Blogging Roller

Lots of latest links: social networking APIs and more

Dave Johnson — Mon, 4 Feb 2008 14:00:07 +0000

First, some links from open source projects I'm trying to follow. Check out the JMaki Webtop widget, it looks pretty useful. Now that I've got JMaki support in Roller, this could be the basis for some cool drag-and-drop blog layout. Wish I had time for that; I'm still trying to carve out some time to dig into the Abdera server framework.

jMaki Webtop
Cool iGoogle style portal interface via JMaki
JSPWiki: JSP Wiki 3 Design
JCR back-end, wiki spaces and more...
Abdera Server Implementation Guide
"The Abdera Server module provides a framework for constructing Atom Publishing Protocol server implementations."

I'm also following OpenSocial and Shindig (the reference implementation of OpenSocial) pretty closely, but thus far have not had time to dive into the code. There's lots of activity on the Shindig list, but thus far there's no server-side and security is still up in the air -- both are pending change to the spec itself. Marc Cantor has an interesting perspective on the OpenSocial.

ShindigStarted - hyves_api - Trac
"a small guide on how to get started on Shindig."
CNET Mark Cantor: Waiting for the OpenSocial hammer to drop
"We all hope that MySpace, Bebo, and others will open up and go beyond the original scope of OpenSocial to lay the groundwork for a truly open world of social networking."
<a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/01/17/kickapps-publishes-api-kit-adopts-facebook-and-opensocial-platform- standards/">KickApps Publishes API, Adopts Facebook and OpenSocial standards
"KickApps has adopted Googleâ€™s OpenSocial developer platform standards and is working with Facebook to adopt that companyâ€™s standards as well."

I'm also following Facebook. While Google and friends scramble to catch up, Facebook Apps are getting easier to write, thanks to a new JavaScript API, and easier to deploy thanks to Amazon Web Services.

Facebook Extends Platform to the Web - The Unofficial Facebook Blog
"This is a huge step in Facebook extending their platform beyond the Facebook.com domain and letting people leverage the power of the social graph"
JavaScript Client Library - Facebook Developers Wiki
"Applications that use this client library should be configured to load in an iframe, not be rendered with FBML"
Facebook JavaScript Client Library
"This JavaScript client library allows you to make Facebook API calls from any web site and makes it easy to create Ajax Facebook applications"
Amazon Web Services Blog: AWS For Facebook Applications
"we've teamed with Facebook to collect all of the resources that you need to be the next big success story in one convenient location."

Personally, I really like the idea of the web itself as the social network and your blog as the home for your personal profile. So, I think the new Social Graph API is a step in the right direction, as is the blog-based Distributed Social Networking (DiSo) project.

BuzzMachine:The internet is the social network
"The internet doesnâ€™t need more social networks. The internet is the social network."
Social Graph API - Google Code
Project homepage
Google Social Graph API Released on Dion Almaer's Blog
"Would you like to be able to make a quick call to get a JSON response that ties together a social graph made up of resources available on the Web?";
diso - Google Code
"DiSo (dee â€¢ zoh) is an umbrella project [for] as Chris puts it: 'to build a social network with its skin inside out'"
The Existential DiSo Interview on Vimeo
Factory Joe interviews himself re: Distributed Social Networking

And, I'm happy to see support for Twitter-like microblogging in Wordpress and Facebook like activity streams from Movable Type.

Introducing Prologue: WordPress.com
"Weâ€™re fans of Twitter around here, [but] while the format appealed to us it really just whetted our appetite for something more"
Building Action Streams - MovableType.org
"framework for collecting your actions from services around the web into one place for you to share back out as you see fit."
Action Streams | Plugin Directory | movabletype.org
"aggregate, control, and share your actions around the web "

And to wrap up: maybe I don't need to worry about the intersection of Blogging and Social Networking at all. Maybe there's no need to following all these APIs. Maybe the hype has peaked and Facebook and friends are about to go the way of the CB radio. Apparently, folks aren't spending quite as much time Facebooking as they used to:

ZDNet.com: Ohmigod! Social networkers just canâ€™t take it any more!
"it is entirely possible that people are beginning to question just how much time they spend socially networking, rather than socially living."

Abdera AtomPub server refactoring

Dave Johnson — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 09:05:45 +0000

I've got to carve out some time ASAP to take a close look at this. The code is in Abdera SVN and there's <a href= "http://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/download/attachments/69763/abderaserverguide.pdf"> 20-minute implementation guide (PDF) too:

James Snell: Dan Diephouse and I have been spending the last week refactoring the Abdera server framework with the goal of making is less complicated, easier, and generally better.

ROME vs. Abdera

Dave Johnson — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 18:18:40 +0000

For Java developers starting out with RSS and Atom, here are some notes to help you figure out the differences between the Java.net ROME and Apache Abdera (incubating) projects.

ROME is a set of Java tools for parsing, fetching and generating all forms of RSS and Atom feeds. The core ROME library is relatively small and depends only on the somewhat creaky old JDOM XML parser. Available separately are modules to support various feed extensions such as OpenSearch, iTunes, GeoRSS, etc. ROME was originally developed and open sourced by Sun Portal dev team members in 2004.

ROME Propono is a subproject of ROME that supports publishing/editing entries and files to blog servers and AtomPub servers. Propono is made up of three parts: 1) a Blog Client library can publish via either the old lagacy MetaWeblog API or the shiny new AtomPub protocol, 2) an AtomPub client that publishes only via AtomPub and 3) a framework for creating AtomPub servers. Propono was developed by Ramesh Mandava and Dave Johnson, based on code from RSS and Atom in Action and open sourced as part of the Sun Web Developer Pack in 2007.

Abdera is a set of Java tools for working with Atom feeds and AtomPub protocol. This includes a parser, writers, an AtomPub client and a framework for creating AtomPub servers. Abdera's Atom feed parser uses STAX, so it uses less memory and is faster than ROME. Abdera's Atom feed support is more comprehensive than ROME's and it supports signatures, encryption, Atom to JSON, extensions for Threading, Paging, GeoRSS, OpenSearch, GoogleLogin, etc. etc. Abdera was developed by IBM and contribued to Apache in 2006.

Now let's compare frameworks. The pros and cons of ROME are:

Pro: complete RSS support, all of the dozen various flavors
Pro: it's generally simple and small, depending only one jar (JDOM)
Pro: easy to understand and use the AtomPub server framework
Pro: MetaWeblog API support
Con: Atom feed support not as comprehensive as Abdera
Con: parser uses lots of memory, slower, JDOM based
Con: community not as active, seems to be in maintenance mode (See also Ohloh stats)

The pros and cons of Abdera are:

Pro: comprehensive Atom feed support, lots more Atom extensions
Pro: faster more efficient parser
Pro: In the Apache Incubator with active and growing community (See also Ohloh stats)
Con: lots of dependencies
Con: AtomPub server framework poorly documented, overly complex (rewrite coming soon)
Con: no RSS support (there is something in Abdera contrib, but it's incomplete).

There you have it. ROME and Abdera folks: think that's a fair comparison? Are you a ROME or Abdera user? How would you like to see these frameworks move forward?

Abdera rocks on

Dave Johnson — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 18:18:08 +0000

There have been some interetsing Atom items recently on James Snell's blog. There was a link to a nice IBM DeveloperWorks article on using Abdera to write Atom feeds to JSON. (I was kinda hoping for an XSL/T, but not matter how you do it, it's a definitely feature that belongs in Abdera.) And there's a good quote from Adrian Sutton's blog post about the Atom features in IBM's Roller and Abdera based Lotus Connections product. And most recently, James linked to the new Google Feed Server project: an Abdera based AtomPub server from Google. All good stuff.

Gotta say, Abdera's looking better and better. It's got the features (IRI support, encrytion, pluggable auth, STAX parsing, etc.) and it's got Dan and appears to have some good momentum going. At this rate, I'm not sure how much more work I'll be putting into ROME Propono. If somebody were to, just for example, contribute an Abdera based AtomPub implementation to Roller, I might have to stop entirely.