Standard for information exchange between online applications

The: 10/09/2010 - AT: 0:08

There should be an established standard for search engine URLs, as well as blogging software URLs.

This would also apply for Facebook and other social networks. The standard should ensure that "share with", "search with" and "blog with" urls don't change.

Given the direction online applications is going, i strongly feel that it will be necessary with such a standard at some point in time. We need to ensure compatibility between applications. This will be hard without a standard, because one application may use one system, while another app use another.

Or maybe it would be better to exchange such information on a protocol level? Seeing things from a usability perspective, it may be easier for the developer, if you just needed to hit facebook.com with a post request filled with shareurl="WhateverUrl", vs hitting "www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=WhateverURL" with get.

We need some reassurance that these URLs don't just change, removing them entirely by using post requests, would likely be to confusing. And considering the current use of search engine urls, some standardized URL system may be the best option. The referrer from search engines is often used to deliver relevant ads, and in server log files.

Comments: [2]

Author: BlueBoden

Poster: Claudio Klemp

Date: 10/09/2010 - 5:50

Found this news on my Facebook page, that is why I'm here ;-)

Well a standard to share would be a nice thing, but this means server side rewriting the codes.... and this is difficult to happen... (see the semantic web standards, which are released, but do not enter into the common www)

But we already have some standards to be applied like RSS ... (A wordpress installation is able to pubblish RSS as posts), Email (also an Email can be pubblished as a post), spiders (you just spider the page sever side)...

Obviously these have to be enabled server side wise, and the counter problem of doubled content will arrise...

Point is here ... do you want to share just showing the to be shared data, or do you want to have the shared data indexed... (and furthermore why and for which reason you need doubled content)... or is the question on the bottom just to build incoming links as you have done on facebook ?

Well my advice... instead of requesting a standard, use already existing things the right way...

If you have 7 minutes of time, then watch this video here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHoQNS3fcWc , which is annother way to share , build outgoing links and if wanted even landing pages with external content.

Regards , Quasiamodo

Poster: BlueBoden

Date: 10/09/2010 - 7:36

RSS dose somewhat solve the problem, if only it was properly integrated. But then we still have issues with accelerators in IE8, just for example.

Server sided changes are minimal, and of no issue. The hard part is to get the bigger players to agree on the URL format, so the rest will follow.

I'm not talking about SEO or Linkbuilding, i haven't even considered it from that perspective. This is purely from a developers perspective, and between you and me, i personally hate having to create multiple versions of my applications, just because we don't have an established standard. The result is that we got services like "addthis", or limit our support for certain bigger social sites.

It would likely be better if it was integrated in the browser as IE are doing it, where its called "accelerators". But since we don't have a standard, you either have to install pre-made accelerators, or create your own for the applications you use.

Another problem is that it forces us to indirectly advertise for social sites, IE8 Accelerators would eliminate this problem. Now we just need other browsers to include same functionality.