Cliqset Transforms Social Media Feeds Into Standardized, Real-Time Data
Social media aggregator Cliqset today announced a new beta version of its platform that aggregates activity feeds from 70 different social media sites, transforms them into normalized Activity Streams standard data and then pushes them out in real time.
The company's offers multiple ways to access the data through its API but also hopes that more users will stick with its own, now much improved, user interface. The first 200 ReadWriteWeb readers to click this link will gain access to the new beta version of the site.
What does Cliqset offer that the Facebook-acquired FriendFeed doesn't? According to Cliqset: "We're much more standards compliant, we allow broader sharing, granular filters, a different permissions model, a much more open API and we have more services tied to ours (70 vs. FriendFeed's 50)."
The most important thing Cliqset is doing is probably transforming all these different update feeds into the standardized format called Activity Streams. That format is already being supported by Facebook, MySpace, Windows Live and Opera.
Michael Calore explains what Cliqset is doing with Activity Streams as follows:
A huge bonus is that Cliqset is using the emerging Activity Streams data specification to make all this happen. Activity Streams is an open-source XML-based format that uses a common actor-verb-asset model to report an activity on a social website. For example, "Amy shared a video" or "Mike rated this photo." It's a simple organizing principle that allows social web services to more easily talk to each other about what their users are doing.
But if not everyone is reporting their users' activity data using a common model, it becomes harder to get two services to talk to each other. And only a handful of sites are supporting Activity Streams right now.
As Cliqset co-founder Darren Bounds tells Webmonkey, Cliqset is actually re-writing all the aggregated data streams into the Activity Streams format, physically cleaning up the social web's mess as it goes.
Cliqset tells us that it's working on making a streaming API for this data available and let us in on some secret projects to bring real-time cross-platform data flowing to places around the web that it's not available today.
Right now you cannot easily pull Activity Streams feeds through Cliqset for people who have not signed up for the service themselves. It would be great if Cliqset began consuming the Webfinger protocol, for example and let me point at all my Google Contacts, discover their social media sites from around the web and then transform those into Activity Streams for consumption in other apps. That future isn't here and it may never be, but a web user can hope.
For now the company is using the long polling method and this newly normalized data to do some impressive things with its own user interface. Michael Calore goes into depth about that part of the project on Wired.com's WebMonkey blog. We'd like to recommend his post as our Real-Time Web Article of the Day, in fact. Check it out for a closer look at the innovative effort underway at Cliqset.
We're highlighting one article about the real-time web from off-site every day, leading up to the October 15th ReadWrite Real-Time Web Summit. Data normalization, Activity Streams, filtering and APIs are going to be big topics of conversation there. We hope you'll join us for those conversations.
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How does this compare to Gnip? Seems similar
ET, fair question. I'd venture to guess that Gnip is more source-centric and Cliqset is user-centric, if you know what I mean. Would love to hear how Cliqset would answer that.
@Marshall, you're absolutely right.
Gnip is hyper focused service to service delivery of activity information. Cliqset looks at 3rd party services through a user-centric lens, bringing content back to Cliqset based on an individual user's preference and then sharing it with other the people and applications within the Cliqset ecosystem.
We're also very focused on creating conversation and community around the activity/content we aggregate and share.
Cool... I signed up!
I configured a half-dozen of my various online social sites / profiles. I also went through the whole website trying to understand it better. I clicked on all their links and now I'm feeling the same way after I signed up for FriendFeed. Which is to say I said to myself:
"I don't get it, what does this thing do to better connect me with people, as in people I know, or people I'd want to know?"
And just as I said to myself after I set up friendfeed: "I guess you have to be part of a peer group in hyper-geeky tech realms to really understand or value what this thing does."
I mean sure go ahead and scan my gmail account and see if I know anybody on this thing. What's that? None of my friends are on this thing? What a suprise... Oh and you'd like to invite everyone in my email who isn't on this thing? I don't think so, I don't even know what you do?
Why should I invite my friends to something that doesn't even speak non-geek?
It seems to me that the problem is not that they speak only Geek. The problem is they do not speak.
There are a number of sites that will aggregate what you do around the web and the people with whom you interact. Cliqset needs to convince potential users that they are better than the other sites. What makes them better?
Putting all of your stream of activity into a common format may be a very good thing to do. But at the moment there seems nothing one can do, once they have done that, that you cannot do on other sites.
We need a better sales job -- information to make us want to use cliqset.
"Right now you cannot easily pull Activity Streams feeds through Cliqset for people who have not signed up for the service themselves."
Wasn't that sort of what Socialthing did? Well, still does, but there's no support for it while it becomes some kind of AOL buddy app.
I think what's frustrating about all of these other aggregators is that they become another account to maintain, another door you have to invites friends to enter. Socialthing wasn't like that.
I just wanted to add thanks for the article and the invites. My initial reactions to Cliqset are actually positive. I just hope it evolves into something a bit more open and useful, especially since its emphasis is on standardized data and broader sharing.
Very nice job done by cliqset.com for SMO stuff
Competition is good, let us see just how cliqset develops in the marketplace. If they can get some momentum and consistently get the word out, it may give an honest run at FriendFeed.
Hey Bob,
I am happy to chat with you about what makes Cliqset so great! We're just in the beginning stages of getting the word out and I appreciate your candid remarks. While the technology that fuels Cliqset is second to none, we've also worked hard to create a place where anyone, not just us geeks, can build community. We are so much more than a place for aggregation and believe in the coming days and weeks our users will feel the same way. The technology is a big part of our story though because it's what makes the community irresistible. For instance the real-time commenting is what allows our users to create and easily follow a conversation resulting in a more engaged dialog. We're building a place for people who want to build community online in real-time just as they would off-line.
I would welcome the opportunity to chat more, and encourage you to stay tuned because there's so much more to come from us and very soon! You can find me @rockinrobync or even better yet, I'm on Cliqset at http://cliqset.com/user/rockinrobync.
Thanks
Robyn
I was a bit late to sign up, but this service is AWESOME and will definitley be keeping an eye out