Identity Hub

Digital Identity/Meta Directory? Universal Outbox? Source for Universal Inbox? One piece of Open Social Networking Model?

Basic idea/benefits: a distributed identity service

User output-tracking: you register yourself identify your spaces/feeds (your blog, FaceBook acct, etc.)

• also act as OpenID provider? (and primary HCard? note that HCard format allows user to have multiple 'URL' properties)

• when you join a new space, you add your id/feed to this hub/record

  • could this be automated? Maybe if you create account on other space via this OpenID?

• this service has a feed just of changes (mainly additions) to your other feeds

  • don't want to merge all those feeds like JaiKu, because readers may want more granular control over categorizing/prioritizing the feeds they read

User following

• you subscribe to a person's Identity Hub feed in your/any RssAggregator

• you get notified via that feed when the person adds a new feed to their out-flow; you subscribe/categorize

If you're starting from a specific feed/site/space of a user, how do you get back to their Identity Hub record? (this isn't just for following links, but also for tying together your feeds across multiple spaces with a unique ID - then an RssAggregator can make use of that knowledge)

• something relatively open, like a WebLog:

  • on the site: just add link in your About page

  • right in the RSS feed?

    • the (single) 'channel.link' element is for the blog (HTML) URI

    • the 'channel.webMaster' element just takes an email address (though I wonder what would happen if you stuck your HCard URI in there?) (would your blog-host/app let you do that?)

• something more closed, like LinkedIn, MySpace, etc.

  • on the space: almost every site gives you an About page, usually with a primary-URI - so you put your HCard URI there

  • if there's a feed? similar issue as WebLog case

Note that this implies that your RssAggregator becomes your Universal Inbox and Social Graph host.

Do you want to share all these feeds/addresses with everyone?

Can you create a public directory entry for someone else? "Propose" an entry? Can you add a feed to someone's self-created profile? "Propose" an addition? How does someone "claim ownership" of an entry? Similar to how Technorati lets you "claim" a blog?