SMOB is an open source microblogging framework that models and exchanges data using Semantic Web standards like RDF and SPARQL. It relies on protocols from the Social Web like RSS, PubSubHubbub, and WebSockets. SMOB combines vocabularies such as FOAF, SIOC, MOAT, and OPO, allowing interlinking of social data and a meaningful representation of topics. It discusses how using Semantic Web standards and Social Web protocols can benefit achieving a federated social web. Privacy is designed into SMOB using the WebID protocol and Privacy Preference Ontology to allow authentication and access control in a transparent way to users.

1. Digital Enterprise Research Institute www.deri.i
e
SMOB: The best of both
worlds
Alexandre Passant, Julia Anaya, Owen
Sacco, Pavan Kapanipathi
FSW2011
Saturday, 4th June 2011
Berlin, Germany
© Copyright 2010 Digital Enterprise Research Institute. All rights reserved.

2. SMOB
Digital Enterprise Research Institute www.deri.i
e
 Open source microblogging framework
 Data is modelled and exchanged using Semantic
Web standards (RDF(S) and SPARQL) and Linked
Data principles
 Relies on protocols emerging from Social Web
systems (RSS, PubSubHubbub, WebSockets)
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3. Linked Data for the Social Web
Digital Enterprise Research Institute www.deri.i
e
 Combines several vocabularies such as FOAF,
SIOC, MOAT / CommonTag or OPO
 Advantages:
 Application-agnostic
 Interlinking to social data
 Meaningful representation of topics
 Disambiguate tags
 Transparent to the user
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4. Architecture
Digital Enterprise Research Institute www.deri.i
e
PubSubHubBub (PuSH) is an open, server-to-
server pubsub (publish/subscribe) protocol as
an extension to Atom and RSS
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5. Publishing
Digital Enterprise Research Institute www.deri.i
e
 Since PuSH does not support RDF, we encode
SPARQL 1.1 Update queries in the RSS feeds
 Web Sockets are also added to allow client-to-
server communication
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6. The privacy challenge
Digital Enterprise Research Institute www.deri.i
e
 The WebID protocol and the Privacy
Preference Ontology (PPO) allow authentication
and access control
 The process is transparent to the user
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7. Access control
Digital Enterprise Research Institute www.deri.i
e
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8. Summary
Digital Enterprise Research Institute www.deri.i
e
 Discussed how a combination of Semantic Web
standards and pragmatic Social Web
protocols could be benficial to achieve the
Federated Social Web vision
 Implemented privacy-by-design in SMOB
http://smob.me, https://github.com/smob/smob
alexandre.passant@deri.ie julia.anaya@deri.ie, owen.sacco@deri.ie, pavan.kapanipathi@deri.org
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