Jun 15
Syndication of social networks
In the late days of the Web 2.0 bubble there’s been a quest for a simple way to aggregate all social content and interactions.
It struck me that the frameworks for this are in place on the internet for over two decades now. They are Newsgroups and IRC.
Both technologies are free and quite stable, and have endured the test of time.
A couple of daemons and some API connections could easily integrate most web 2.0 sites into these old beasts.
It seems such a good idea that i’ll probably take a shot at creating something in this area my self. One thing that i’ve learned is that developing on top of new tech is a recipe for disaster and constant headache. If anything comes up, i’ll let you know soon. 
1 Comment so far
Leave a comment
Great idea!
I used to follow many newsgroups (about 18 years ago!
I always thought it was a shame that such a good technology has been fading since http became so popular.
Email and ftp protocols have fared better, and are still relatively popular.
The biggest problems with newsgroups at the moment are the inconsistent propagation “delay” and the clunky readers.
Of course both newsgroups and irc are designed for short-lived info, which usually gets deleted… social networks (in some circumstances) need long-term storage.
I’m curious to see what you come up with.