What is Digg?36 Comments
- Phocion55, on 02/03/2008, -0/+15Thanks for the insight, Mr. Ballmer.
- phrees, on 02/03/2008, -1/+13It's interesting how semantic markup is spreading. The API gets data from XFN (microformats) and FOAF (RDF, OWL). BTW it understands DIgg profiles. Try feeding yours into http://socialgraph-resources.googlecode.com/svn/tr ...
- BingoPower, on 02/03/2008, -1/+8I haven't inspected the API at the moment, but I assume there is a "This person is a wanker" attribute?
That could be useful when joining new networks/sites and knowing that a person you marked as a wanker on one site will show up as a wanker on the next site, allowing one to swiftfully block/ignore them from the outset! - biohazd, on 02/03/2008, -0/+4You can claim to be anyone because the XFN and FOAF markup is public information.
In reference to the example near the end of the video, the links are one-way, so for 'bob692' to verify that 'bradfitz' of Twitter == 'brad' of LiveJournal he would need to find a link from one of his other networks (in this instance the 'bob' account at LiveJournal) that connected from his established friend 'brad' to 'bradfitz.com' and then another link from there to the 'bradfitz' account on Twitter.
This is exactly the same set of steps that 'bradfitz' took to find 'bob692'.
Already solved because the system doesn't need to be any more secure than the ability of users to correctly verify each others identity's via conventional means for the source networks (in this case LiveJournal).
Sorry if that wasn't so clear. - Jenadae, on 02/03/2008, -2/+5As brilliant and worthwhile to website admins it may be this runs along the same ways the CENSUS report does. It gathers information from tons of individuals to increase business activity and profits. The only difference is that its the almighty Google and not your government.
- Laminarcissus, on 02/03/2008, -0/+3While we're all posting our thoughts here to contribute to the Digg community, we're supposed to click through in excited anticipation of the words of wisdom that you were too lazy (or motivated by click-throughs, Google ad revenue, or self-absorption) to post here?
So no one else has to waste time on you, let me say for everyone:
***** you. Go away. - Jenadae, on 02/03/2008, -2/+5So is the CENSUS...
- diggduggj, on 02/03/2008, -0/+3thank you for bringing this to my attention :)
- ElbertF, on 02/03/2008, -2/+5From what I understood it's pretty easy to make it look like you're someone else (and get connected with a random person's friends). You can claim to be anyone, they should probably solve that first.
- HigherLogic, on 02/03/2008, -0/+2FTA: "The API returns web addresses of public pages and publicly declared connections between them. The API cannot access non-public information, such as private profile pages or websites accessible to a limited group of friends."
- xenofish, on 02/03/2008, -1/+3Raises some privacy concerns.. How can someone use this to gain more information about a user for whatever purpose. Must admit that while I like the concept in one way, the whole privacy issue of the web is just becoming more and more obvious.
If we had 100 social sites that implemented this API, your privacy becomes more and more abstract. - smackkmonkey, on 02/03/2008, -1/+3I used the link to check if anything was connected to my flickr, it found a connection to a .fr website. Unfortunately, it wasn't a proper 'me' connection and there was no way to remove it (i'm not sure how it is even linked to my flickr). While innocent enough to filter on an individual application level, it can lead to problems in the future when the technology is more advanced and for example, background checking corporations automatically include this information.
- smackhero, on 02/03/2008, -0/+2yea, this isn't a user application. it's an API for developers. it would be useless if you could only use the API to identify your own online social connections.
the point of this API is so that web developers can develop social web applications and use this API to search google for these connections for their users. as it is right now, it's a very powerful API with a lot of potential applications. and it only retrieves publicly accessible information, so there aren't any privacy concerns. - _skin_, on 02/03/2008, -0/+2And now I have friends and I'm happy. LOL
- akkuma, on 02/03/2008, -0/+2For anyone who doesn't realize this seems to be the beginning of a way for developers to start implementing even more DataPortability ideas. Instead of worrying what sites to check, you can simply get all information out there for xfn/foaf. This adds another layer that'll simplify things for developers. If you can pull in all this info and let the user sort it out, it'll save them the time of having to manually reenter all of it.
- Aupajo, on 02/03/2008, -0/+2It's interesting you bring that up. XFN explicitly has no bad attributes - you can describe that you like someone, or that they're your friend, colleague, whatever. But if you don't like someone, you can't use XFN to say that.
- findhostcoupons, on 03/22/2009, -0/+1Very interesting story and really good news from Google!
- ElbertF, on 02/03/2008, -2/+3Err no, it's open. Google can access the information, the government and even you.
- amphoterous, on 02/03/2008, -1/+2[tinFoilHat] Now google can find you ANYWHERE! [/tinFoilHat]
- Aupajo, on 02/03/2008, -0/+1Just to clarify - it looks in your post like you're implying that microformats are another word for XFN. XFN is an example of one microformat.
- Laminarcissus, on 02/03/2008, -0/+1Yes, but don't underestimate the effect of simply making a public database easier to work with and more mineable. Depending on the information, being able to create new logical relationships between data sets may reveal more than the individual parts themselves, even with public data.
For example, state-by-state incorporation and company officer data is public, and political campaign contribution lists are public. But an API to easily connect the two and identify various relationships would have a big impact.
If "privacy" is related to the data set that can be efficiently associated with an individual, then this certainly affects privacy. - jgeek, on 02/29/2008, -0/+1yet another test - faces for URL's: http://www.servletsuite.com/socialwidget.htm
- BingoPower, on 02/03/2008, -0/+1That sounds like a bit of an oversight...
ages ago, when I was toyed with writing IRC clients (they were fun to test, I guess), I added an "aquaintance" functionality, the attributes of which would would determine if someone was friend or foe. - CuddyBuddy, on 02/04/2008, -0/+1Google has become big through intelligent aggregation, and it has proved once again that it has not lost its core ability with this useful idea
- hedge41, on 02/03/2008, -0/+0Dugg for the Troy McClure-like intro.
- smackhero, on 02/03/2008, -1/+1well, typically when you block someone on a site, your block list is not publicly available. so while that might be a cool feature, it would be hard to implement without breaking this privacy practice. perhaps you don't care if the person you block finds out that you've blocked them (spammers/trolls for instance), but right now most social networks keep that information hidden from other users.
a quick hack that can be used in the mean time would be to search users with connections to "http://www.rnc.org/" - dig9, on 02/04/2008, -0/+0Wow! Now we dont need to manage our friends on N no of Social n/w sites :)
- ascalyuk, on 02/26/2008, -0/+0interesting to see list of sources (social networks etc.) which Google Social Graph API use. This will be useful in future for internal sites integration.
- A12Alex, on 02/28/2008, -0/+0I totally agree with you.
- diggit08, on 02/03/2008, -1/+0Does this mean that Die Hard 4 could now be true????
/sarcasm - seehah, on 02/04/2008, -1/+0sorry - I don't run ads, don't care about click-throughs, may be a little self-absorbed (but then again, who isn't), but I thought perhaps that my idea was too long for this comment space. my apologies.
- ssj2119, on 02/03/2008, -2/+1good deveopment
- domokunt, on 02/03/2008, -3/+1:?
- seehah, on 02/03/2008, -7/+0This is big news. See my take on it. http://www.jimmyni.com
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