquote>
* Brian Oberkirch: [http://urltea.com/10ee Highrise, microformats and portable social networks]
* Brian Oberkirch: [http://www.brianoberkirch.com/2007/08/08/building-blocks-for-portable-social-networks/ Building Blocks for Portable Social Networks]
* Kevin Lawver: [http://www.lawver.net/archive/2007/07/17/h12_portable_social_networks_at_mashup_camp.php A Portable Social Network Prototype] - A simple Ruby on Rails app that uses OpenID + XFN to look for users of the site w/ the same homepage as the href value and allows you to add them as contacts.
* Robert Gaal: [http://www.53miles.com/archives/making-openid-your-only-online-profile-alpha-dash Making OpenID your only online profile: Alpha Dash] - An abstract attempt to create one dashboard, to be used as a starting point for all social networks. It contains four elements: identity, ownership, presence and contacts (see comments also)
* Alper Çuğun: [http://fourstarters.com/2007/06/20/the-future-of-everything-is-social-consolidate-and-take-back-your-social-network/ The Future of Everything is Social: Consolidate and take back your social network]

See [[events/2007-07-28-portable-social-networks-meetup#blog_posts|blog posts following up]] from the [[events/2007-07-28-portable-social-networks-meetup|2007-07-28-portable social networks meetup]].

[http://technorati.com/search/microformats.org/wiki/social-network-portability View blog reactions]

== Articles ==
* 2007-08-02
** [http://www.brosbeforeblogs.com/2007/08/identity-crisis.html Identity Crisis part 1] <blockquote><p>We need to put the ownership of how we define relationships online in the hands of the individual, not the services that utilize them.</p><p>My theory on how this should be accomplished is based on a marriage of OpenID and an open standard for defining relationships such as the [[XFN]] [http://microformats.org/ Microformat]. </p></blockquote>
** [http://www.brianoberkirch.com/2007/08/02/deeelightful-making-profile-import-a-snap/ Deeelightful: Making Profile Import a Snap] <blockquote><p>Why not make it simple for them to jumpstart a profile by reusing information they already have on the [[hcard|Web? Some forward thinking Web services are marking up user profile data with hCard, a microformat that]] signifies a person, place or organization is being described.</p></blockquote>

== See also ==
* [[user-interface]]
* [[hcard|hCard]]
* [[xfn]]

== Notes ==
[[events/2007-07-28-portable-social-networks-meetup|2007-07-28 Meeting]] between Daniel Burka, [[User:Tantek|Tantek Çelik]], Eran Globen, Brian Oberkirch at Ritual Coffee Roasters, San Francisco, CA.
* discussed portable social networks, problem statement, goals, design patterns, recipes

user-interface

2007-07-18T20:28:27Z

BrianOberkirch:

<h1> User Interface </h1>

Recently there have been many really good user interface ideas and suggestions for working with microformats. This page serves to collect and document them so that we may be inspired by and iterate on each others' works.

__TOC__

== Implementations ==

See [[implementations]], and document examples of good UI from there, here.
* [[Miffy]] inserts a green square into the document to represent the presence of microformat
* Some [[Greasemonkey]] scripts use a separate iFrame for microformat content
* Other [[Greasemonkey]] scripts insert an icon inline into the page
* [https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2240/ Tails Export] (Firefox extension) can display and export some microformats.

== Design Guidelines ==

These are some suggested design guidelines for Web designers and developers by [http://blog.mozilla.com/faaborg/ Alex Faaborg], a user experience designer at Mozilla:
*Design based on actions, not data. A button that says "Send to Calendar" is considerably more useable than a green button that simply says "hCalendar"
*Use iconic images instead of acronyms. In addition to being more descriptive, they localize better. Here are some I've been showing in various talks: [http://people.mozilla.com/~faaborg/files/20061213-fundamentalTypes/fundamentalTypesStatic.jpg_large.jpg microformat icons]. These are still very preliminary. Mozilla will likely release all of the source artwork for our microformat icons under a creative commons license around the launch of Firefox 3. This will enable Web designers to integrate the icons into their sites, and other Web browsers can consider using a similar set of icons.

== Challenges ==

* Chris Messina: "What kind of solutions can we come up with that are single click only?"
* Andy Mabbett - How can we make them [[accessibility|accessible]] to people with (for instance) visual disabilities?
* Alex Faaborg: Mozilla has had inquiries from reporters in the mainstream media (Wired and Business Week) who wanted to cover microformats in stories about the future of the Web browser, but they then later backed out because they felt the term "microformats" would only appeal to developers, and not the average reader. These types of mainstream stories need to focus on the user experience, and not the underlying technology, but what term should reporters use to describe the overall feature?

== Social Network Portability ==
(This section may be deserving of its own page.)

=== The Problem ===
Why is it that every single social network community site makes you:
* re-enter all your personal profile info (name, email, birthday, URL etc.)
* re-add all your friends
?

=== The Goal ===
Instead, let's see some user interface suggestions for sites to simply ''import'' or, even better ''subscribe to'':
* your [[hcard|hCard]] from your URL (blog, profile from another service etc.)
** [http://getsatisfaction.com/people/new Satisfaction Inc. now has a user interface for importing hCards] as [http://microformats.org/blog/2007/06/21/microformatsorg-turns-2/ described on the microformats blog].
* your list of [[xfn|XFN]] contacts, acquaintances, friends etc. again from your URL (blog, etc.)
** [http://www.flickr.com/photos/factoryjoe/576635008/ Dopplr.com has a UI for importing your social network via XFN], also as [http://microformats.org/blog/2007/06/21/microformatsorg-turns-2/ described on the microformats blog].

=== Discussion and suggestions ===
* Jeremy Keith: [http://adactio.com/journal/1209/ Twittering]: <blockquote><p>Here’s what I want: when I go to the latest social networking fadsite, I want it to ask for my URL. Then it can go off and fetch my [[hcard|hCard]] and [[xfn|XFN]] list. A pre-filled form for my details and a pre-filled list of potential contacts can then be presented to me.</p></blockquote>
* Derek Featherstone: [http://www.boxofchocolates.ca/archives/2006/11/21/solving-problems-with-social-networking Solving problems with social networking]
* Jeremy Keith: [http://adactio.com/journal/1212/ More thoughts on portable social networks]
* Glenn Jones: [http://www.glennjones.net/Post/820/Microformatsandportablesocialnetwork.htm Microformats and portable social network]
* Velvetsarah has [http://www.velvet.id.au/2006/11/23/portable-social-networks/ posted a screenshot and brainstorm] about how a site could handle importing XFN enabled contacts.
[http://www.velvet.id.au/2006/11/23/portable-social-networks/ http://www.velvet.id.au/out/wp-content/uploads/2006/11/picture-9.png]
* Jeremiah Owyang: [http://twitter.com/jowyang/statuses/156097392 Twittering]: <blockquote><p>What if we could port all our friends and family from one social network to another. Why do we have to continue to add people = annoying</p></blockquote>
* Brian Oberkirch: [http://urltea.com/10ee Highrise, microformats and portable social networks]

=== Social Network Portability FAQ ===
*''Doesn't [http://openid.net/ OpenID] address the re-enter all your personal profile info problem?''
** No it does not. OpenID is fundamentally about proving to one site that you own or control another particular URL. Nothing more. All the profile stuff is extra and even then the specific property set is unspecified in OpenID. That's where [[hcard|hCard]] comes in. hCard specifies a vocabulary of personal profile info (name, email, birthday, URL etc.) based on industry standard vCard. And in fact that's all you need to solve the "re-enter all your personal info" problem for public sites - no need to authenticate public URLs via OpenID, just read them and parse their hCard(s).

== Browser Integration ==

From screenshot brainstorms to working plugins, there is a lot going on with browser integration of microformats support.

=== Screen Shots ===
* [http://blog.mozilla.com/faaborg/2007/02/04/microformats-part-4-the-user-interface-of-microformat-detection/ Conceptual Mockups of Microformat Detection in Firefox 3]
* [http://www.hicksdesign.co.uk/journal/a-proposal-for-a-safari-microformats-plugin Jon Hicks: Proposal for a Safari Microformats plugin] <br /> [http://www.hicksdesign.co.uk/journal/a-proposal-for-a-safari-microformats-plugin http://www.hicksdesign.co.uk/images/txp/197t.png]
* [http://ben-ward.co.uk/journal/microformats-ui/ Ben Ward: Microformats in Web Browsers] <br /> [http://ben-ward.co.uk/journal/microformats-ui/ http://ben-ward.co.uk/res/posts/uf-web-browser/autodiscovery.png]
* [http://blog.wilsonet.com/archives/2006/04/30/microformats-in-flock/ Microformats in Flock] <br /> [http://blog.wilsonet.com/archives/2006/04/30/microformats-in-flock/ http://blog.wilsonet.com/mockups/Flock/Flock-PickContacts_thumbnail.png]

=== Plugins ===

* The microformat [[implementations]] page has some Greasemonkey scripts.
* http://greasemonkey.makedatamakesense.com/callto_tel/ by Scott Reynen
* [https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2240/ Tails Export] (Firefox extension) by Robert de Bruin.
* Jon Hicks has written [http://www.hicksdesign.co.uk/journal/highlight-microformats-with-css a user stylesheet for Mac browsers] that highlights hCard and hCalendar data.

=== Planning and Discussion ===

*[http://wiki.mozilla.org/Microformats Discussion of microformat detection in Firefox 3]
*[http://wiki.mozilla.org/Microformats/UE/ideas UI brainstorming on the Mozilla Wiki]
* The [http://wiki.caminobrowser.org/Development:Planning:Microformats Camino Wiki has a page] where future microformats support is being discussed and organized

== Simpler Markup Languages ==

There are plenty of [[wiki-formats]] that attempt to make it easier for more people author semantic markup, often with textually decorative punctuation.

As these simpler markup languages are something that *users* are expected to type, they are user interface.

=== Markdown extension for hCalendar ===

See [http://article.gmane.org/gmane.text.markdown.general/2027 Markdown and the hCal microformat] which proposes an extension to the Markdown text markup language to capture and represent hCalendar event semantics in a human editable form.