Hiya -
In case you might be interested, we have recently described and shown
how an open and decentralised microblogging system can work. In a paper
that we (Alexandre Passant, Tuukka Hastrup, Uldis Bojars and I) have
written for SFSW 2008, a prototype called SMOB for distributed /
decentralised microblogging is described: "Microblogging: A Semantic Web
and Distributed Approach" -
http://www.semanticscripting.org/SFSW2008/papers/11.pdf
Check out the SMOB page at http://smob.sioc-project.org for server and
client code downloads. Screenshots at http://url.ie/djz
The prototype uses FOAF and SIOC to model microbloggers, their
properties, account and service information, and the microblog updates
that users create. A multitude of publishing services can ping one or a
set of aggregating servers as selected by each user, and it is important
to note that users retain control of their own data through self hosting.
The aggregate view of microblogs use ARC2 for storage / querying and
Exhibit (from SIMILE MIT) for the user interface. Security and privacy
are open issues, but can be addressed in some part by requiring OpenID
authentication.
For those who want to try out this distributed microblogging client, you
can install it by doing a: # svn co
http://smob.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/client/
(Needs a site with PHP4 or greater.) Then making changes according to
the README file (e.g. tell it which servers to ping).
You can also try the anonymous client at:
http://smob.sioc-project.org/client
Then, the server view is available at:
http://smob.sioc-project.org/server (you can also get the code at
http://smob.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/server/)
If you install your own client, you can configure it to post to your
Twitter account simultaneously.
BTW, this is my first post to the list; I meant to post earlier about
possible XMPP / SIOC crossovers but will do another day...
Thanks,
John.
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