I love watching and participating in spreading memes. Here's the payoff.
Not only has Technorati supported FOAF - but Dave Sifry has also put these digital IDs into CONTEXT. In the case of Technorati - it's all about searching and data mining the blogosphere. So here's a screen grab of what happens when a few Technorati profiles have been filled out. Here are some Cosmos results - with Micah Alpern, Seb Paquet, Joi and Me in them.
And to make it fun and self-learning - Dave has even put in a link to "What do these pictures mean?"
Joi Ito: Technorati talks FOAF, as does Paolo. [Scripting News]
Paolo asks in his post "What next?" (after he's gotten his FOAF embedded into his main blog page....)
Well what I suggest is going and getting Morten Fredericksen's FOAF explorer. He has a bookmarklet which (when opened on someone's FOAF enabled blog page) will display your FOAF file (with all it's related links, friends and info.) I got Morten to add in an ADD button - so YES - you can add friends. Start with my file or Danny Ayers or Aaron Swartz or Mark Pilgrim's or go to the main FOAF project page and look around.
But once you've got that friend added (which BTW can just be an acquiantance or relative or enemy) - you'll have to MANUALLY update your FOAF file.
So that leads us to the issue of: "How do you automatically update FOAF files - if they're under the control of the end-user?"
HHHhhhhmmmm - sounds like a job for FOAFster!
So the first context of FOAF we've seen is in TypePad - where your blogroll is your FOAF file. Then came Technorati - where Cosmos search results are peppered with FOAF faces. Now comes the big magilla cutty - mating. Friendster and the rest have been lusting (literally) over the $100M dating scene. But they're all closed worlds.
What if there was a social network environment based upon an open standard, like FOAF? I know dana boyd would be interested. And maybe (god forbid) we went beyond the world of 22-25 year olds thirsting after each other's bodies? Where's the social software for families?
FOAF is getting awfully official looking....
