Identi.cating the Twitter down-time

http://tinyurl.com/5tbuqz

I admit, my initial impression of identi.ca was rather bland.  Aesthetically, it was pretty bland and, at the time, I saw nothing really special about it.  What I was looking for was purely the look and feel of the system… Identi.ca, or more specifically, Laconica - the open Micro-blogging tool behind it.  This article is really more about the system, Laconica, than their canonical server, Identi.ca, but the name went really well with the pun. So what is this other than an apparent Twitter clone?  And what makes this different than all of the others? Open Source Software.  I was first excited and then rather down about the idea, and then I got happy again. Digg.com, the name in itself, and the popularity and community behind it.  MySpace, as well, had the same namesake behind it.  Besides Facebook, I think the name of Twitter has the strongest ‘label’ behind it.  As it was for IM clients for me, where I chose MSN mainly because that was just the standard.  Without installing seperate clients, I could not talk to other friends.  As do users now have tools like Pidgin and meebo, RSS is allowing users to spread their content around thusly.  Leo Laporte calls it the Network effect.  More daunting, even, than the Leo effect. Laconica is taking that idea much deeper than some API.  And here is how I mean;

1. Identi.ca has its user base powered by Laconica.  As Laconica is an OSS system, it is free to be used by any server with PHP support - so any web server.  And yes, it is running on PHP.  Twitter runs on Ruby on Rails, which along with its coding scheme (apparently, I dont know why, but this is what I hear), and with PHP they are seeing a lot more up-time, and is also a lot earier to install.  Copy & Paste, yannow?
2. It works backwards.  Laconica is to, and does, work as a micro-blogging form of OpenID.  OpenID works thusly, by letting a single username be used for multiple services.  In the following diagram, the OpenID server (there are many) relays requests from a user toward the website.  Laconica runs the same idea.  Essentially, Laconica will lets you post in other Laconica micro-blogs with your user name from another Lacronica server.   My identi.ca account could comment and subscribe to posts from my zeitgeister account.  Different website, same program.
3. It is self-hosted.  One of the major reasons, or so I would assume, that companies and the like shy away from working this micro-blogging idea is that it is all on your own servers.  It would be fantastic for niche communities, open for whoever you want, but also, wherein it necessary, entirely safe and private.

First and foremost, I am excited for the idea of this, I am excited for the OSS behind it all.  But even moreso than that, I am excited about what can happen with this.

Tags: Blogging, identi.ca, laporte, leo, micro, Twitter

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