Are we federating? [Revised]

It's probably fair to say that most of us who are involved in the web are very much aware of the problems that we have right now with corporate control of the social webosphere. However perhaps not so well understood is that we have had a similar problem before with corporate con­trolled networks in the days before the internet. Borge A. Roum in his recent article, "Think Like the Internet — or How to Fight Facebook, and Win" gives a persuasive argument that when were building social on the web we need to start thinking like the internet and start building a network of social networks. There is much progress already as Borge illustrates with software like StatusNet which allows anyone to join a distributed social network that is built on a set of HTTP protocols collectively called OStatus. Anyone is free to implement the OSta­tus protocols and get federated with this constantly growing and evolving public social network.

So considering the challenges that still remain for the social web I would like to suggest some things Mozilla could try in 2012 ..

1. Install StatusNet at Mozilla and encourage people to use the federated social web for social communications.

2. Start writing our own social software on Django that implements OStatus and get it installed at Mozilla and all over the Web.

3. Learn as a community how to hack things together on the social Web creating new Hackasaurus tools and P2PU study groups.

4. Encourage Google+ to federate :-)

I'll leave you with some thoughts from our Mozilla Manifesto ..

The effectiveness of the Internet as a public resource depends upon interoperability (protocols, data formats, content), innovation and decentralized participation worldwide.

Magnifying the public benefit aspects of the Internet is an important goal, worthy of time, attention and commitment.

.. and a recent interview with Eben Moglen.

Best, Paul