Are you a Friend of a Friend?
It is 15 years since the web started working. From those early days of being able to share documents, we are now in a world were people are fooling us to read their adverts. We are also still a long way away from being able to find new business cheaply, morally and relevantly.
This might be about the change, if Tim B Lee, the inventor of the WWW has anything to do with it. He is mosty upset by spam. He doesn’t like the rubbish he gets sent to him, and he is trying to find a way around it. The system he proposes seems like a backward step, but it might be the only way. It is based on two new technologies called OpenID and FOAF. OpenID is where your identity is confirmed through your own website, and FOAF is where your identity is confirmed by others who have dealt with you previously.
The problem for the general public though is that this could be closing the door on what the internet was meant to be able to offer. Perhaps, some might see it as being the truth about internet social networking. You can’t hurry relationships!
The way this is currently being demonstated is on Tim’s blog. You can only comment if you already know Tim and have the FOAF settings to prove it. This means that he is unable to get comments from people he and his colleagues are unaware of. This could be a bad thing.
The other downside of FOAF and OpenID is that personal details need to be shared automatically. Following on from the issues at the UK tax office regarding the data of 25 million people, it is unlikely there will be any takers for a system like this here!
These are very early days and it could well take another 5 years for Tim to get somewhere without Viagra and Poker emails popping at him. The question is, will it be Tim and his team who find the solution or will it be someone else?
Originally posted 2007-11-23 16:47:50.
