BarCampBoston update and what’s Coming Up…
May 20th, 2008 by JoeC
I had the pleasure of speaking at BarCampBoston3 this past Saturday in Cambridge, MA on the topic “Distributed Twitter”. This was a well-attended event and the geek energy was high! BarCamps attract and cater to hard-core coders and implementers. Not many marketing, PR or media types were in evidence, but there were quite a few startup CEOs there looking for help.
One particularly useful session for me was at the start of the day, when Matt Douglas, CEO of MyPunchBowl.com, brought together companies looking for help with developers looking for work. It was very informal, we all got 10 seconds to say who we were and what we were looking for. I made a couple of promising connections there, so that in itself was worth the 90 minute drive from my home in Connecticut to Cambridge. Thanks, Matt and MyPunchBowl! This kind of Hook-me-up session should be a part of every BarCamp.
I was pleased that my session on Distributed Twitter attracted a packed room. Unfortunately, I completely zoned and missed the fact that sessions were only 1/2 hour, so I had to cut things short, but I did meet some interesting people who were interested in trying to get a project off the ground to actually build something.
I had some interesting follow-up discussions later in the day with people who were at my talk, but unfortunately, did not get to tell all at the meeting about the Distributed Twitter Google Group. Probably no biggie since I’m going to have to change the name of the group anyway, to avoid the inevitable cease-and-desist letter from Twitter.com’s lawyers for using their name.
One of the big reasons I went to BarCamp was to try to connect with mobile developers since a big part of decentralizing a microblogging platform is to provide the mobile connection that Twitter has. Many people use Twitter almost exclusively on their phones. I did meet two young fellows who seemed very interested in creating a mobile app to interface directly to a microblogging platform. Their advice was to skip SMS for demo purposes and simply use the mobile IP connectivity. Their POV was that SMS will go away in due time to be replaced by the more flexible and extensible IP protocol directly to apps on the phone. I’m not sure I buy the argument that you don’t need to have an SMS connection. SMS will be around for a while to come yet, and not having it could hamper uptake severely.
I had other interesting conversations regarding the use of XMPP as the “carrier” protocol for microblogging services. It was suggested to use Google’s gTalk service to experiment with since it’s a fully compliant (I think) XMPP end-point.
I continue to have some challenges with XMPP proponents not fully appreciating that microblogging is more like blogging than instant-messaging or chat. I’ll confess I don’t understand the differences completely myself, but I do see that there are some and that they are significant to a proper implementation. For instance, microblogging does not have the requirement or notion of presence. As a user, you don’t need to be “present” to get all the updates that people may send. You should be able to go back at any time and get the complete history of a microblog’s updates, just like it was a blog. Related to presence is the notion that senders of content aren’t responsible for keeping a permanent copy around for receivers to reference and search. More about this at a later time, but one shouldn’t have to rely on being “present” or having your receiving server make a copy of everything that a microblog sends to have a complete record. The sender should be responsible for keeping a permanent, permalinkable copy.
So, all in all, BarCampBoston3 was definitely worthwhile but I could have done better had I taken two consecutive sessions, which is allowed, and not have been so pressed for time.
Coming up…
In the weeks to come, I’m scheduled to do two more presentations about Distributed Microblogging.
- IgniteBoston3 - May 29th, 6 pm at Tommy Doyle’s in Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA. This will be a quick, 5 minute “drive-by” preso just to introduce people to the topic. I’ll probably just get enough time to describe what it is, why I’m involved and to pimp preso #2 (next) and refer people to the Google group. If you’re interested in coming, be sure to register because they always fill up!
- Berkman Center Thursday Night Meeting - June 5th, (time: tba), at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University, 23 Everett St. Cambridge, MA. I’ll be speaking on Distributed Microblogging. I’m not sure, but there may be other presenters as well. This is my first time at a Berkman Thursday Night meeting and I’m very excited.