The best way to get a sense of where the Buzz API is heading is to take a look at http://code.google.com/apis/buzz/. You’ll notice that the “coming soon” section mentions a ton of protocols—Activity Streams, Atom, AtomPub, MediaRSS, WebFinger, PubSubHubbub, Salmon, OAuth, XFN, etc.
What it doesn’t talk much about is Google. That’s because the goal isn’t Google specific at all. The idea is that someday, any host on the web should be able to implement these open protocols and send messages back and forth in real time with users from any network, without any one company in the middle. The web contains the social graph, the protocols are standard web protocols, the messages can contain whatever crazy stuff people think to put in them. Google Buzz will be just another node (a very good node, I hope) among many peers. Users of any two systems should be able to send updates back and forth, federate comments, share photos, send @replies, etc., without needing Google in the middle and without using a Google-specific protocol or format.
Obviously, we can’t get there alone. So we’ve started with open specifications—specifications like Atom, Activity Streams, and MediaRSS—and we’re going to finish the remainder of this work in public [1]. Ultimately, we’re just building on the strong foundation the web has already provided, and I have high hopes that this path leads to someplace amazing [2].
[1] http://groups.google.com/group/google-buzz-api
[2] http://googlesocialweb.blogspot.com/2010/02/google-buzz-and-social-web.html
via DeWitt Clinton
DeWitt Clinton是一名Google员工,致力于开放数据与平台的开发。他非常欣赏FriendFeed,同时对Google Buzz的未来抱有信心,我将它上面的几段话简单翻译如下:
了解Buzz API未来发展的最好方式是关注这个页面,你会发现在“即将来临”一栏中提及了大量的协议,包括Activity Streams, Atom, AtomPub(前三个用来规范信息流,让人和机器都可读), MediaRSS(允许Feed中嵌入多媒体), WebFinger(相当于你的网上指纹,用来简化跨网站验证), PubSubHubbub(实时更新信息), Salmon(统一评论协议,用于评论自由流动,一处评论,多处分发), OAuth(用于帐户的安全验证), XFN(明确网页之间的关系,让机器可读)等等。(注:此段括号中的内容是我自己的理解,欢迎指正。)
那个页面没有过多提及Google,是因为那些协议不只是为Google自身服务的。有朝一日,基于互联网的服务均可以使用这些开放的协议,实时地发送或接受来自任何网络的用户的信息流,并且不需要任何一个公司作中间人。这个网络包含着人际关系,这些协议也都是标准的网络协议,信息流中可以包含任何类型的内容。Google Buzz将只是众多节点中的一员(我希望它会是一个出色的节点)。应该允许来自两个不同系统的用户之间交换信息,包括评论、照片、回复以及其他类型的信息,并且在这一过程中不需要Google作为中间人,也不需要使用Google专属的协议或格式。
很明显,Google无法独自实现这一愿景,因此我们从开放的技术出发——比如Atom, Activity Streams, and MediaRSS——今后我们将公开地完成剩下的工作[1]。最终,我们将在网络的强壮地基上进行开发,将我们引向神奇之地[2],我对此寄予厚望。
[1] http://groups.google.com/group/google-buzz-api
[2] http://googlesocialweb.blogspot.com/2010/02/google-buzz-and-social-web.html
翻译完毕。
在随后的评论中他补充道:There are two separate challenges here — a) how do we make the Google Buzz experience the best in the world, and b) how do we make the protocols that power it completely open and transparent and non-Google specific. I have a tremendous faith in the ability of the teams at Google working on (a) to blow people away (remember, this is just early days), and I have equal faith in all of us in the community at large to execute on (b).
Google Buzz和它的团队确实很有意思,不是吗。