the iCite net > news / blog > a permalink

news and thoughts on and around the development of the iCite net
by Jay Fienberg

FOAF files sites stuck

posted: Feb 19, 2004 8:30:01 PM

What follows are my lunatic rantings in response to Plaxo and FOAF: What's the right model? and the posts / discussions Danny Ayers links to in his A trail of FOAF. My ranting is not meant as a comment on those posts, which I think are quite sensible.

FOAF data appears in files. Some sites are now trying to support FOAF, but they are sites that report from things like databases, which resports are information culled from data not particularly locked into files. Sites' information, and data files are very different, architecturally.

So, sites are getting stuck matching their information with FOAF files, and FOAF files are getting stuck inside sites. I think this issue is being approached (generally) by trying to the make the sites' information more matchable to the data files and otherwise to make the files' data more dependent on the sites' information.

One example of this approach is RSS and blogs, where the sites and the RSS files, in some sense at least, have been made to look like each other, architecturally. However, the scope of this matching is limited to blogs that are restricted in their information architectures, and RSS is used in a way that is dependent on blogs or the parts of sites that look like blogs.

I think there is a scope of match-up between sites that have information about people and their relationships, and FOAF data files. It is good to match those up, but I don't think the architectures of the information on sites (e.g., with all of its context, including things like privacy and access control) and the data in the FOAF files can be made to fully match up.

I also think another approach is to create a different kind of mechanism that isn't a file and isn't a site, but express the same kind of information and the same kind of underlying data.

permalink | comments {0} · trackbacks {0}

also available as: rss · rss2 · rdf · atom

Comments and Tracbacks

Note: All comments and trackbacks are moderated. Spam is deleted. Other comments are approved as promptly as possible.

Note: Older posts no longer accept new comments or trackbacks.

« prev post
DataForge, any experiences?

» next post
Overloaded by boundaries, not information

blog newsfeeds

brief content:

 XML  ·  RSS  ·  RDF  ·  Atom 


full content:

 XML  ·  RSS  ·  RDF  ·  Atom 


blog archive

2006:
jan · feb · mar · apr
may · jun · jul · aug 
sep · oct · nov · dec
		
2005:
jan · feb · mar · apr
may · jun · jul · aug
sep · oct · nov · dec

2004:
jan · feb · mar · apr
may · jun · jul · aug
sep · oct · nov · dec

2003:
may · jun · jul · aug
sep · oct · nov · dec

first post: 
April 30, 2003

highlight views:
Spammers' Choice
		

Jay elsewhere online
Jay Fienberg - the official home page

Wrong Notes - the music blog of the Ear Reverends

Fine & Full, aka, a fine and full burger

Sociomobilepoetextologia (moblog, currently inactive due to lack of proper mobile)

to enjoy roll
sites I like to read when I start from here

· Anastasia Fuller
· Andy Baio
· Biz Stone
· Boris Mann
· Bre Pettis
· Chris Dent
· Danny Ayers
· Dare Obasanjo
· David Czarnecki
· David Weinberger
· Don Park
· Evan Williams
· Greg Narain
· Jason Kottke
· Jim Benson
· Lucas Gonze
· Marc Canter
· Matt May
· Matt Mullenweg
· Michal Migurski
· Nancy White
· Rebecca Blood
· Reg Cheramy
· Richard MacManus
· Sam Ruby
· Shelley Powers
· Tim Bray
· danah boyd


powered by blojsom


Entries by blojsim