You’ve probably already heard of OpenID. For those of you who haven’t, it’s a new and upcoming standard for user authentication (and fellow Gizbuzz blogger Huw gave a nice introduction here).

I personally think OpenID is a great idea, and I’m a proponent of the idea and the standard. For a web development project I’m working on at the moment, we’re going to be using OpenID as the sole authentication system for users. That is to say, you will need an OpenID to actually sign up for the service and it will be the single system controlling your sign in.

There’s a problem though. The average computer user has never heard of OpenID, doesn’t really understand it and might be turned away from using this new service if they don’t very quickly ‘get’ how to sign up. We could have just shunned OpenID, built another proprietary username/password system and be done with it.

As a web service provider, though, I feel we have a responsibility to be pushing for new standards and helping spread OpenID. After all, it’s only through the widespread adoption of standards that the web is what it is today.

So we want to push OpenID and bring it to the forefront. What do we need to do?

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This week I came across an interesting little app called Mosoto. Mosoto is an instant messager for Facebook — you are able to sign on via Facebook and then see who within your network is online and chat with them. There are lots of other features added on such as file sharing and even video conferencing! I won’t go into the breadth of features since there is a really nice screencast which does a good job of explaining how it works. What I do want to discuss is the impact this will have on the major messaging networks such as MSN, AIM et al.

Is your social network more important than your messaging buddies? There has been little to challenge the dominance of the big IM networks over the years but services like Mosoto are going to do a pretty good job. Mosoto was only possible due to the release of the Facebook API and with the possibility of other social networks creating APIs we could see other sites such as hi5 and Bebo added to the mix. On the other hand, MySpace’s instant messaging client hasn’t done much to dent the popularity of the established IM services; but then again, there is a difference. MySpace created their own proprietary IM client whilst Facebook is relying on independent developers to use their API to create such services. As a result I think that features built around Facebook will be far more compelling since quality will rise out of competition between developers trying to create the best new services.

If Mosoto and others succeed in making instant messaging mainstream on your social network, the likes of MSN, AIM and Yahoo Messenger should wonder where their futures lie.

You may notice that a while back, I did a post on adding Gizbuzz to your Firefox/IE7 search box. You might have wondered how I actually got that to work.

Well, I’m actually going to write a quick tutorial on how you make OpenSearch plugins (which is what that Gizbuzz one was). Normally, my tutorials are the realm of Gizbuzz’s sister site FOSSwire, but since this one has quite a lot of relevance to the web in general (not just free/open source software), I thought I’d put it on Gizbuzz.

OpenSearch is a standard being pushed by Amazon’s research arm, A9.com. To create a search plugin, you simply need to write a really short XML file containing instructions to the web browser on how to perform the search. The search plugins currently are supported in both Firefox 2.0.x and Internet Explorer 7. Unfortunately, Microsoft’s implementation is sadly incomplete, so to retain full cross-browser support you can’t use all features of OpenSearch.

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“FreeNation Foundation is the name of the organization we are attempting to form with the idea of starting a new nation.” With that sentence, GhostOutlaw, a member of the FreeNation Foundation, began an interview we held this past Thursday. I wasn’t only interviewing GhostOutlaw though, several others were in on the fun (namely Dpx and Democritus, both established members of the FreeNation community), and many more were watching and contributing their answers to my questions in another IRC channel.

The subject of the interview was the project to found a nation on the ideals of a free culture. The effort has been dubbed the “FreeNation” project, and already has gained support from a wide community that spans the globe. Initially created by The Pirate Bay (a BitTorrent tracker) as an effort to navigate around copyright laws, the project has advanced into a fully-fledged redesign of human culture in an attempt to fix the problems that we have faced up until this stage of our existence.

On “core”

“We are forming an organization that is fluid, and has equality through the ‘ranks’. Today I may be head of a group, tomorrow I might be digging a ditch.”

This equality and community building was always in focus throughout the interview. They have good reason too - the FreeNation community had lashed out harshly when a small group of members (”dubbed as ‘core’ thanks to Brokep, Public Relations of The Pirate Bay” said GhostOutlaw) attempted to push the project forward more quickly by creating their own IRC channel which was password protected. Their secrecy and connection to the Pirate Bay lead to confusion and uproar in a week old project.

“The initial starting of core was a few members who found that some of the IRC chat was a little to spammy to actually have a cohesive discussion,” explained GhostOutlaw. “[We are a] ’structure group’ — we are trying to form the skeleton or structure to allow us to achieve our goals,” added Democritus. “The idea is that when we CAN handle the huge influx of interest, we will actually be able to accept those into our community and give them JOBS!!!”

No one knows exactly what jobs will be available. For now, this “structure group” is focused primarily on releasing a website and rolling out a public relations move that will help encourage increased donations. Although the plans aren’t set in stone as to how the website will be put in place, Dpx said that they “plan to have a wiki and a forum, that much has been decided.”

“But I know it’s island fever and I got it real bad” - The Beach Boys

The overall plan for FreeNation is to buy an island, on which the group will promote a free culture. It was said most concisely by Democritus: “We wish to establish a collective of like minded individuals on an island colony, to provide a place where a new society can be born and raised, to learn from our own mistakes, and those of the past to provide a better future for all of mankind.”

Details were vague, and I was routinely assured that “we are working out what exactly the goals are.” It is understandable - the project has only been around for ten days. Community was stressed as well. GhostOutlaw pointed out that “the end result will be whatever the community wants to be. It’s a community project and a community effort.”

The community was built around the proposition of providing The Pirate Bay a safe haven from copyright laws. When the community took over the reigns, the idea was morphed. As Democritus told me, the idea was now much more focused on creating a new type of society that would promote Free Culture from all angles. When I asked about The Pirate Bay’s connection to the FreeNation Foundation, I was told that “what we have now is a highly evolved form of TPB’s idea. They did want to start a country for servers. They are part of our community.”

Looking forward

The FreeNation Foundation’s proposal is one that will continue to receive accolades and attacks. It’s a dramatic proposal that, whilst not yet successful, shows the power the internet holds in bringing people together. If the foundation achieves their goal, this new open culture will dramatically alter the landscape of culture all over the world.

The plan needs guidance though. As of now, it seems to be in more than capable hands. With the “group-formerly-known-as-core” helping to guide discussion and establish an infrastucture for conversation, the community’s input is relevant now more than ever. “As the community grows, it will shape and change and evolve. We are looking forward to being part of this process.”

Update: Digg here!

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Read more about the FreeNation Foundation by visiting their website and wiki.

Today is the first birthday of Gizbuzz (as you may have guessed from the celebration picture on the site), and we’ve come a long way from that first post.

Here are some of the highlights:

Peter joining us. I went on holiday for a week, and asked around a forum to see if anyone would deputise for me. Peter agreed, and was so good that he stayed. He’s now been joined by Chris and most recently Sam.

Switching from Google’s Blogger (the old blog is here) to Wordpress. WP even allowed us to import all posts and comments. For the first few months of this arrangement Gizbuzz was hosted on a dedicated server, which happened to be an old laptop of mine running Ubuntu.

Getting to the front page of Digg. This brought a traffic spike of about 10,000 in the first day, and a great deal more over the coming week. It also ensured that the change of address for Gizbuzz didn’t result in a loss of Google juice by getting us serious linkage. Unsuprisingly, however, my laptop crashed, which meant that the spike wasn’t as high as it could have been. I have sinced moved over to Dreamhost.

The launch of the Gizbuzz podcast. The first episode of the podcast was with Raju Vegesna of Zoho, and after a break of a couple of months we have interviewed some fantastic people. Our most popular episode was with Sam Schillace and Jen Mazzon from the Google Docs and Spreadsheets team.

The new Gizbuzz design. Gizbuzz isn’t running on just another Wordpress theme any more, but on a custom design by Chris. Note the adaption to celebrate the birthday! Our redesign went somewhat better than TechCrunch’s rather green effort last year.

The founding of Oratos. Peter, Chris and I, as well as Jacob (who doesn’t write here but does on other network sites) founded Oratos Media, a tech blog network. If you look on the sidebar of Gizbuzz you will see a widget showing the latest headlines from our four blogs.

So, what for the future. We’ve got some exciting things to announce:

The launch of Gizbuzz Consulting for Web 2.0 companies. I have already conducted consulting for Web 2.0 companies who have contacted me through Gizbuzz, but have not advertised this service before. I think now is the time to start doing this, as we now have some great experience under our belts. You can find out about this here.

The development of Megaphone. Peter, a PHP genius, has been working on a new web application to support Oratos. We have said from the very beginning that Oratos will not be just another association of blogs, and Megaphone is a key part of that. Initially, Megaphone will allow users to submit ideas for posts (and submit their companies) and these will be accessible to all writers. They will also be able to upload segments for our podcasts. After the initial release, hopefully in this quarter (it’s well under way), we are looking to get even further into user generated content, possibly with you even writing some posts for us, and then deciding which ones get published. That should make our lives easier!

So thank you to both readers and writers for a great year. January’s going to be a busy month for us, and by the looks of things 2007 will be a big year as well. Here’s to another year of Gizbuzz!

The following are my unsolicited and rather unorganized predictions for 2007. Think I’m wrong? Think I’m crazy? Let me know in the comments.

In 2006, we conceptualized Web 2.0. We determined what it was about, the theories and ideas that made it happen. We perfected our AJAX and polished our gradients, creating the beginnings of a social web.

The problem though, was that Web 2.0, generally, did not get past the tech community. Really, does your family share in the joys of social bookmarking? Do your friends obsess over the wonders of The Long Tail? I’d venture to say no. It isn’t anyone’s fault, it is simply that we have built up the architecture for a revitalised internet, but haven’t brought in the general public to experience it.

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