I think it's very likely that hubs will support all sorts of feed
management, discovery and search, including Ilya's suggested
mechanism.

I suppose the qn is what *breaks* if Ilya's mechanism is not part of
PSHB or does not use a standard model.


On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 9:05 PM, Bob Wyman <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 9:22 AM, igrigorik <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Would it be crazy to then expose a mechanism to
>> enumerate all of the feeds that a hub tracks, and let
>> the client then subscribe to them?
>
> I think that if I was a spammer, I would strongly support a mechanism to
> enumerate feeds. That would allow me to easily scan to determine which of my
> feeds had been removed as spam and which were still useful. Certainly, I
> could "test" my feeds by actually publishing data, however, I would prefer
> not to do that since my testing might, in fact, trigger some spam detection
> code. Thus, I would like to have a mechanism to check my spam feeds that
> didn't involve actually publishing through them. Using this mechanism, I
> might do things like slowly build up a set of inactive but "non-spam" feeds
> whose "reputation" would probably grow as they live spam-free for a longer
> time. I might then burst a whole bunch of spam through some sub-set of my
> "well-aged" feeds from time to time.
>
> Of course, a hub owner could make my life as a spammer just a little bit
> more difficult by including all known spam feeds in the enumerated list.
> But, I'm thinking that hub managers wouldn't do that since non-spammers
> would complain too much. One problem is that the list would grow
> indefinitely, the other is that other people would be keep asking the hub to
> stop pestering them by listing known spam feeds. In essence, my job as a
> spammer would become easier as the hub owners tried to make life easier for
> the non-spammers... Help yourself and you help me.
>
> bob wyman (not a spammer -- just imagining...)
>
> On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 9:22 AM, igrigorik <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> Ok, so let me try rephrasing the problem. The major problem is not the
>> Hub, or the spec, but the need to crawl thousands of sites to find the
>> feeds in the first place. Of course, the hub already knows about them,
>> hence this discussion.
>>
>> Would it be crazy to then expose a mechanism to enumerate all of the
>> feeds that a hub tracks, and let the client then subscribe to them?
>>
>> An obvious obstacle is private feeds, but I wonder if that can be
>> handled as a special case?
>>
>> ig
>>
>> On Oct 21, 1:55 pm, Marcus Herou <[email protected]> wrote:
>> > Well... We can as well publish a firehose but currently our business
>> > model is not aimed at that.
>> >
>> > I was not talking about a service rather a technology which could take
>> > the crawling business to another level by aggregating hundreds of hubs
>> > and creating something which effectively can deliver tb/s bandwidth by
>> > having decentralized servers and data. We are still limited you know
>> > by our infrastructure even though it have gb/s to the internet.
>> >
>> > Since the realtime web is currently still very small all of us need to
>> > poll something even you I presume to be able to create a pub/sub arch.
>> > In that remark our companies are quite similar, you chose to aggregate
>> > and publish your data and make a business of it. We aggregate and
>> > refine the data and make business out of that.
>> >
>> > Dont take me wrong I really like what you do but i am not looking for
>> > a data supplier at this time ( might change though ). But if I would
>> > look in the data supplier direction you are currently in my/our top
>> > ten list :)
>> >
>> > Skickat från min iPhone
>> >
>> > On Oct 21, 5:03 pm, Julien Genestoux <[email protected]>
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> > > Hum...http://superfeedr.com?
>> >
>> > > "Putting ressources in common" is definetely one of the key reasons
>> > > why we
>> > > built superfeedr. More about that there
>> > > :http://blog.superfeedr.com/gospel/something-stupid/
>> >
>> > > And yes, we have a firehose available.
>> >
>> > > Julien
>> >
>> > > --
>> > > Julien Genestoux,
>> >
>> > >http://twitter.com/julien51http://superfeedr.com
>> >
>> > > +1 (415) 254 7340
>> > > +33 (0)9 70 44 76 29
>> >
>> > > On Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 5:26 AM, Marcus Herou
>> > > <[email protected]>wrote:
>> >
>> > > > Feedtree looks cool.... but updated 2006 ?
>> >
>> > > > On Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 2:20 PM, Nick Johnson (Google) <
>> > > > [email protected]> wrote:
>> >
>> > > >> On Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 1:14 PM, Alexis Richardson <
>> > > >> [email protected]> wrote:
>> >
>> > > >>> Hmmm ... gossiptorrent?
>> >
>> > > >> Feedtree.
>> >
>> > > >>> On Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 7:23 AM, Marcus Herou
>> > > >>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>> >
>> > > >>> > Hi.
>> >
>> > > >>> > We host a search app which is based on feeds of
>> > > >>> > blogs/twitter/forums/
>> > > >>> > news etc. We are as you are mentioning polling everything like
>> > > >>> > crazy
>> > > >>> > and it seems like a total waste of everyones resources.
>> >
>> > > >>> > So this means that subscribing to something which would
>> > > >>> > potentially
>> > > >>> > deliver the material to us would be great not just for us but as
>> > > >>> > well
>> > > >>> > all sites we are crawling.
>> >
>> > > >>> > However who would like to open up a firehose for free for
>> > > >>> > everyone to
>> > > >>> > consume ? It will for sure consume a lot of bandwidth and a few
>> > > >>> > subscribers will consume most of the bandwidth with this model.
>> > > >>> > I thought of something that might solve this issue. Consider the
>> > > >>> > following:
>> >
>> > > >>> > 1)
>> > > >>> > * Charge for the bandwidth (wordpress.com does this with flat
>> > > >>> > fee)
>> >
>> > > >>> > 2)
>> > > >>> > * Everyone that have firehose consuming needs should as well
>> > > >>> > start a
>> > > >>> > hub to show good faith and morale.
>> > > >>> > * Add support in firehose enabled hubs to share state (with a
>> > > >>> > master ?)
>> > > >>> > * A firehose enabled hub can subscribe to a master hub which
>> > > >>> > makes
>> > > >>> > sure that the subscriber as well fulfils some form of contract
>> > > >>> > (i.e.
>> > > >>> > actually updating/delivering feeds)
>> > > >>> > * Each firehose enabled hub must be public and everyone can
>> > > >>> > subscribe
>> > > >>> > to the feeds like as of current.
>> > > >>> > * To share load equally (morale part) then subscribers should
>> > > >>> > subscribe to a loadbalanced dns name or some form of delegate
>> > > >>> >  lb.pshb.com = master hub
>> > > >>> >  Example 1: lb.pshb.com resolves to pshb.tailsweep.com
>> > > >>> > pshb.google.com, effectively DNS-roundrobin
>> > > >>> >  Example 2: lb.pshb.com delegates to any active master connected
>> > > >>> > hub
>> > > >>> > in some way.
>> >
>> > > >>> > This might be too complex to implement and bottlenecks occur at
>> > > >>> > the
>> > > >>> > master but systems like Hadoop have bottlenecks in terms of the
>> > > >>> > NameNode (master) and it seems to perform just perfect so it can
>> > > >>> > be
>> > > >>> > done. However each firehose hub probably need to persist each
>> > > >>> > feed for
>> > > >>> > a certain amount of time before purging it.
>> >
>> > > >>> > Anyway this was just a thought. We at Tailsweep probably could
>> > > >>> > help in
>> > > >>> > making this happen if there exists some interest.
>> >
>> > > >>> > Cheers
>> >
>> > > >>> > //Marcus
>> >
>> > > >>> > On Oct 20, 8:41 pm, Bob Wyman <[email protected]> wrote:
>> > > >>> >> On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 11:22 AM, igrigorik <[email protected]>
>> > > >>> >> wrote:
>> > > >>> >> > Specifically, if we treat 'firehose' as any bundle of
>> > > >>> >> > feeds (all, or some), then a hub could define
>> > > >>> >> > multiple firehose streams.
>> >
>> > > >>> >> There should be no question that there is tremendous utility in
>> > > >>> >> being
>> > > >>> able
>> > > >>> >> to compose all sorts of "bundles" of topics into distinct
>> > > >>> >> feeds. It is
>> > > >>> >> probably also the case that we can identify some number of such
>> > > >>> bundles that
>> > > >>> >> would be useful to a large number of subscribers. On the other
>> > > >>> >> hand,
>> > > >>> many
>> > > >>> >> bundles will be very specific and only useful to one or a small
>> > > >>> >> number
>> > > >>> of
>> > > >>> >> subscribers. In fact, I think what we'll see is that once we
>> > > >>> >> have the
>> > > >>> core
>> > > >>> >> PSHB defined, we'll then see innovation in the definition of
>> > > >>> >> "down
>> > > >>> stream"
>> > > >>> >> services whose function is precisely to build and deliver such
>> > > >>> bundles. Some
>> > > >>> >> of these services will aggregate groups of topics while others
>> > > >>> >> will
>> > > >>> focus
>> > > >>> >> instead on creating content-based streams -- they will bundle
>> > > >>> >> together
>> > > >>> >> individual entries based on the content of those entries rather
>> > > >>> >> than
>> > > >>> simply
>> > > >>> >> combining all entries from some set of topics.
>> >
>> > > >>> >> I think we should be careful not to force too much of the
>> > > >>> >> burden of
>> > > >>> bundling
>> > > >>> >> or aggregating into the core PSHB hub specification. If we want
>> > > >>> >> to
>> > > >>> address
>> > > >>> >> the challenges of building bundles or aggregations, I think it
>> > > >>> >> best to
>> > > >>> do so
>> > > >>> >> in secondary or companion specifications. This will keep the
>> > > >>> >> core
>> > > >>> cleaner
>> > > >>> >> and easy to understand while also allowing the core to be
>> > > >>> >> deployed
>> > > >>> without
>> > > >>> >> being delayed by discussions over non-core issues.
>> >
>> > > >>> >> Having argued against making the core more complicated by
>> > > >>> >> extending it
>> > > >>> to
>> > > >>> >> include creating aggregate topics, I still suggest that it
>> > > >>> >> would be
>> > > >>> useful
>> > > >>> >> to have the core system define a common means to obtain a pure
>> > > >>> "firehose"
>> > > >>> >> feed of all topics. The current hub spec works for people who
>> > > >>> >> only
>> > > >>> want
>> > > >>> >> "none or some" of the topics served by the hub. I suggest that
>> > > >>> >> we
>> > > >>> expand
>> > > >>> >> this to have hubs know how to provide "none, some or all" of
>> > > >>> >> the
>> > > >>> topics.
>> > > >>> >> The reason for adding support of "all topics" is that we know,
>> > > >>> >> without
>> > > >>> much
>> > > >>> >> question, that such an "all topics" feed will be required by
>> > > >>> >> many of
>> > > >>> the
>> > > >>> >> downstream services that we will one day be relying on to
>> > > >>> >> create more
>> > > >>> finely
>> > > >>> >> defined aggregations. Given that this specific feed will be
>> > > >>> >> commonly
>> > > >>> >> required, it would be best if we had a common mechanism for a
>> > > >>> downstream
>> > > >>> >> service/subscriber to request that feed and that we set some
>> > > >>> expectations
>> > > >>> >> for how that feed will be formatted and delivered (i.e. Atom
>> > > >>> >> entries,
>> > > >>> >> persistent connections, chunked content model, ...). It would
>> > > >>> >> be very
>> > > >>> >> cumbersome for a downstream filtering/aggregating service to
>> > > >>> >> need to
>> > > >>> puzzle
>> > > >>> >> through service specific mechanisms for discovering how to
>> > > >>> >> obtain a
>> > > >>> firehose
>> > > >>> >> feed of "all topics" from many different hubs.
>> >
>> > > >>> >> bob wyman
>> >
>> > > >>> >> On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 11:22 AM, igrigorik <[email protected]>
>> > > >>> >> wrote:
>> >
>> > > >>> >> > Right, so how does the smart hub aggregate the feeds? Does it
>> > > >>> >> > then
>> > > >>> >> > have to crawl to find the list? That wouldn't be very useful.
>> > > >>> >> > Having
>> > > >>> >> > said that...
>> >
>> > > >>> >> > +1 For 'smart, aggregating hub generating a synthetic feed'
>> > > >>> >> > +1 For XRD discovery of the firehose endpoint.
>> >
>> > > >>> >> > Thinking a bit more about the firehose, what about making it
>> > > >>> >> > more
>> > > >>> >> > flexible. Specifically, if we treat 'firehose' as any bundle
>> > > >>> >> > of
>> > > >>> feeds
>> > > >>> >> > (all, or some), then a hub could define multiple firehose
>> > > >>> >> > streams.
>> > > >>> For
>> > > >>> >> > example, at PostRank we classify feeds by topic, so if
>> > > >>> >> > someone
>> > > >>> wanted
>> > > >>> >> > to subscribe to "Technology", we could expose that as a
>> > > >>> >> > firehose so
>> > > >>> >> > the user doesn't have to subscribe to every feed in that
>> > > >>> >> > topic. In
>> > > >>> >> > essence, a firehose stream is then any bundle of feeds.
>> >
>> > > >>> >> > This may be overloading the hub spec but the overall
>> > > >>> >> > mechanics would
>> > > >>> >> > be:
>> > > >>> >> >  - A (super)user can declare a firehose endpoint
>> > > >>> >> >  - A (super)user is then able to add or remove subscriptions
>> > > >>> >> > from
>> > > >>> the
>> > > >>> >> > firehose to create arbitrary aggregation streams
>> > > >>> >> >  - A subscriber uses XRD to discover the available
>> > > >>> >> > aggregation
>> > > >>> streams
>> > > >>> >> >  - Firehose with 'all' feeds is a special case of the above,
>> > > >>> >> > where
>> > > >>> all
>> > > >>> >> > feeds are present
>> >
>> > > >>> >> > This definitely adds more complexity into the hub... The
>> > > >>> >> > alternative
>> > > >>> >> > is of course for the publisher to create a syndicated feed
>> > > >>> >> > and
>> > > >>> publish
>> > > >>> >> > that directly as a standalone feed. Still trying to weight
>> > > >>> >> > the up/
>> > > >>> >> > downsides in my head, but want to put it out there as an
>> > > >>> >> > idea.
>> >
>> > > >>> >> > --------
>> > > >>> >> > Ilya Grigorik
>> > > >>> >> > postrank.com
>> >
>> > > >> --
>> > > >> Nick Johnson, Developer Programs Engineer, App Engine
>> > > >> Google Ireland Ltd. :: Registered in Dublin, Ireland, Registration
>> > > >> Number:
>> > > >> 368047
>> >
>> > > > --
>> > > > Marcus Herou CTO and co-founder Tailsweep AB
>> > > > +46702561312
>> > > > [email protected]
>> > > >http://www.tailsweep.com/
>

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