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Activity streams, lifestreams or newsfeeds (in Facebook jargon) are aggregated lists of events or actions that a single user or group of people took, often across varied and distributed contexts.

Contents 1 Examples 2 Markup samples 2.1 FriendFeed 2.2 Facebook 2.3 socialthing! 3 Publishing Activity Streams 3.1 Plugins 3.2 Markup 4 DiSo Callback Activities 5 Further Reading

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[edit] Examples

Jeremy Keith's Lifestream

Explanation.

Facebook Newsfeed

Tumblr

Crowdstorm

LinkedIN

30Boxes

Lifestrea.ms

Digg

FriendFeed

Jaiku

Readr

Spokeo

[edit] Markup samples

[edit] FriendFeed

 <div class="summary"><a class="friend" href="/factoryjoe">Chris Messina</a> published three photos on <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25419820%40N00/">Flickr</a></div>

[edit] Facebook

 <div id="div_title_545290421" class="header_container clearfix"><h2 class="feed_story_header"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=507716697&ref=nf">Curtis James Healy</a> is attending <a href="http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=30140523272&ref=nf">IRON MAN</a>.</h2></div>

[edit] socialthing!

<td class="StreamBody">
        <span class="bold StreamName">
          Rachel Neumeister
          </span>
            posted 12 new photos to 
            <a target="_blank" href="http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=7057&id=502295491">I have Awesome Friends</a>
...snip...

 

[edit] Publishing Activity Streams

The typical approach for aggregating and publishing activity streams requires that you first pull together the various feeds and sources that you want aggregated, and then adding them, one at a time, to a feed parsing engine that can intermingle each activity, typically in reverse chronological order.

[edit] Plugins

• wp-lifestream by Eliiott Back
• SimpleLife by Kieran Delaney (about)
• Mini-feed for WordPress by singpolyma
• Action Streams for Movable Type by Mark Paschall, Six Apart
• DiSo Actionstream for WordPress by singpolyma

[edit] Markup

• the microformats wiki suggests marking up activity streams with both hAtom and hCalendar;
• it is possibly to more semantic describe the activities themselves and is worth further investigation (consider hAudio, xFolk, etc)
  • XOXO also works well for more generic/arbitrary data singpolyma 19:06, 15 December 2007 (PST)
  • Straight RSS is probably also useful since existing aggregation solutions support this directly singpolyma 19:06, 15 December 2007 (PST)

[edit] DiSo Callback Activities

• when signing in to a relying party, a callback could be registered such that activities taken on the relying party are recorded by the identity provider
• OpenSocial achieves this by creating atom entries.
• XMPP Extensions: There are a couple of XEPs (XMPP Extension Protocols) defining a general mechanism for, and specific formats for, publishing activity streams:
  • Publish/Subscribe -- general framework for publishing content to a group of authorized nodes, and for subscribing to a node's updates
    • This requires server ("Registrar") support: http://www.xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0060.html#registrar
    • Woot there it is: http://www.ejabberd.im/features
  • Personal Eventing via PubSub -- the "meat" of activity streams - lets a user push out updates on their "events" - activities, etc.
  • User Activities -- various activity definitions
  • These would not be trivial to implement, but perhaps the OpenContacts guys have some input?

[edit] Further Reading

Growl has an interesting network protocol that could be useful for modeling activity notifications. There is also a PHP wrapper.

Service	Verb	Direct Object	Normalized Verb	Normalized Direct Object	Social Object	Normalized Sentence	Note
The name of the site/service/API/source/app	A service specific "verb" (can be made up if the service is building new kinds of actions "e.g. to 'plurk'". "to _______"	The object being acted upon. A "story" is "dugg." A "link" is "bookmarked." etc.	The normalization of the service-specific verbs. This is where the subjectivity comes into play. Higher-level verbs construe the lower-level, site-specific, meaning. This list should be smaller than the "Verb" list. For example, to "star" is actually to "bookmark." To "plurk" is actually to "notice". To "tweet" is actually to "notice." etc.	The normalization of the service-specific Direct Objects. Similar to the Normalized Verb, the Normalized Direct Object is an abstraction of all the Direct Objects in activity streams. For example, "tweets" "plurks" and "notices" (identi.ca) are all just "notices" ([1]). "Stars" are just "bookmarks."	A noun. The socially abstracted, normalized, object resulting from the activity.	general notes
Service	Verb	Direct Object	Normalized Verb	Normalized Direct Object	Social Object	Normalized Sentence	Note
Amazon	rate	product	rate	product	rating	The user rated a product.	"product" is another compound object.
Amazon	purchase	product	purchase	product	product	The user purchased a product.
Any	change	photo	update	photo	photo	The user changed their profile picture.
Ask500	comment	survey	comment	link	comment	The user commented on a survey.
BestBuy	purchase	product	purchase	product	product	The user purchased a product.
Blogger	blog	entry	post	entry	entry	The user blogged an entry.
BrightKite	note	place	comment	location	comment	The user noted something at their house.
BrightKite	check-in	location	check-in	location	location	The user checked-in at a location.
BrightKite	post	media	post	media	media	The user posted some media.
coComment	comment	story?	comment	link	comment	The user commented on a story.
Delicious	tag	link	bookmark	link	bookmark	The user tagged a link.
Disqus	comment	entry	comment	entry	comment	The user commented on an entry.
Digg	digg	story	bookmark	link	bookmark	The user dugg a story.
Digg	submit	story	post	link	post	The user submitted a story.
Digg	comment	story	comment	link	comment	The user commented on a story.
Disqus	comment	post	comment	post	comment	The user commented on a post.
Dodgeball	check-in	location	check-in	location	location	The user checked in at a location.
Dopplr	visit	location	check-in?	location	location	The user visited a location.
Eventful	attend	event	attend	event	location	The user checked-in at an event.
Eventful	visit	location	check-in	location	location	The user visited a location.
Facebook	update	status	post	status	message	The user updated their status.
Facebook	break-up	contact	break-up	contact	contact	The user broke-up with a contact.
Facebook	poke	contact	poke	contact	contact	The user poked a contact.
FireEagle	check-in	location	check-in	location	location	The user checked-in at a location.
Flickr	favorite	media	bookmark	link	bookmark	The user favorited some media.
Flickr	comment	media	comment	media	comment	The user commented on some media.
Flickr	add	contact	friend	contact	contact	The user friended a contact.
Flickr	post	media	post	media	media	The user posted some media.	here's that compound direct object again; media.
getSatisfaction	comment	post?	comment	post	comment	The user commented on a post.
goodreads	start	text	start	text	interest?	The user started reading some text.?
Google Reader	star	link	bookmark	link	link	The user starred a link.
Google Reader	share	link	share	link	link	The user shared a link.
Gmail	star	message	bookmark	message	message	The user starred a message.
Gmail	email	message	post	message	message	The user emailed a message.
Hotmail	email	message	post	message	message	The user emailed a message
identi.ca	notice	notice	post	message	message	The user noticed.	using microblogging parlance here ("notice")
iLike	listen	track	listen	track	track	The user listened to a track.
IntenseDebate	comment	post	comment	post	comment	The user commented on a post.
iTunes	purchase	product	purchase	product	product	The user purchased a product.
iTunes	rate	media	rate	media	rating	The user rated a movie.	"media" is comprised of tracks/albums/books/movies/shows/etc. not sure we should have compound objects in here, but feeling lazy.
iusethis	start	application	start	application	interest?	The user started using an application.
last.fm	listen	track	listen	track	track	The user listened to a track.
Ma.gnolia	bookmark	link	bookmark	link	bookmark	The user bookmarked a link.
last.fm	star	track	rate	track	track	The user starred a track.
MyBlogLog	join	community	affiliate	community	community	The user joined a community.
MyBlogLog	add	service	affiliate	service	interest?	The user added a service.
Pandora	star	track	rate	track	track	The user starred a track.
Pandora	listen	track	listen	track	track	The user listened to a track.
Plurk	plurk	plurk	post	notice	message	The user plurked.
SmugMug	post	media	post	media	media	The user posted some media.
twitter	tweet	tweet	post	notice	message	The user tweeted.
Upcoming	visit	location	check-in	location	location	The user checked-in at a location.
Upcoming	visit	location	check-in	location	location	The user visited a location.
Wordpress	blog	entry	post	entry	entry	The user blogged an entry.
YouTube	rate	video	rate	link	rating	The user rated a video.
YouTube	share	video	share	link	link	The user shared a video.