We're getting close

Tuesday, June 26, 2007 by Dave Winer.

Paolo writes about open relationship standards. 

In the last couple of days I've written, debugged and refined a web service that does TwitterGrams. It builds on Twitter's identity system, much the way I imagine I'd build off an open identity system. That is to say that Twitter is almost everything I'd want from an open identity system. But not everything. I have a feeling that Mike Graves is nodding as he reads this, and I believe he knows what the missing piece is. And it's one that Twitter (or anyone else) could add, almost trivially. 

What's missing: The ability for any app to store information associated with an account. Each person defines a namespace that can connect up to any other person with a namespace. At the intersection between two users could be (I'm channeling Marc Canter here) an appointment, a photograph (or many), a movie, a weblog, you name it. Marc could decide that this post belongs in his namespace in addition to mine (where the original lives). That's what the permalink is for. 

Are we close? Yes we are. The API for TwitterGrams borrows a key idea from the MetaWeblog API, that a RSS item can hitch a ride with every bit that travels over the pipe. There's the metadata. David Weinberger should be happy.  

BTW, the connection to Twitter's identity system is simplicity itself. They do nice work over there. Thanks!