Yahoo BB Auth

Recently Yahoo! U.S. introduced an api which enables other developers to access their users' identity.
They call it "Browser-Based Authentication", and abbreviation is "Yahoo BB Auth".
http://developer.yahoo.com/auth/

I found that the naming was confusing, especially to Japanese Yahoo! users. Japanese telecom company Softbank and Yahoo Japan already branded their ADSL service as "Yahoo! BB". If you search "Yahoo BB", almost all entries are saying about this broadband internet service (currently). This implies that branding officer in Yahoo is not aware of their local services fully.

Anyway, This kind of service is interisting, and sounds nice to me. Google has already released its account authentication api. Maybe Flickr is the first (AFAIK) to open this kind of external access. This feature would be another must for future web 2.0 services.

But for the people who are moving ahead Liberty Alliance, or User-Centric Identity, this kind of movement might be unwelcome. Dick Hardt, CEO of Sxip, is saying "Yahoo/Google is deepening its identity silo". He says they aren't learning from the failure of MS .NET Passport.

User-centric, or distributed identity system is nice. I love it. But I'm afraid that the lack of this might not have been a main reason of the .NET Passport's failure. Currently it seems that users are not so unconfortable with their service, and developers are delighted with it. Who stops this opening movement of identity access, even if the api is a proprietary one? Because their service itself is absolutly proprietary, developers will not so be angry if the api is proprietary.

Technorati tags: yahoo, identity, usercentric

JSONP Private Calendar Mashup with Simile Timeline

I've created interesting demo to show how Personalized Web 2.0 services can be used in mashup application.

http://www.geocities.jp/stormriders999/timeline.html

I'm using MIT Simile Timeline for dynamic user interface.

You'll see that your own private schedule data in Google Calendar is mashuped, only if you granted us to acess them.

Yes, it is actually personalized service for you.

Technorati tags: google, calendar, mashup, json, jsonp, timeline

Personalized JSONP - Google Calendar JSON Proxy Service

Google Account Authentication API and Google Calendar GData API enable us to integrate private schedule information with our applications, but they still requires us to deal with their own authentication protocol and host the program in some application server infrastructure.

Although it is read-only access, we can lookup remote feeds directly from browsers if it is provied in JSON style. JSONP is a well-known technique for this kind of JSON remoting.

But we currently don't have any JSON feeds in personalized contents, as far as I know. All JSON feeds in the internet are public - not personalized, accessible from everyone in the world.

Maybe it's because there're some security/privacy concerns. But I'm currently thinking that it would be OK to feed private data in JSON when some appropriate opt-in/out mechanizm is provided.

So, I've implemented JSON feed services for private data - Google Calendar schedule. Now 3rd party applications can get visitors' private calendar information so easily, as far as it is allowed to do that by them.

Please check out the site bellow :

Google Calendar JSON Proxy Service
http://gcal2json.ning.com/

Also there's a sample client application program.

http://www.geocities.jp/stormriders999/gcal_json_client_sample_e.html


Do you think this is really a good personalized web 2.0 service, don't you?

Technorati tags: google, calendar, authentication, json, jsonp

del.icio.us network JSON

del.icio.us has released network badge.

And also we can get JSON data.

http://del.icio.us/feeds/json/network/stomita

JSONP is also supported.

http://del.icio.us/feeds/json/network/stomita?callback=handleNetwork


This feature is not officially announced, though.

Technorati tags: json, del.icio.us, jsonp

Custom Calendar App using Google Authentication API for WebApp

About 1 month ago, Google announced that they opened for 3rd party web apps to access their private data (of cource under the end user's allowance). But somehow I couldn't create any valid apps to access their actual service data. Maybe because Google had a service bug, or I misunderstood their protocol. However, today, I finally found the way to grab the private schedule feed entries from Google Calendar.

http://googleaccount.ning.com/

Click "Your private schedules in Google Calendar", and please say "Accept" when prompted by Google. I'm simply showing your calendar feeds. Not inserting, updating, deleting, and not evilly storing the retrieved information.

You can see the source code if you are a member of ning.

Technorati tags: google, account, authentication, calendar, identity, api