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BOF-5911: Building a Web 3.0 Address Book
To give everyone a chance to try out the So(m)mer Address Book, I have made it available via Java Web Start: just click on the picture to the right, and try it out.
The Address Book is currently demoware: it shows how one can build virally an open distributed social network client that solves the social network data silo problem (video). No need to have an account on every social networking site on which you have friends, and so maintain your data on each one. You can simply belong to one network and link to all your friends wherever they are. With one click of a button you can publish your social network to your own web server, using ftp, scp, WebDAV, or even Atom. You can then link to other people who have (or not in fact), a foaf file. By pressing the space bar when selecting a friend, the Address Book with then GET their file. So you can browse your social network.
To get going you can explore my social network by dragging my foaf file icon 
onto the first pane of the application.
In BOF-5911 which I will be presenting on Thursday at 7:30pm I will be presenting the social networking problem, demonstrating how the So(m)mer Address Book solves it, and showing in detail how it is build, what the problems are, and what work remains. I will also discuss how this can be used to create global single sign on based on a network of trust.
Posted at 12:50AM May 07, 2008 [permalink/trackback] by Henry Story in Java | Comments[3]
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Henry,
This is pretty cool. What lib are you using to speak FTP/WebDav/SMB ?
Posted by ocean on May 07, 2008 at 02:51 AM CEST #
Hi Ocean,
I tried to list all the libraries I am using on the Address Book web site
https://sommer.dev.java.net/AddressBook.html
I am currently using the VFSFileChooser which itself uses the Apache Apache Commons VFS libraries as stated here:
http://vfsjfilechooser.sourceforge.net/links.html
I probably could also use Restlets... but then I would have to do the UI.
There is a good buzz at JavaOne around JavaFX I might rewrite the UI in JavaFX, to go back to the language it was initially written in (F3). In June when they are going to release a stable version.
Posted by Henry Story on May 07, 2008 at 03:20 AM CEST #
Hi Henry,
I tried it out, and I think this is very cool! However I just created my own foaf file, and tried to use the "Open foaf URL.." from the menu, but nothing happened.. I guess it could be my foaf file that are bad or are missing some property (although it validates okay :). See http://www.erlingwl.com/foaf.n3#me
Posted by Erling on May 07, 2008 at 11:39 AM CEST #