Abstracting Social Networking functionality in Drupal

Objectives

• Provide a common interface to access common functions across multiple social networks. Making it easier for:
  • Developers to create and maintain social network integration modules.
  • Site builders to utilise social network integration modules that harmoniously work together.
  • Users to access social networks functionality.
• Let's work on clarifying these objectives over the next few weeks leading up to the Abstracting Social Networking functionality in Drupal sprint.
• There are numerous modules for Drupal social networking integration.
  • Connecting with other networks
  • Pulling in content
  • Pushing out content
  • What else?

See the Abstracting Social Networking functionality in Drupal stack diagram.

Sprint pages

• We're using the wiki page Abstracting Social Networking functionality in Drupal wiki to prepare for the sprint.
• And you can sign up in the Abstracting Social Networking functionality in Drupal event page.

Sprint

The main sprint day will be Friday 15th June 2012 from 10:30 in the morning. We will also have access to dedicated sprint space on Saturday 16th and Sunday 17th if we wish to continue. Win a free ticket (see below for details).

Sign up for the sprint

Competition

• The prize is one free ticket for Drupal Developer Days Barcelona 2012 worth 25.00 EUR. No cash alternative available.
• To enter the competition is simple: register for the sprint and make sure you contribute to the Abstracting Social Networking functionality in Drupal wiki page. Also, use the Log message when you edit the wiki page.
• The prize will go to the person with the best (in the eyes of the judges) contribution to the wiki page.
• There are no other prizes. Though we'll have some prizes to award during the sprint.
• The deadline for the competition is Thursday 7th June 2012 at 23:59 CEST.
• The judges are Daniel Harris and Klokie Grossfeld of Kendra Initiative
• We will announce the winner on Friday 8th June at 12:00 CEST.
• If you have already purchased a ticket then you can still enter this competition. If you win you can sell it or give it away (for those precious Drupal Karma points). Unfortunately, we can't directly refund your previously purchased ticket.
• And before you ask the answer is: no, we won't be pulling this cheap "free ticket" stunt for Munich DrupalCon 2012! ;-)

Code review

• We should be able to abstract these into a social networking API
  • OAuth for authorisation
  • Pluggable layer for
    • Notifications
    • Pulling in and using content
    • Posting to other networks
    • What else?

Future directions (need to add website links)

• Federated social networking
  • WebID
  • OStatus
    • PubSubHubbub
  • OpenSocial
    • Portable Contacts
• What else?

Use Cases

• What do we want to be able to do with social networks?
  • Downloading friends' lists
  • Posting pages
  • What else?

Posted to

• http://groups.drupal.org/social-networking-sites
• http://groups.drupal.org/federated-social-web
• http://groups.drupal.org/facebook-api
• http://groups.drupal.org/google-plus
• http://groups.drupal.org/kendraio
• Choice between fbconnect and fboauth
• Where else should we post?

Acknowledgement

The research – carried out by Kendra Initiative – leading to these results has received funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement 248474 Socially Aware, collaboRative, scAlable Coding mEdia distributioN (SARACEN).

Speaking experience

Daniel Harris spoke at DrupalCon Paris 2009 on Using Drupal for Media Asset / Content Management, Semantic Syndication / Promotion and Commerce and has a long history of speaking at conferences for Kendra Initiative.