> Having a URI like this does not create the same kind of dependence that > a service like Facebook does now, the main difference being that with > this sort of scheme, the user can *very* easily switch providers, > because the handle is just a convenient way of redirecting requests to > you (your server?). I just meant that if your URI belongs to facebook, i.e. the domain 'on' which you have the URI as in http://facebook.com/~me the huge part belongs facebook and I have to trust them to always keep this thing. But as pointed out somewhere else in this thread there are services like http://foaf.me which should be community controlled.
Someone else mentioned 'dyndns'. I think that this means Dynamic DNS, but I am not quite sure how I as a domain owner can use this to make my domain always point at my current IP address. (This is also one of my reasons to prefer p2p...) > It's good to support both, but I think that the direct, P2P approach > might be a better one for two reasons that I can think of at the moment: > > 1. Some (most?) ISPs prohibit the running of webservers by their > customers, but very few block/modify P2P traffic. > 2. I have the feeling that it would be much easier to implement and use > the P2P approach than the "everyone has a webserver" approach. I think that it depends on the system. But if we would use the HTTP/Webserver approach we could also just extend existing systems such as elgg with RDF and some of the things which are on the GNUSocial ideas list. But I do not think that this is a good thing as GNUSocial could simply define a protocol for a p2p social network (in particular a protocol for DHT, possibly even inside some new kind of URIs :) and then start implementing different clients. Though when looking at the GNUSocial ideas page, it is not decided which approach to choose. They have listed quite a few, but I do not know if it is planned to choose one of them and how to decide...
