John Baeyens

It’s active.
Quite easy to make yours with the Foaf-a-Matic.

MIT has been working for quite a while on Secure ID’s. And I’m quite sure FOAF will be taking off rapdily. It sounds Geekish, just like my enthousiasm on Blogs sounded Geekish a while ago.
But FOAF will be all round. Because it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. Ever since the Web started, it’s been as much about self-expression as anything else. Many people’s initial forays into the Web consisted of building themselves a home page. Search engines meant you could find people with similar interests pretty quickly. The technology was interesting, yes, but people themselves always prove more interesting.

And FOAF will help. Because basicly FOAF is simply an RDF vocabulary. Its typical use is simple as that of RSS: You create one or more FOAF files on your Web server and share the URLs so software can use the information inside the file. Like creating your own Web pages, the creation of your FOAF data is decentralized and within your control. An example application that uses these files might be a community directory where members maintain their own records. However, as with RSS, the really interesting parts of FOAF come into play when the data is aggregated and can then be explored and cross-linked. I have been discussing about some of these ‘interlinked’ projects with Lorenz last Monday, which we are currently developing. FOAF will be a cruciak element in it, because it has the potential to become an important tool in managing communities. In addition to providing simple directory services, you could use information from FOAF in many ways. For example:

- Augment e-mail filtering by prioritizing mails from trusted colleagues
- Provide assistance to new entrants in a community
- Locate people with interests similar to yours

Send me the link to your FOAF file.
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