Federated (Mobile) Social Networking - unibo.it...“We are not using OpenSocial-compliant APIs, but...

GRUPPO TELECOM ITALIA

May 2012Università di BolognaUniversità di Bologna

Federated (Mobile)Federated (Mobile)Social Networking

The past present & future of the next• The past, present & future of the next

generation of social communications

Telecom Italia /Innovation & Industry Relations – Laurent-Walter Goixlaurentwalter goix@telecomitalia [email protected]

Table of contents

► Part 1: Introduction to the Social Networking topic, current trends & issuescurrent trends & issues

► Part 2: Technical overview of the Social Network ► Part 2: Technical overview of the Social Network “standards” landscape

► Part 3: Internal “Research & Prototyping “activities

Part 1: Introduction to the Social &Networking topic, current trends &

issues

The value of Federated (Mobile) Social Networking May 2012

Th F b k t

Source: http://makemesocialblog.wordpress.com/2011/02/17/where-were-you/

The Facebook story

The new communication paradigm, the p g ,“wall”, is introduced in September 2006

http://mashable.com/2006/09/05/facebooks-facelift-mini-feeds-and-news-feeds/

GOIX Laurent-Walter / II.RP 4


• For its owner, the “wall” (and its usual settings) can be considered

Fundamental #1: what is the “wall” about?

–As the history of private/public activities (social, but potentially SMS sent, calls, etc)

–As a privacy filter when propagating information (based on followers/circles/lists)

The “wall” (or stream) is an always-on virtual presence on the Internet

• For a viewer

–Access to *authorized* content anytime, anywhere (without being seen, no real-time constraints)

Notification settings–Notification settings

The “wall” is a new way of communicating: asynchronous, indirect

• The wall may only be a virtual artifact• The wall may only be a virtual artifact

–But, the wall centralizes and dispatches content & communications (no peer-to-peer)

Who controls the “wall” controls the user, the community, and the business

GOIX Laurent-Walter / II.RP

o co t o s t e a co t o s t e use , t e co u ty, a d t e bus ess

5


E l t ti g f i d i SMS th gh “ ll”Example: texting friends via SMS vs through a “wall”Replier

Replier

SenderSender

SMS (Direct, explicit) Wall (Indirect, implicit)


Initial messageReplies

Dashed black lines are based on user’s explicit audience selectionDashed red lines are based on user’s knowledge of initial recipients(usually not known)


S di il !

Fundamental #2: what is “federation”?•Sending emails !...

–Users who own an email account from one provider…

•…can send emails to users on other providers!

•And reply, forward, etc

•Federation is a “web-based” name for interconnection



M bil N t k !

Mobile (Federated) Social Networks? X• ...Mobile Networks !

–6Bn+ users worldwide

–Native federation (interconnection) across operators

XNative federation (interconnection) across operators

•For voice, video, sms, mms services XBUT nowadays…

–Address book (“social” component) is decentralized on SIM / device

–Only an “explicit” communication mode is supported (recipients are well identified)

X–Most of the communication services offered through mobile networks are “real-time”

Mobile Social Networking is an additional way of communicating providedto our mobile subscribers, on the same network, reusing their existingidentity and friends to share their social experiences.


y p

8


Th k d

At th d f M h 2012 F b k d 901 M

The market around us

• At the end of March 2012, Facebook announced 901 Mn usersworldwide (nearly 520Mn active daily), with 50% monthly activethrough mobilethrough mobile

• Twitter reached 580 Mn users in May 2012 (140Mn active)

G l h d 100M i A il 2012• Google+ reached 100Mn users in April 2012

• 87% of consumers in the U.S. access at least one social network regularly (68% in 2008), and more than 50% do so from a

t h t bl t ( V I i ht J 2012)smartphone or a tablet (eVoc Insights, January 2012).



Web Sociale = Web 2.0?

Web Sociale != Ʃ ( club sociali )Il problema dei walled garden

Principali limitazioni:

1. Portabilità del ‘grafo sociale’2. Comunicazione inter-community3. Controllo e privacy p y



T d “ l i ” f S i l N ki

Standardization initiatives, and the web industry,

Towards a “regulation” of Social Networking

, y,are focusing on solutions (protocols, data models & architectures) for social network interoperabilityp y

In this context, increasing care is given to tackle data privacy issues from a technical

ti i ti l ith t tperspective, in particular with respect todiscovery, sharing and deletion of users’ data

In January 2012, Viviane Reding, Vice-President of the European Commission, EU Justice Commissioner has announced her commitmentto give back users the control over their Source: http://ec europa eu/justice/data-protection/minisite/

personal data:• You will have an effective "right to be forgotten" so that you can remove your personal information from any site if you so wish;• Web operators must provide 'privacy by default'. The default settings for all services should be the most privacy-friendly; • You will have the right to know how your personal data will be used and where your consent is required, you must give it

explicitly;

Source: http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/minisite/


• You will be able to move your personal data from one service provider to another more easily ("data portability”);• Organizations processing your personal data must inform you as soon as possible if your data has been compromised;• Your personal data will enjoy the same level of protection if it is transferred outside the EU as applies within the EU - vital in

this age of instant global data flows.


•Social Network Aggregation services are popular entry doors to the social

From SN Aggregation to Federated SNs

activities of users having multiple accounts over the Internet

•Aggregates messages, status feeds, content and friends from various standalone SNs

Bob’’Bob’

•Used when providing valuable features , e.g.cross-posting (outbound) Bob

•Federated Social Networks are the future of the Social Web

•Users can communicate with each other across domains through global identifiers having only one account

•User data portability is easier: users can choose their favorite social network and migrate

•Provides major scaling & robustness of the overall Social Web (no single point offailure)

Bob


•This concept is becoming an important industrial trend supported by large players

12


The concept of Federated Social Networks


http://www.w3.org/Talks/Deck/identity/Social-Web-Landscape.png

Part 2: Technical overview of the Social Part 2: Technical overview of the Social Network “standards” landscape


C tl th i it i iti ti l t d t S i l N t k

State-of-the-art of the SN standard community (1/4)Currently the main community initiatives related to Social Network standardization and interoperability pertain to 2 different areas

Client-server interoperability (intra-domain)

Federation / interworking (cross-domain)

OpenSocial is a pop lar specification for both Web APIs and De ice/Ja ascript OpenSocial is a popular specification for both Web APIs and Device/Javascript APIs for interactions between client applications and servers (intra-domain)

OStatus (and its “variants“, e.g. Diaspora [1]) is a specification emerging asreference for SN federation

In various cases such specifications are backed up by (and/or being discussedwithin) standardization bodies, and by one or more open source projectsimplementing and contributing the specification (e.g. Apache Shindig,


Status.net)

15

[1] https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora/wiki/Diaspora%27s-federation-protocol


State-of-the-art of the SN standard community (2/4)

• W3C is focused on server-to-server federation aspects through the Federated Social Web (FSW) Group [1]

W3C & IETF

Web (FSW) Group [1]

–This is mostly a discussion group where developers from various initiatives around federated social networks (and protocols) can exchange ideas.

I J 2012 W3C l l h d th P bS bH bb b [2 ] d th OSt t [3] • In January 2012, W3C also launched the PubSubHubbub [2 ] and the OStatus [3] Community Groups to discuss in details the evolution of such specifications

• A W3C Social Business Community Group [4] has also launched in February 2012

• Some activity has been undertaken within IETF APPSAWG wrt Social Networks, mainly through high-level lightweight frameworks addressing discovery of user informationinformation

–Host-Meta RFC6415

–WebFinger I-D (personal draft from Cisco & Google) [5]

–Enum Service for mapping phone numbers to Social Networking accounts [6]

[1] http://www.w3.org/community/fedsocweb/[2] http://www.w3.org/community/pubsub/[3] http://www.w3.org/community/ostatus/[4] htt // 3 / it / bi /


[4] http://www.w3.org/community/socbizcg/[5] http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-jones-appsawg-webfinger-04[6] http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-goix-appsawg-enum-sn-service-01


St t f th t f th SN t d d it (3/4)

D di t d t S i l N t ki t d di ti

State-of-the-art of the SN standard community (3/4)OpenSocial Foundation• Dedicated to Social Networking standardization

–Initiated by Google (“iGoogle Gadgets”)

–Current board members are IBM, MySpace, Google, Yahoo!, Jive + 2 community representatives Current board members are IBM, MySpace, Google, Yahoo!, Jive 2 community representatives (including OStatus founder)

• Goal: enable developers to create “Social Apps” write once, run everywhere

–Focused on client-server interactions (Web API) as well as Device APIs towards 3rd party applications (or web “gadgets”).applications (or web gadgets ).

–Provides specifications and reference open-source implementations (Apache Shindig)

• http://www.opensocial.org



St t f th t f th SN t d d it (4/4)

Industry forum founded June 2002

State-of-the-art of the SN standard community (4/4)Open Mobile Alliance (OMA)•Industry forum founded June 2002

–Over 130 members from across the mobile value chain–Operators, terminal and software vendors, content and entertainment providers

•“Mobile Social Network” (MobSocNet) Enabler –End-to-end framework for interoperability between (mobile) clients & servers and federation of social networksnetworks

•Main functionalitiesPublication and sharing of media activities & follow up actions–Publication and sharing of media, activities & follow-up actions

–Network API for integration with external applications–Reuse of MSISDN identity (phone number)D t t bilit–Data portability

–Chat, IM, Presence, Gaming, etc are out of scope


•Goal is to reference existing industry standards with limited profiling

18


• The biggest players from the Social Web industry are driving the

Social Network specifications and…the Web Industry

specification work

–IBM

•Author of RFCs and other web specifications (eg. ActivityStreams, OpenSocial)•Author of RFCs and other web specifications (eg. ActivityStreams, OpenSocial)

•Leading spec and reference open source implementation work in OpenSocial (Board member)

•Mostly interested in Social Entreprise

Google–Google

•Early adopter & participant in most specifications (often partially standard) in official APIs or “alpha” stage

•Leading some specifications (eg PubsubHubbub Salmon) also in the area of federation•Leading some specifications (eg. PubsubHubbub, Salmon) also in the area of federation

“We are not using OpenSocial-compliant APIs, but we are using lots of the technology that was developed as part of OpenSocial, including OAuth 2.0, Portable Contacts and JSON schema, to power Google+ platform. As we define the Google+ APIs, we are paying close attention to the future direction of the OpenSocial APIs, and converging wherever possible. “ [1]

Facebook Microsoft MySpace–Facebook, Microsoft, MySpace

•Authors of the ActivityStreams specifications (data format for representing activities)


[1] http://groups.google.com/group/google-plus-developers/browse_thread/thread/74f76bc960b8b894/b888adde3dcaf664?hl=en&lnk=gst&q=opensocial#b888adde3dcaf664

The value of Federated (Mobile) Social Networking May 2012 Social Networking ecosystem (not exhaustive)

SN2SN1

Gateway

SN2Federation

SN1SN Platforms

Devices

Apps

Users

GOIX Laurent-Walter / II.RPbob@sn2

20alice@sn1charliealicew


Requisiti di un Web Sociale federatoObi i A i iù i i l k li i i!Obiettivo: Approssimare quanto più i social network monolitici!

Vincolo: Usare degli standard aperti! (altrimenti si rischia che ogni social net ork distrib ito di enti n altro alledogni social network distribuito diventi un altro walledgarden)

Identificazione: formato (URL, email-like, XRI)( , , )

Identity DiscoveryLRDD/XRD YADIS/XRDS

Profilo Utente: i dati devono essere esposti e condivisi in maniera da essere

/ /

Profilo Utente: i dati devono essere esposti e condivisi in maniera da essere compresi non solo da umani ma anche da agenti software esterni.

hCard FOAF Portable


hCard FOAF

21

PortableContacts


Requisiti di un Web Sociale federato

Autenticazione: l’accesso a dati remoti, richiederebbe una forma di cross- autenticazione (single sign-on federato).

WebID (FOAF + SSL)WebID (FOAF + SSL)

Flussi di attività: è necessario formalizzare le attività svolte dagli utenti per agevolare l’interoperabilitàper agevolare l’interoperabilità.

Informazioni in tempo reale: ricevere i flussi di attività degli utenti Informazioni in tempo reale: ricevere i flussi di attività degli utenti remoti in tempo reale. WebHook

(notifiche PUSH)PUSH)

Unificare le conversazioni: problema della frammentazione delle conversazioni distribuite.

Salmon


Salmon

22


Tecnologie coinvolte (1/4)Come identificare e interagire con gli utenti remoti su ogni piattaforma?Come identificare e interagire con gli utenti remoti su ogni piattaforma?

• URL si associa ad una cosa, un posto, un documento, quasi mai una personapersona

• EMAIL si associa sempre a una persona (altre informazioni?)

Informazioni su un

WebFinger:• Sintassi

individuo (formato XRD):

• Pagina di profilo• Feed delle attività

emailFeed delle attività

• Chiave pubblica(RSA)• Avatar• Nickname

[email protected]

Identity Discovery

• …



Tecnologie coinvolte (2/4)Flussi di attività (eventi sociali)( )

L’utente [email protected](attore):

<entry xmlns:activity="http://activitystrea.ms/spec/1.0/> <author>

<name>Walter</name>

o ha pubblicato un messaggioo ha modificato il proprio profiloo ha stretto una relazione con Y

<name>Walter</name><uri>[email protected] </uri>

</author>

<title>Walter ha pubblicato una foto</title><id>http://example com/photo1</id>

o ha pubblicato una foto

<id>http://example.com/photo1</id><published>2011-04-06</published><activity:verb>

http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post/</activity:verb>

o ha segnalato la propria posizione

<activity:object><activity:object-type>

http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/photo</activity:object-type>

verbo oggetto

(check-in) da Tilabo ha condiviso l’album “Estate 2011”

V bi ti i di tti t dibili

/activity:object type<link rel="enclosures" type="image/jpeg"href=http://example.com/image_torino.jpeg/>

</activity:object></entry>


Verbi e tipi di oggetti sono estendibili

24


Tecnologie coinvolte (3/4)Ricezione/Invio dei flussi di attività in tempo realeRicezione/Invio dei flussi di attività in tempo reale.

PUSHProvider ConsumerEfficace:

Cli tCOMET

PubSubHubbub:

Provider Consumer

Efficiente:

Client

ProviderPubSubHubbub:

• Notifiche PUSH• Modello Publish/Subscribe

Efficiente: Provider

HUB

Consumer

Consumer

Consumer



Tecnologie coinvolte (4/4)Unificare le conversazioni distribuiteUnificare le conversazioni distribuite

I commenti da parte di utenti remoti, vengono inviati, tramite notifiche di tipo PUSH, alla sorgentesorgente,su specifici endpoint HTTP POST /salmon-endpoint HTTP/1.1

Host: example.comContent-Type: application/magic-envelope+xml- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?><me:env xmlns:me='http://salmon-protocol.org/ns/magic-env'><me:data type='application/atom+xml'>

...PAYLOAD...</ d t ></me:data><me:encoding>base64url</me:encoding><me:alg>RSA-SHA256</me:alg><me:sig>...FIRMA DIGITALE...

SALMON

</me:sig></me:env>



Name Description Supporters Referenced by

Existing (main) Social Network specifications at a glanceName Description Supporters Referenced by

OpenSocial client-server social interactions (Web API) and related device API (web gadgets/apps)

IBM, MySpace, Google, Yahoo!, Jive, Moodle

OMA MobSocNet

OStatus Federated (server-server) social interactions W3C, Diaspora OMA MobSocNet( ) , p

ActivityStreams Data format for social activities(actor verb object [target])

Google Buzz, Google Reader, Superfeedr, Gowalla, MySpace, Windows Live, Facebook IBM

OStatus, OpenSocial

Facebook, IBM

WebFinger “Profile discovery” based on user@domain identities(IETF)

Gmail (alpha), Yahoo!, AOL OStatus, OExchange

Salmon Securely distribute follow-up actions related to an activity Google OStatus

PubSubHubbub central hub to intermediate feed subscribers frompublishers

Google, most of feedaggregators & clients

OStatus

PortableContacts

protocol & data format for user contacts information Plaxo, Google Contacts Ostatus, OpenSocialContacts OpenSocial

XRD Data format to describe resources through indirect links (OASIS)

Host-Meta, (OpenSocial), OpenID


Host-Meta Metadata description of hosts & resources (IETF) WebFinger

OExchange weblink sharing on social networks (e.g. “Share” button) Twitter, bit.ly, AddThis & 300+ other SNs

OMA MobSocNet27


The equilibrium of Social Network specifications

OMA M bS N tOMA MobSocNet

O S i l OMA P h OStatusOpenSocial

ActivityStreams

OExchangeOMA Push

ActivityStreams

WebFingerPortable Contacts

Host-Meta

OpenID

SalmonKeyStandardized at W3CW3C Community Group

PubSubHubbub

W3C Community GroupStandardized at another bodyStandardization candidateIndependent standard groupPublic standard

GOIX Laurent-Walter / II.RP 28XRD/S

No standards bodyKnown IP issues

Part 3: Internal “Research & Prototyping” Part 3: Internal Research & Prototyping activities


Teamlife: una Social Network prototipalePortale User-Generated ContentFunzionalità social (tag, commenti, voti) e mobile (SMS, MMS)



TeamLife & OStatus

•Funzionalità Server-side (PHP/MySQL):• Ricerca di utenti remoti + ricerca utenti della piattaforma (WebFinger)• Gestione interazione HUB (sottoscrizione, messaggi PUSH)Gestione interazione HUB (sottoscrizione, messaggi PUSH)• Gestione messaggi Salmon (in entrata e in uscita)

•Funzionalità Client-side (HTML/JavaScript/CSS):

[email protected]

utente remoto


Ricerca utenti remoti Delegazione (re-tweet automatico)


Teamlife & OpenSocial

– OpenSocial support provided by Apache Shindig Open Source project

• REST (& RPC) API and data formats (ActivityStreams, PoCo)

• Example Social Gadgets (web applications)

– Native iPhone Application “Ensieme” prototyped internally

Gadget

Native



Risultati ottenuti

Prima: mobile web, client proprietari

Dopo:

mobile web, client federati


Conclusions

► Social Networks (SN) have introduced a new paradigm of communication / content exchange between users

► The related ecosystem is growing fast, driven by the Web/Entrepriseindustry and moving towards standardization and regulatory institutions

► Federation is the future of the Social Web that will create entire newbusiness opportunities based on interoperable communities of all kinds

► Although widely used from mobile devices, SN services are not usingmobile assets and are not yet designed for mobile network infrastructuresmobile assets and are not yet designed for mobile network infrastructures

► Some issues still need to be addressed, in particular towards user privacy

Standards are the key driver for enabling wide interoperability and mobile-friendliness of future social networks

In parallel, research is needed by industries and academia to investigate open issues over the next years

Federated (Mobile) Social Networking - unibo.it...“We are not using OpenSocial-compliant APIs, but...

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