Proposal: New internet protocol I’d call “socnet”.
- Similar to RSS, it’s a subscription protocol delivering data via XML file format.
- Users can create and host ‘social data’ in any tool and on any server, or using a site like Facebook.
- Other individuals request to connect to the socnet feed of a user, who then accepts them, but can limit–at the individual level–which feed elements (files and folders) the individual can read.
- Any tool requiring socnet data is granted it by the reading individual. So your contacts app would point at your socnet aggregator app; your calendar app, too; and so forth.
- Status updates and media sharing are just like normal RSS, basically: a content category, but based on one entity (user, business, group) instead of a site or search.
Result: A platform-independent social networking protocol that abstracts user data out of sandboxed services.
Major Bonus: Contact data is only maintained in one data store: the user’s! No more obsolete contact details, for those to whom you subscribe. Personal calendars could be similarly driven. Anything you’d need to share and sync that currently requires manual data entry or linking.
Ok, one major hole:
Without a third-party identify provider like VeriSign or Verizon, none of the privacy posting would be sustainable. Only elective public data could be enabled at this stage for the vast majority of social network users.
The tangle of verifying identity through the myriad free options (“Log in with…” FB, Google, etc) could become a headache of constant code updates to the stack running on the servers hosting the raw socnet files.
Bummer. Not a showstopper, but definitely a hurdle that will keep the walled gardens in business for years.
Time to resurrect Real Net ID! 🙂
Private code words could enable person to person trust authentication without a third party authenticator.
“Email your connection request with rutabaga in the message and I’ll connect your socnet hash.”