A talk I gave at Facebook about Activity Streams. http://activitystrea.ms

1. Activity Streams
Chris Messina
Internal meeting
January 29, 2009 ☕ Facebook, Palo Alto, CA

2. “Lifestreaming”

3. Today
Last.fm
•
Jaiku
•
Facebook newsfeed
•
FriendFeed
•
etc.
•

4. The challenge
Develop a format for expressing activities
•
Compelling experiences from activity feeds
•
The zero-knowledge test
•
etc.
•

5. FriendFeed Services

6. The Benefits
Staying in touch across the web
•
An open, emergent ecosystem of activities
•
Filtering, search, automation & stats
•
Optimal, compelling, custom experiences
•
Coalescing, merging, de-duping
•
etc.
•

7. Examples

8. last.fm

9. sweetcron (yongfook.com)

10. Facebook

11. FriendFeed

12. boxee.tv

13. Movable Type Motion

14. Eventbox

15. Anatomy of an activity

16. Actor verb object [context]

17. factoryjoe tweeted Niches Bitches! [via SMS]

18. Actor verb object {indirect object} [context]

19. Chris bought Planet Earth {for Brynn} [at Amazon.com]

20. Activities on the Social Web

21. I visit davidrecordon.com

22. I decide I want to follow his activities
Sign in to follow Dave!

23. I sign in with my OpenID

24. Before I’m sent back, I’m asked
whether I want to follow Dave

25. I say yes, and am asked which
activity types I’m interested in...
Add contact
Dave Recordon Add subscriptions
Worst username evar. Contact details
San Francisco, CA Status updates
davidrecordon.com
Photos
Bookmarks
Your message (optional)
Blogs
Hi there! We met that conference
daveman692
last week. I’ve subscribed to your
updates on my site. Six Apart
Location
-Chris
Music
Movies
Slide presentations
Events
Travel
Local reviews
Books
Access requires permission from Dave
Inspired by Jyri Engeström

26. Should any of the selected types be protected,
I will be asked whether I want to request access
Dave’s contact details, photos and location are protected.
Would you like to request access to these items?
Please note that Dave may deny your request.
No thanks OK

27. If I say OK, an OAuth request will be sent which
Dave will later be able to approve, deny or ignore

28. ...And Dave’s public activities will
show up in my activities dashboard.

29. ...And if Dave later approves my request,
his protected activities will show up too

30. Activities on the Open Web

31. I visit stammer.com

32. I decide I want to join this community
Sign in to start posting!

33. I sign in with my OpenID

34. Before I’m sent back, I’m asked whether I want
to authorize Stammer to postback my activities
Stammer can post the activities you take on their site to
your profile.
Would you like to allow this?
If you’re not sure, you can decide later. These activities will not be made public
unless you want them to be. You can always revoke this permission later.
Decide later OK

35. If I say yes, I am returned to Stammer,
authenticated. As I use the site, my actions
are posted to my activity stream

36. If I defer, I am returned to Stammer,
authenticated. As I use the site, my actions
are posted to my activity dashboard, where
I can choose to share my activities later

37. Sound familiar?

38. Sound familiar?

41. Current work

42. ATOM Extension

43. <entry>
<id>tag:photopanic.example.com,2008:activity01</id>
<title>Geraldine posted a Photo on PhotoPanic</title>
<published>2008-11-02T15:29:00Z</published>
<link rel=quot;alternatequot; type=quot;text/htmlquot;
href=quot;/geraldine/activities/1quot; />
<activity:verb>
http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post
</activity:verb>
<activity:object>
<id>tag:photopanic.example.com,2008:photo01</id>
<title>My Cat</title>
<published>2008-11-02T15:29:00Z</published>
<link rel=quot;alternatequot; type=quot;text/htmlquot;
href=quot;/geraldine/photos/1quot; />
<activity:object-type>
tag:atomactivity.example.com,2008:photo
</activity:object-type>
<source>
<title>Geraldine's Photos</title>
<link rel=quot;selfquot; type=quot;application/atom+xmlquot;
href=quot;/geraldine/photofeed.xmlquot; />
<link rel=quot;alternatequot; type=quot;text/htmlquot;
href=quot;/geraldine/quot; />
</source>
</activity:object>
<content type=quot;htmlquot;>
&lt;p&gt;Geraldine posted a Photo on PhotoPanic&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;img src=quot;/geraldine/photo1.jpgquot;&gt;
</content>
</entry>

44. <entry>
<id>tag:photopanic.example.com,2008:activity01</id>
<title>Geraldine posted a Photo on PhotoPanic</title>
<published>2008-11-02T15:29:00Z</published>
<link rel=quot;alternatequot; type=quot;text/htmlquot;
href=quot;/geraldine/activities/1quot; />
<activity:verb>
http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post
</activity:verb>
<activity:object>
<id>tag:photopanic.example.com,2008:photo01</id>
<title>My Cat</title>
<published>2008-11-02T15:29:00Z</published>
<link rel=quot;alternatequot; type=quot;text/htmlquot;
href=quot;/geraldine/photos/1quot; />
<activity:object-type>
tag:atomactivity.example.com,2008:photo
</activity:object-type>
<source>
<title>Geraldine's Photos</title>
<link rel=quot;selfquot; type=quot;application/atom+xmlquot;
href=quot;/geraldine/photofeed.xmlquot; />
<link rel=quot;alternatequot; type=quot;text/htmlquot;
href=quot;/geraldine/quot; />
</source>
</activity:object>
<content type=quot;htmlquot;>
&lt;p&gt;Geraldine posted a Photo on PhotoPanic&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;img src=quot;/geraldine/photo1.jpgquot;&gt;
</content>
</entry>

45. Starter verbs/objects

46. Weblog Entry
Note
Photo
Video
Bookmark
...

47. What can we observe?

48. The Benefits
Staying in touch across the web
•
An open, emergent ecosystem of activities
•
Filtering, search, automation & stats
•
Optimal, compelling, custom experiences
•
Coalescing, merging, de-duping
•
etc.
•

49. More soon at activitystrea.ms

50. Fin.
me -› factoryjoe.com

51. Fin.
me -› factoryjoe.com