The Vision of SNSAPI

This page is outdated by this better organized positioning paper

It is unlinked from the home and only put here in case someone will want to refer to it.

Why do we need a short description of vision?

I think we all have limited time, so attracting more people is necessary towards a real successful system. There are possibly three ways to get people engaged:

• Use monetary methods.
• Impose pressure.
• Share the vision.

We're not running a company, and this project is far from commercial use. It's impossible for us to leverage monetary methods at present. I'm also pursuing my own Phd degree. It will be many years before I can push a student, :). The last thing is to share the vision. Hope people whoever recognise the value join us.

How and why do we reach this project?

To be short:

• Current SNS is centralised (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, Renren, etc).
• Problem1: one SP have all users' data --> privacy concern.
• Problem2: single point failure --> block the domain/IP of Facebook and everything is gone.
• The solution to both: a decentralised SN (DSN).
• Method1: clean slate design. e.g. distributed design (like a P2P system), federated design (like email), etc.
• Method2: incremental. Attach to all existing services first and form the overlay ourselves.

Then we reach the current project of SNSAPI, which is obviously the first step. Why do we prefer an incremental approach? That is because established connection is a precious resource that users are not willing to give up. So the existing prototype DSNs have hard time to bootstrap. Also, we know we can not afford to design the whole system. We want to first output something that is useful to more people. Even if you are not DSN developers, SNSAPI do ease your life in some tasks.

Think wilder

Think wilder: an overlay network upon all means of communications! That is, unless one is physically isolated he won't be an island in the Internet. He can use SN functions as before. All underlying communications are transparent to the user(or say the app layer developers). When talking about all kinds of communications, we mean: Micro Blogs, SNS, Email system, other Internet protocols, NFC/D2D for mobile devices, etc. The ultimate goal: (with Ad Hoc D2D network) as long as human mobility is not constrained, information will pass on.

Think backwards

• We need to implement something first to prove the concept.
• Unifying SNS APIs will be a good first attempt!
• Problem: there are so many APIs, in different flavour. Maintaining burden is too high.
• Solution: a middle ware! Just like LLC's position in the network stack.
• What to do: a carefully designed framework(snsapi); several workable means of communications(plugin); proof of concept(app).

There are existing trials on this direction, both from academic study and industrial implementation. Here we focus on prototyping so the full reference is omitted. Welcome to open a thread in our email group for further discussions.