Cloud 3
I hinted at this in the past two installments of Cloud (and complain about it constantly), but: Web sites are islands. Every site you visit has its own login, its own contact information, its own profiles, its own little social network, its own collection of your data. The best part is that it's not really in anyone's direct interest to solve this problem! Facebook and MySpace, for example, have effectively replaced email with their own private message systems. If you want to contact someone on Facebook, the easiest way is to... have a Facebook account. If you're on Facebook and want to contact someone who's not, you're going to pester that person to get a Facebook account so you can use the medium you're used to. (Perhaps Facebook has changed since I last read up on it, but either way the same thing goes for any other social networking site.)
I'd certainly like to see some of the following.
Identity. I've gone on about this before, but the Web seriously needs a solution to logins. OpenID is nice, but the big players are only acting as providers, not allowing OpenID logins themselves. I am seeing more and more places accept OpenID as a login unto itself rather than a cute way to log into an account you already made. Some sites only take OpenID login-the approach I'm taking with most of what I write recently.
But, as I said before, this isn't enough. I shouldn't have to pick a name, an email, a profile, a birthday, a sex, an occupation, a location, etc. every time I create an account somewhere. It's already all on the Web dozens of times; go find it! OpenID even has some limited capability built in for specifying this stuff in one place and having it broadcast anywhere you log in, but few providers make use of it. Even LiveJournal-the place that invented OpenID-doesn't let you share your email when logging in with an LJ OpenID.
RSS. Actually, we've been doing pretty well with RSS. Most sites that could reasonably have an RSS feed have one, and there are a few tools for doing fun things with RSS.
The actual problem is that most people don't use it. Even some of the nerdier people I know are only vaguely aware of RSS, opting instead to check some two dozen webcomics and news sites every day. Meanwhile, millions of people read LiveJournal RSS feeds or follow Twitter RSS feeds. Hell, a significant proportion of Twitter accounts are just short automated updates of some site's activity, which is effectively a gimped version of RSS. There's even a tool for turning RSS into a Twitter account, and then Twitter accounts have their own RSS feed...
Go try Google Reader. :(
Federation. I'm on LiveJournal. This is where I post. But what does that matter? Why can't someone on another mass blogging site read and comment on my LJ as though it were a local account? We're partway here with OpenID and RSS; with a bit of work, it wouldn't be unreasonable to have this Just Work.
More complicated types of data, like artwork on DA, require more effort. Art has other metadata like number of favorites, and that would have to be mirrored back to the home site. Mere RSS doesn't have a mechanism for this. But imagine not having to have half-used accounts across a dozen nigh-identical sites; instead, friend whoever you want who's on whatever site, and have it all work from the one you use.
Migration. The final combination of all three, and the direction I hope the Web eventually goes. Let me sign up on any site, use it all I want, friend and watch people on any other site... and then leave. If I get all pissy about LJ for banning Harry Potter/Stargate slash, or want to bail on Xanga before it tanks, let me move to my own Wordpress installation with no effort on my part.
As a bonus, it would be nice if sites didn't have to keep reinventing things that have been around for twenty years. Why does every forum need its own PM system? Why does DA have its own entire chat service? We've had email, IM, and IRC for ages. Use them!
I'd certainly like to see some of the following.
Identity. I've gone on about this before, but the Web seriously needs a solution to logins. OpenID is nice, but the big players are only acting as providers, not allowing OpenID logins themselves. I am seeing more and more places accept OpenID as a login unto itself rather than a cute way to log into an account you already made. Some sites only take OpenID login-the approach I'm taking with most of what I write recently.
But, as I said before, this isn't enough. I shouldn't have to pick a name, an email, a profile, a birthday, a sex, an occupation, a location, etc. every time I create an account somewhere. It's already all on the Web dozens of times; go find it! OpenID even has some limited capability built in for specifying this stuff in one place and having it broadcast anywhere you log in, but few providers make use of it. Even LiveJournal-the place that invented OpenID-doesn't let you share your email when logging in with an LJ OpenID.
RSS. Actually, we've been doing pretty well with RSS. Most sites that could reasonably have an RSS feed have one, and there are a few tools for doing fun things with RSS.
The actual problem is that most people don't use it. Even some of the nerdier people I know are only vaguely aware of RSS, opting instead to check some two dozen webcomics and news sites every day. Meanwhile, millions of people read LiveJournal RSS feeds or follow Twitter RSS feeds. Hell, a significant proportion of Twitter accounts are just short automated updates of some site's activity, which is effectively a gimped version of RSS. There's even a tool for turning RSS into a Twitter account, and then Twitter accounts have their own RSS feed...
Go try Google Reader. :(
Federation. I'm on LiveJournal. This is where I post. But what does that matter? Why can't someone on another mass blogging site read and comment on my LJ as though it were a local account? We're partway here with OpenID and RSS; with a bit of work, it wouldn't be unreasonable to have this Just Work.
More complicated types of data, like artwork on DA, require more effort. Art has other metadata like number of favorites, and that would have to be mirrored back to the home site. Mere RSS doesn't have a mechanism for this. But imagine not having to have half-used accounts across a dozen nigh-identical sites; instead, friend whoever you want who's on whatever site, and have it all work from the one you use.
Migration. The final combination of all three, and the direction I hope the Web eventually goes. Let me sign up on any site, use it all I want, friend and watch people on any other site... and then leave. If I get all pissy about LJ for banning Harry Potter/Stargate slash, or want to bail on Xanga before it tanks, let me move to my own Wordpress installation with no effort on my part.
As a bonus, it would be nice if sites didn't have to keep reinventing things that have been around for twenty years. Why does every forum need its own PM system? Why does DA have its own entire chat service? We've had email, IM, and IRC for ages. Use them!