Sharing Information, Services and Interactions in the Next Decade

Foreword

This is a session proposal for DrupalCon Paris 2009. In this session I hope to offer the Drupal community an overview of the work being developed at the UFRGS university. I intend to give a very technical session, so the text below will serve as a background for the session.

Introduction

In the 90s, after Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web at CERN research center, scientists around the world were able to share information with their colleagues by setting up their own personal Websites. The key concept behind the Web was the hyperlink, which allowed users to browse Web pages across different networks.

With the popularization of the Web, browsing Web pages just wasn't enough. So by the turn of the millennium, the advent of search engines came to people's assistance, most notably from a search engine created by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while at Stanford University. Powered by complex algorithms, search engines would rank and present Web pages to users based on keywords.

With further popularization of the Web, searching again wasn't enough. The top-down presentation of Web pages selected from a huge collection by an algorithm has created a very undemocratic way of sharing information. In this next decade, users will rely less on monolithic algorithms and more on their own personal social network for sharing information.

While the first decade of the Web was all about browsing and the second decade was about searching, the next decade will be about syndicating. Users will connect with their personal social network to receive and disseminate information in a bottom-up manner. Information, services and interactions will all be syndicated, allowing users to share not only information but also rich and profound experiences.

Sharing Information

As of today, there is no existing technology that allows individuals to share information in a bottom-up manner on a global scale. ISS (Instant Syndicating Standards) is a proposal to create just that: a distributed worldwide recommender system perfectly tuned to output a very personalized stream of information for each individual, where information flows from the personal social network towards the whole wide world. This is accomplished by allowing each individual to create their own broadcasting channels and to connect these channels with the ones created by their personal social network. This trustful and cascading network of syndicated streams filters out irrelevant information, while still letting good information pass through at each level.

The key concept behind ISS is the tagLink. The tagLink is a semantic link created by individuals showing how their friends' channels are connected with their own channels. If a user becomes interested in a particular channel from a friend, he may subscribe to this channel and add it to his own channel. Thus, each individual receives exactly what he wants based on these subscriptions, and all information that reaches them goes through friends' approval first.

Sharing Services

ISS is being developed as a set of services on top of Drupal. This service-oriented architecture promotes interoperability and allows individuals from different networks to share information with each other. The ISS services englobes user, channel and content management. These services together with services that provide file, language, search and session management will transform Drupal from a Content Management System into a Web Operating System.

The key concept behind the Drupal WebOS is the serviceLink, which is a structured format that links services together, including services from different networks. For example: a user may browse his way to a friend's profile and become aware of her interests by visualizing her channels. If there is a common interest, the user may subscribe to a channel and create a taglink that connects her remote channel with his local channel. The fact that the friend is from another network is totally transparent to the user. This is possible when these systems follow a set of open standards called IOS (Instant Operating System). Users will be served by multiple WebOS.

Sharing Interactions

The services provided by the Drupal WebOS can be accessed through a Webtop, i.e. a Desktop Environment that works on top of the Web. The Ext Webtop is a Webtop created using the Ext JavaScript Library following a set of open standards called ITOP (Instant Desktop Environment). From this Webtop, users can share interactions with each other.

The key concept behind the Ext Webtop is the sessionLink. The sessionLink is a service that follows the publish/subscribe pattern and provides users and applications with (almost) real-time updates for subscribed services. For example, when a chat application is loaded in the Ext Webtop, the Webtop subscribes to the user.im service to be kept aware of any updates. More sophisticated interactions may also be shared, including sharing the whole Desktop Environment (this is called an Instant Session). In an Instant Session, when a user opens a window in the Webtop, his friend sees the window being opened. Likewise, when his friend closes a window, the user sees the window being closed.

Conclusion

In this text, we have presented ISS (Instant Syndicating Standards), an open set of standards that challenges the top-down model of information-sharing and gives place to a bottom-up model, where each person has a unique voice and equal opportunity to contribute and benefit. In this way, we hope to bring people closer together to discuss common interests and share information in a more open and democratic manner.

Also, we have presented the IOS and ITOP open standards, which we believe will help people to have more rich and profound experiences. We want to bring the Instant from Instant Messaging to the Web. And by Instant, the most important aspect that we want to exploit is not so much the When, but the Who. We want to empower individuals to "exchange" their Operating Systems and Desktop Environments with friends much the same way that they exchange Messages with friends when using Instant Messaging applications.

Along these two decades, the Web has evolved tremendously. The Web's influence in democratizing access to information is evident. Yet, there is still a long way to go before reaching a truly democratic Web, where information flows freely in all directions. Also, there is still a long way to go before reaching a truly interactive Web, where people can connect with each other to create rich and profound experiences. We hope that the work here presented will help shape the way we share information, services and interactions in the next decade, as we believe that this will fundamentally shape us into better individuals and into a better society as a whole.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the following organizations for sponsoring my work:

• The GIMSCOP research group from UFRGS university for sponsoring the development of the Drupal WebOS and Ext Webtop. Special regards to my mentor Dr. Jorge Otávio Trierweiler.
• The PPGC (Computer Graduate Program) from UFRGS university and the CAPES brazilian federal agency, who provided me with a scholarship to develop ISS. Special regards to my mentor Dr. José Valdeni de Lima.
• The Knight Foundation, for sponsoring the development of ISS on top of Drupal. Special regards to the UFRGSWeb team for helping me out and for giving me the opportunity to mentor them.

I would also like to thank the following open source communities for their contributions:

• Dries Buytaert and the Drupal community. Special regards to Scott Nelson for the Services Module and Dmitri Gaskin for the JSON Server Module.
• Jack Slocum and the ExtJS Community. Special regards to Todd Murdock for the Web Desktop extension and Thorsten Suckow-Homberg for the LiveGrid extension.

Further Information

• ISS (Instant Syndicating Standards)
• IOS (Instant Operating System)
• ITOP (Instant Desktop Environment)

References

• http://iss.im/references

Afterword

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