1.8.11

A Flock of Twitters: Decentralized Semantic Microblogging

Intro/extract:

In my last article, Flocking To the Stream, I ended with this thought about the growing issue of social-networking fatigue:
…as the number of streams continue to increase and as the flow rate of each stream picks up, people will grow tired of having to subscribe to, having to join yet-another-stream phenomenon (YASP). Does the Web truly need additional stream providers each with their own data silos? Is there a user-centric solution to this rapidly growing, overflowing-stream issue that puts YASP to rest once and for all?
This article answers these two questions in great detail but the succinct preview version is as follows:
  1. The Web does not need additional stream providers each who exert significant control over a vast number of individuals, each who require their users to have a separate new user account (a new digital identity)
  2. The Web does not need additional closed data islands (data silos)
  3. The Web does need a means with which each individual can create, maintain, and control their own identity, efficiently and effectively manage stream conversations, and therefore not be beholden to a few, large data-silo stream providers
  4. The only way to accomplish point three is for the emergence of a distributed, decentralized, Open Source microblogging ecosystem that leverages the power of the Semantic Web