# content
After I posted my article, An Open Challenge to App.net, @po shared it on App.net. You can see the full thread here.

Rather than respond individually to the replies on App.net, I thought it would be more appropriate to respond collectively with another post.

I send pingback (and webmention) notifications of any URLs I mention in posts on my site. If App.net supported receiving pingbacks, then you would have seen this post as a reply to your App.net post if you responded to me. Of course, pingback is one of the open standards App.net doesn't yet support, so if you replied to me on App.net, you will have found this post some other way.

"Won't (insert single point of failure free service here) achieve what he wants?"

darnell

I guess he never heard about #buffer or #IFTTT? Either way he won't be missed >> @po: "An open challenge to app.net"
04:52 PM - 30 Mar 2013

billkunz

@darnell I'm with you in not being too worked up over it taking a few steps to just firehose content here without actually participating.
05:19 PM - 30 Mar 2013

jasonsmith

@po won't IFTTT achieve what he wants?
09:41 PM - 30 Mar 2013

darnell

@po If @aaronpk wants to "syndicate" his notes without writing a single line of code then he needs to utilize a service like @IFTTT, @Buffer or #Twitterfeed. App.net is a platform built for proactive people. // @wickedgood
03:54 AM - 31 Mar 2013

darnell

@wickedgood I also question why @aaronpk is raising a fuss about this when there are plenty of options available (for free nonetheless) that can do what he wants. If he doesn't want a third party involved, he needs to code it himself then. // @po
04:21 AM - 31 Mar 2013

No. This is completely missing the point. App.net should support open standards that are already in use across the web if they are trying to be something more than a social network silo.

It shouldn't take a third party to build a service that fills in for what App.net is lacking.

The "Create an Account" Problem

I should not have to create an account to join a conversation on the web. Guess who got this right? Status.net! Using Status.net, it's possible to subscribe to anybody's feed using PuSH, even if they have no idea what Status.net is!

This screenshot of a post on App.net illustrates the problem perfectly:

It's analogous to email. Can you imagine if you needed to create a Gmail account in order to send an email to someone else's Gmail address? Conversations across the web should work like conversations across email. I use my existing email address to join any email conversation. I want to use my existing website to join any web conversation.

julien

@po Do you think "forcing" people to open account just to communicate with other is better? I don't need a hotmail account to send email to people there, yet GMail grew because they offered better features, UI, ads... etc.
07:30 AM - 31 Mar 2013

Exactly. @tantek summarized it well in a couple notes on his site:

tantek

problem with app.net & silos right in their header: Want to join the conversation? (CREATE AN ACCOUNT>)
8:38 on 2013-03-31

tantek

conversations on email do not require creating new accounts. neither should conversations on the web. #ADN #indieweb
8:42 on 2013-03-31

tantek

I can use my existing email address to join email conversations. I want to use my existing website not a silo account.
8:47 on 2013-03-31

If you're building yet another social network and not trying to solve this, you're solving the wrong problems.

Federation: I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means

darnell

@julien Well @aaronpk can always use tent.io then. ;-)
07:35 AM - 31 Mar 2013

A common problem with self-described "federated" protocols is that they aren't actually federated. Email is a truly federated protocol. We have yet to see a solid player in the game for a federated web protocol.

julien

@po I think @aaronpk is partly right. @dalton promised things that #ADN has not delivered so far. Now though I don't think crossposting/syndication/POSSE is the right approach for ADN. I would prefer a full "federation" approach.
05:06 AM - 31 Mar 2013

julien

@po a federation approach mean that @aaronpk would not even need to have an account on #ADN, but yet I could just follow him from here.
05:10 AM - 31 Mar 2013

Exactly.

darnell

@julien tent.io is federated (or de-centralized). App.net is non-federated (or centralize) like Twitter, etcetera.
07:43 AM - 31 Mar 2013

julien

@darnell Tent.io is federated? With whom? Being alone can't make you federated, and running on multiple server is not federation either :)
07:44 AM - 31 Mar 2013

People commonly think that just because some software can run on multiple servers that means it's federated. Really that just means it's distributed. It's easy to develop a distributed system, you don't need to talk to anybody else and you don't need to get anybody to agree. You just create your own protocol and build your own software and then deploy it.

julien

@darnell No, federation is not software layer, it's protocol layer. Again, email is what we should aim for: Hotmail, Gmail and pop.myserver.tld don't run the same software, yet they talk.
08:45 AM - 31 Mar 2013

This is the beauty of what we're working towards with the Indie Web building blocks. Everybody who is currently contributing functional code is working on their own in whatever language and environment they're used to, and we're making things talk at the protocol layer rather than the software layer.

darnell

@julien True, although I think Tent.io aims to be just like email. Or maybe akin to blogs back in the day when they would ping each other (or track back links). Back in the olden days before the rise of the Spampire.
09:19 AM - 31 Mar 2013

julien

@darnell I don't know what they aim to be, I only know what they are now: not federated.
09:22 AM - 31 Mar 2013

Thanks

Thanks to @po and @julien for backing me up on the App.net thread, and to @tantek for continuous insights and quotable sentences.

Summary

App.net should support open standards that are already in use across the web if they are trying to be something more than yet another social network silo.

I should not have to create an account to join a conversation on the web. (This goes for Branch too!)

A federated system is different from a distributed system. A federated system can be built with different code bases in different languages.

The best way to reply to this post is to create a post on your own site and send me a pingback or webmention notification.

# name
A response to replies I received on my post "An Open Challenge to App.net"