Joseph Smarr

Data Portability, Privacy, and the Emergence of the Social Web Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco, CA April 23, 2008 Download PPT (5.3 MB) I’ve been talking about opening up the social web for some time, but the world keeps changing around me, so I can never use an old talk for very long. Since Web [...]

I mentioned earlier that the opening up of the social web has become a hot topic that’s taking center stage at many recent conferences and community events–and it seems to keep getting hotter every day. As a passionate advocate and early adopter / implementor of many of the building-block technologies (OpenID, OAuth, OpenSocial, microformats, Social [...]

Co-founder Peter Nixey just wrote up a riveting account of the recent launch of his startup clickpass for Vitamin. It’s a must-read. Plaxo was one of clickpass’s launch partners, so the story features a few cameos from yours truly. It will be hard to forget waking up in an Austin hotel around 9am on the [...]

The Future of Social Networks Future of Web Apps Miami (with Tantek Çelik and Brian Oberkirch) Miami, FL February 29, 2008 View Slides (slideshare) Download MP3 Audio (37.3 MB) In addition to the half-day workshop I presented at FOWA Miami, I also gave a talk as part of the main event with Tantek and Brian Orberkirch (who also has [...]

Implementing Open Social Web support on your site Future of Web Apps Miami (workshop) Miami, FL February 28, 2008 Download PPT (3.8 MB) I was invited to give a workshop and be on a panel at the Future of Web Apps in Miami. I attended the first FOWA in SF in 2006, and I really enjoyed [...]

The social web is opening up, and its seems everybody wants to talk about it. Between the technologies, companies, and privacy / control issues involved, there is no shortage of strong opinions. And at Plaxo, we\’ve found ourselves right in the middle of all the fun, both due to the continued success of Pulse, and [...]

I spent the weekend in SF at OpenIDDevCamp, hosted at SixApart’s offices. In the style of BarCamp and iPhoneDevCamp, the idea was just to get a lot of people together who were interested in OpenID, provide the space and amenities for them to work together, and let them loose. About 30-40 people showed up, including [...]

Opening up the Social Web SNAP Chat – What’s New in OpenSocial San Francisco, CA November 28, 2007 Download PPT (1.0 MB) Update: PivotalLabs has put up the full video of my talk (.mov, 119 MB) The folks behind the recent SNAP Summit have started a SNAP Chat series, and for their first event, they [...]

A couple of weeks ago, I was asked to speak on a panel about OpenSocial for the WebGuild of Silicon Valley. It was a lively discussion featuring Chris Schalk from Google, myself, and Akash Garg from Hi5, moderated by WebGuild president Daya Baran. The event was hosted at Google HQ and over 300 people attended. [...]

I guess I missed it with the Thanksgiving break, but Tim Berners-Lee recently wrote a thoughtful and compelling essay on the Social Graph, and how it fits in to the evolution of the net and the web so far. Definitely worth a read! I was pleasantly surprised to see that he references the Bill of [...]