Raw

To me, it looks like FOAF is an excellent example of the point Janes was trying to make : that application ahould precede specification.

Syndication started with some companies who had an application : they wanted to pipe data from one machine to another. And the specification followed from that.

FOAF started as a specification and the hope that people would then go and develop applications that used it.

Ok, actually the FOAF case is a bit more complex. It started with a misreading. It looked like there was an application : YASNS such as Friendster, Orkut and Tribe were demonstrating it; and that what was needed was a decentralized, supplier-independent version.

That's a worthy goal. But in retrospect, it's not clear a) what the true application and value of the YASNS is, or b) whether FOAF actually captures it.

My hunch is that the original buzz about YASNS was about "collecting" people and showing them off … to other people. But, by definition, FOAF is designed for machine-to-machine communication, and showing off to a machine doesn't have the same attraction. Especially when there aren't any programs which can turn that information into something for people to read. (Unless you are using the very alpha PeopleAggregator)

Beyond this, Friendster et. al. gave a web-presence to users who might not have had one. Whereas FOAF needs you to have a web-page before you can play. (Unless you are using the very alpha PeopleAggregator)

But if you already have a web-presence, there's another well-established way to show-off a collection of people to other people : the "blogroll" convention. It's much easier to add a link to them there than it is to construct a FOAF record, even with FOAF-o-matic.

The other excitement of the YASNS was to do with *membership*. Of exclusive invites. Of who would accept you as a friend. FOAF, has all the representational power (and more) of the YASNS' databases, without any of the actual experience, application or functionality these services provide. That's why it's languishing.