[rdfweb-dev] FOAF browsing and FOAFster

[Marc Canter]

Jim wrote......

 the foaf vocabulary (and by extension the foaf files) don't have a
single purpose of finding friends, they're just about people, so
wherever we talk about people, we need to have some foaf vocab,
constraining where it goes doesn't help those goals.

Marc replys......

 OK - so I hope it's OK - to use FOAF the way we wanna use it - right?

So if we wanna use it as a way of identifying someone's meta-data -
that's been 'standardized' - that's OK - right?  And is we wanna do
something cool and whacky - that's OK too - right?

===================================================

Marc has asked earlier......

> I don't think it's a matter of real-time updating, as much as
> convenience of having to manually update/change my stored foaf.rdf
file.

And Jim had replied....

Well that's just an authoring tool, people are working on those, that to
me
is simply a non-complex issue just needing someone to have the time and
the
UI skills to develop it, there's certainly no major modelling issues to
prevent it from happening.

Now Marc finally gets to say....

Well I'm just an authoring tool guy.

===================================================

Finally - Jim has said earlier......

> What value would this add to me, why do I want to exist on some
portal?
>
> Marc clarifies.......
>
> Well what value would Haystack give you? Why is Nat Friedman doing
dashboard?

Jim then replied.......

Perhaps I misunderstand what you mean by portal, having foafdata at my
fingertips (and I have over 2000 peoples data available to me with
simple
searching) has proved extremely useful, and annoys me when people don't
have
the information I want, but it's with me, in app I control, I don't see
the
value in having it off in some portal, that's what I'm querying - what
does
the portal give?

Marc concludes with...........

What if the portal was a tool?  What if a community and a tool were the
same thing?  What if new kinds of services we offered that combined
aggregation, integration and appropriate levels of customization to a
wide range of mainstream users - let's say by USA Interactive, Virgin or
Fox.

Could/would we then think that perhaps all this semantic research and
development might be applicable to the average everyday man or woman?

I would certainly hope so.

So portals are good things - 'cause they have money to spend and invest
and they have access to 1,000,000s of people.  Which leads to LOTS of
meta-data - and sementicalizing.

========================================================

Here's one more question.........

"Where are you gals and guys coming from in regards to unique
identifies?  Things like XRI?"  I notice you have this mail checksum
shay1 thingie. 

That's just ONE identifier - right?  One's FOAF file could have multiple
unique identifiers - supporting multiple systems - correct?