Comments for Identi.ca: May A Million Twitters Bloom

Identi.ca: May A Million Twitters Bloom

2008-07-02T18:02:39Z

Identi.ca is a new microblogging service that launched today - but it's not just another also-ran. The service is an Open Source, CreativeCommons framework for a distributed network of federated microblogging services.

If you've become interested in the paradigm changing model of communication popularized by Twitter but have been frustrated by Twitter's frequent down time or other shortcomings - then Identi.ca could be for you.

]]> Built by Evan Prodromou, creator of the wonderful site WikiTravel, Identi.ca offers a number of features that Twitter users will find of interest. We learned about the launch on the CreativeCommons blog; Identi.ca supports CC licenses for all the content that flows through it.

Note that initial interest is already challenging the first implementation of this service, they are working on improving performance but it will work best once there are multiple interoperable installs!

Jabber Support

Many people love Twitter's messaging through GTalk, but the feature isn't always available. It's available immediately on Identi.ca.

OpenID

We created an account on Identi.ca using an OpenID account in under 60 seconds. It made us happy.

Right: I got my Failwhale shirt in the mail today from FailWhale.com

Coming "Soon"

Identi.ca just launched today but lists a number of features it says are coming "soon," including SMS, URL shortening, cross posting to Twitter and other services, a more AJAXy interface and much, much more. Exciting.

There is no "replies" tab on Identi.ca, but Twitter users will already be accustomed to that, right? We hope that functionality will come to Idneti.ca quickly.

Remote Subscription

Identi.ca uses a new technical spec in the works called OpenMicroblogging, something that would let users of one supporting subscription to send and receive messages securely across different microblogging services. This sounds like a great idea, and uses the OAuth user authentication protocol we like so much, but it doesn't appear to be usable at launch.

Federation

Ultimately, this means federation. I put a customized version of the foundation software (called Laconi.ca) on my server, you put one to your liking on yours, we both get friends on our local copy and any other versions around the web - and everyone can communicate with each other just like we were using the same service from the same provider. Whoever comes up with the best alternative to the garbled name Identi.ca wins!

That's something that many people have wanted to do for a long time.

Can it work, work it scale? At least it's open source so the development community doesn't have to play armchair quarterback for a black box like they are with Twitter. Maybe these little puppies can get tied into Gnip, the social media switchboard service we wrote about yesterday. Especially once Twitter integration happens, we expect to see Identi.ca become an important part of our work day here at RWW.

Now if you'll excuse use, we need to go make a desktop app for Identi.ca using Fluid.

Comment from srcasm on 2008-07-02

2008-07-02T18:08:53Z

The idea of de-centralizing the "Twitter" communication system is a great one. People complain every day about how they don't like when Twitter is down -- this is a great alternative. Personally, for me, Twitter has a huge leg up because most of my friends are already there but I'm very happy to be trying out this service as well. I'm interested to see how it grows and how it's adopted by the community.

Comment from Nicole Simon on 2008-07-02

2008-07-02T18:21:02Z

let's see ... hmm ... short instant message like with a distribution model ... wait, what does that remind me of again? oh yeah. irc. when do we get the highligh / kill and ignore please? ;) ;)

Comment from richrecruiter on 2008-07-02

2008-07-02T18:21:21Z

Indenti.ca. How did they come up with something so catchy?

Comment from Evan Prodromou on 2008-07-02

2008-07-02T18:26:04Z

Marshall, thanks for the typos. You got me to register indenti.ca as a fumble-fingers redirect.

Nicole: I can't wait to have an IRC bot gateway for Identi.ca. Gotta be pretty easy, with http://phpbots.org/ and the Laconica code...

Comment from john conroy on 2008-07-02

2008-07-02T18:35:58Z

call me a sad b**tard, but I'm gonna go sign up now. I get all weak at the knees when I hear Open Source. OMG I'm turning into [horror] an early adopter

Comment from john conroy on 2008-07-02

2008-07-02T18:39:35Z

oh wait--you can sign in with OpenID? better again

Comment from Andraž Tori on 2008-07-02

2008-07-02T18:45:46Z

It's sleek right now, but some background on architecture would be nice, so we know it won't be Twitter reloaded.

And it should shake twitter guys a bit, so they try harder!

Andraz Tori, Zemanta

Comment from Fabian Neumann on 2008-07-02

2008-07-02T19:06:47Z

FriendFeed needs to support identi.ca feeds (in a useful way)

Comment from Jonathan Snook on 2008-07-02

2008-07-02T19:11:05Z

I'm not sure how I see a distributed network solving the problem. Does each node of the service have exactly the same data? If so, I can't see them taking something with the bandwidth of Twitter and then replicating that across umpteen servers over the sporadic latency of the web. But not having researched it, I'm merely conjecturing.

Comment from Yolanda on 2008-07-02

2008-07-02T19:29:47Z

Seems so... can't get the page to load. ;)

Comment from possible248 on 2008-07-02

2008-07-02T19:30:06Z

lol@Yolanda

Comment from Bwana McCall on 2008-07-02

2008-07-02T19:30:42Z

Slow and with bad RSS. All the popularity is going to kill it before it even gets started..open sourced or not

Comment from Outsanity on 2008-07-02

2008-07-02T19:54:00Z

in short: it's Twitter but open sourced

Comment from Steve Bjorg on 2008-07-02

2008-07-02T20:02:26Z

I hope these guys opted to use Pastry/Scribe for scalable resilient distribution of data:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pastry_(DHT)
http://research.microsoft.com/~antr/SCRIBE/default.htm

It's not like this isn't a solved problem... maybe it's just that the people who implemented Twitter don't like (or can't) read the current state of affairs in this field of research. :)

Comment from Mark Evans on 2008-07-02

2008-07-02T20:24:43Z

The question facing any new micro-blogging platform (Plurk, et al) is how you convince the Twitterari to abandon ship. Everyone talks the talk about how frustrating they're getting but how many people would actually leave for another platform. It's like leaving a great party to go to another party where there may or may not be anyone else else there.

Comment from Chad on 2008-07-02

2008-07-02T20:28:15Z

As long as we are overhauling the system, can one of these services actually include the ability to tag friends?

The only thing microblogging is missing is filtering. The more people I follow, the less useful things become because I cannot segment the noise.

Comment from factoryjoe.com on 2008-07-02

2008-07-02T21:01:53Z

It's certainly interesting and promising to see this, but I have concerns about the microblogging spec -- as it really is unnecessary. Why not just ATOM PubSub/XMPP? No need to reinvent the wheel.

Meanwhile, talk.org, another Twitter clone, is now open source as well.

Here's my first post there: http://talk.org/posts/agh0YWxrLW9yZ3ILCxIEUG9zdBjiBgw

Comment from Q dub on 2008-07-02

2008-07-02T21:15:11Z

Great news!

And...this type of federation has been done before, and we use it everyday: email. Ever wondered why it's so damn easy for @gmail.com to send emails to @whatever? That's federation working it's magic

Federation does wonders to universal interoperability, and ultimately utility to the users. But sadly, it also destroys the possibly for anyone to directly monetize the technology (unless you're a badass like Google, who still manages to squeeze some juice out of Gmail)

Comment from Evan Prodromou on 2008-07-02

2008-07-02T22:17:32Z

@factoryjoe Your input on how to architect OpenMicroBlogging is really valuable! Any underlying technology -- OAuth, Atom, XMPP -- is going to require some careful tailoring to fit the microblogging model. I love the elegance and security of OAuth, but I'd be happy to work with other microblogging providers on a standard based on other technologies.

Comment from directeur on 2008-07-02

2008-07-03T00:41:37Z

my question about Identica: Say Paul manages an instance "A" of laconica and Bob manages instance "B" of the same software. Does Sally who manages instance "D" of laconica have the same view of the subscriptions/messages that Bob and Paul have at any given instant "t" ?

Comment from Evan Prodromou on 2008-07-02

2008-07-03T04:16:36Z

@karim No. Only the data relevant to remote subscriptions between users on services A and B is exchanged between A and B. Third parties can use FOAF or other tools to find out those relationships, but they're not broadcast all over the network. So, it's more like email than like Usenet news.

Comment from David Weiner on 2008-07-02

2008-07-03T04:19:26Z

I just don't see this as a viable replacement unless it is given a remarkable overhaul. Considering it just went live today, I find that hard to believe. Why switch from one better microblogging service to another that is not as good. Move to the aggregator that hosts the lifestream ... FriendFeed.

Comment from srini kumar on 2008-07-02

2008-07-03T05:01:26Z

@15 the web is a giant burning man !!! so much to see and explore and do....

...sometimes it is better to be at a small campfire than some huge rager. it's a long event, and you did set up camp with your friends after all.

-srini
metanotes.com

Comment from MikeD on 2008-07-02

2008-07-03T06:01:12Z

Going federated is definitely the right move.
But how is this any different than low-latency SMTP servers? Especially if the message bodies can really contain more than 7-bit ascii?

Comment from Dan York on 2008-07-03

2008-07-03T10:08:15Z

Marshall,

Excellent post. I wrote up some thoughts as well on what the launch of identi.ca can mean:

http://www.disruptiveconversations.com/2008/07/the-real-meanin.html

Like you, I look forward to a million Twitters blooming.

@Steve Bjorg - While the identi.ca site may or may not use Pastry or any other DHT, the point is that the Laconica code is now out there so that *someone* can set it up on top of some DHT/P2P network.

Dan

Comment from Jean-Marc Liotier on 2008-07-03

2008-07-03T10:22:52Z

Laconi.ca, Gnip, XMPP Pubsub... The summer is heating up !

Comment from Paul Chaney on 2008-07-03

2008-07-03T11:55:14Z

I just hope that mass exodus from Twitter to identi.ca won't be its death knell. There will be a mass exodus by the way, at least those most frustrated by Twitter's constant hiccups. It's success will be due, in part, to Twitter's failures.

Of course, if and when Twitter does get its act together, there will be a mass exodus back, if for no other reason than all our friends are already there. Maybe, like Plurk, identi.ca will give us reason to stay. At the very least we end up with a two-party system.

Comment from laloj on 2008-07-03

2008-07-03T12:11:01Z

http://tech-exposed.com/

Sounds like its just Twitter with open source.
Where can we find more on the subject?

Comment from Robert MacEwan on 2008-07-03

2008-07-03T12:36:48Z

I see niche Twitter sites popping up everywhere.

Comment from George on 2008-07-03

2008-07-03T16:41:15Z

Add SMS updates from Australia and you have a fan for life >> (something Twitter took away) .. :)

Comment from Zach on 2008-07-03

2008-07-03T21:30:08Z

Why not use XMPP for the main parts of this? Seems like what you need is mostly in place already, and the federation is already taken care of for you.

Subscription: Already handled through jabber's bookmarks

Message: jabber has a way to set a status message, and that message is usually short. Why not use that? (XEP-0108)

User Icons, Profiles, and other metadata: XEP-0153, XEP-0154

This gives you the minimum "microblogging" service as most people (or least I) use it. Pieces needed to build on top of this:

* A transport for opting in and out of this system, as well as for collecting the messages to displayed by the web client.
* Some sort of web page display and/or manipulation of these status messages.
* status specific transports (sms, xmpp bots, etc) for interacting with the system
* Web based "transports" for those who don't wish to use xmpp directly

I'm sure there are other things to add, but this seems like a good list to start with, and as I said, most of the pieces are in place already, we just have to start connecting them up this way...

Comment from Zach on 2008-07-03

2008-07-03T21:34:20Z

heh, the wonders of loading a tab in the morning and commenting in the afternoon without reloading. It seems that xmpp pubsub is exactly what I describing, except for the linking it to the status message part. That'll teach me to comment on an idea that's been brewing I haven't googled yet. :)

Comment from Robert Nelson on 2008-07-03

2008-07-03T22:34:42Z

Nice post, I have been using identi.ca since last evening and it seems to be pretty nice. A few issues and speed bumps came this morning, but they seemed to get resolved quickly.

The gtalk is very nice, hopefully we will get those replies and (at least for me) more important would be the SMS integration. I tend to use twitter more over SMS and like to have it while away from my computer to stay connected.

Although it seems quite nice so far, with lots of potential it will not cause me to leave twitter just yet. Still missing is the community, although I have found several other early adopter friends already using it.

With twitter having issues lately this seems to have been launched at a good time. Hopefully more frustrated twitter users will find their way over.

Personally its much nicer than some other alternatives, such as Plurk.

Comment from John Chow on 2008-07-05

2008-07-05T21:00:04Z

I'm sick of all these Twitter crazy thing!

Comment from Forest Mars on 2008-07-07

2008-07-07T14:54:39Z

There is no "replies" tab on Identi.ca, (...) We hope that functionality will come to Idneti.ca quickly.

It just did.

Comment from Pete Prodoehl on 2008-07-09

2008-07-10T02:12:22Z

Join us for Twitter-Free Friday!

http://rasterweb.net/raster/2008/07/09/twitter-free-friday/

Comment from Abhisek on 2008-07-22

2008-07-23T01:19:36Z

Wow! great. But i was wondering if everyone is trying it out, then who's really using it.