So a lot has been written about Blip Messaging here on XML.com, but not a lot of action has been seen. Last week @ the College Music Journal Festival in NYC the world got its first taste of what Blip Messaging is all about,
The above image showcases an overlay of blip messages on top of Google Maps/SOHO/Manhattan that highlights the CMJ-related shows and venues taking place the night of the 16th, a selection from a list that included 1060+ bands playing at 60+ venues over the course of the entire week. It also represents the “communicate”[1] page for Ume, a band headed by Lauren Larson, wife of Eric Larson who plays bass (their long time friend Jeff on drums) who played “The Tank” on Thursday night. A *ROCKSTAR* hacker as well as musician, Eric works with us @ amp.fm, spending a good portion of his time the week before building a text-messaging based blip search engine (e.g. text “Ume” to shows@amp.fm and get all of Ume’s shows (time(s), location(s), etc. in response) that we demoed during the trade show as well.
So then what’s this all have to do with XML?
Absolutely *EVERYTHING*! Well, at least the parts that relate to the underlying technology.[2]
Want to be part of the November 1st private beta[3] for amp.fm that will allow you as a fan or musician the ability to both broadcast yourself as well as to get plugged in to all of the info your heart desires, all based on *your* terms and *your* interests, and all without ever exposing a single bit of personal info (e.g. your email address), or in other words,
Publish. Search. Discover. Subscribe. If desirous, Unsubscribe. Repeat.
…?
Add yourself to the list!**
More to follow, and until then, enjoy your evening, everyone! :D
** Yeah, I know, providing your email address such that you can be given your login info on the day of the private launch goes against the “without ever exposing a single bit of personal info (e.g. your email address)” statement above. Unfortunately we couldn’t think of another way to allow folks to sign up for the beta w/o giving us a way to send them their login info on the day of the launch, so for now please excuse the obvious crossed messaging.
[1] The “communicate” page for any given band, venue, or show allows the ability for anyone to post comments, pictures, etc. related to the specified entity. In this case, if you attended Ume’s show at “The Tank” you could access the related page on amp.fm, upload pics, make comments regarding the show, post a “I saw you”-like message to that little hottie you met but didn’t get a chance to get her number, etc.
[2] I’ll be following up later this week with info on how you can gain access to the entire open source blip messaging platform itself.
[3] The official public launch is January 1st, 2008 @ 12:00:01 EST.
What do I have to do to get JSON into this?
I will code it myself if needed. I can offer some great references :)
Ric,
Because the crew behind LLUP and blips have a long love affair with XML but we do recognize that the power of blips is not to force into one single given platform (that's why we are not based on XMPP only for instance, XMPP is just one potential blip carrier) nor do we want to force XML. The blip semantic is so simple that generating JSON for instance would not be difficult.
For instance look at http://dev.llup.org/wiki/reference/example/blips. At the bottom of the page from "Atom and APP integration". This is a blip, look then further and you will see the same using JSon.
Blips carry only simple meta-data allowing for the blip routers to decide whether or not a blip should continue its course.
Instead of re-inventing the wheel where there was already a good-enough one, we have decided to use some of the Atom elements like category and link.
But as M. David says, we will have a running platform soon.
@Ric,
I'm waiting in the Boise airport for my connecting flight to Seattle. My flight leaves shortly, but I wanted to quickly respond to let you know that we would *LOVE* nothing more to get a good JSON guru such as yourself working with us to develop the JSON endpoints into the core nuXleus system (nuXleus is the core platform everything is built on.)
As Sylvain has already specified, while XML has been our core focus as it relates to the development of the LLUP (Limited Lifetime Ubiquitous Protocol. Blip Messaging is an implementation of the core LLUP protocol) specification as well as the initial Blip Messaging implementation, I've known since the moment the overall idea for LLUP came into fruition that keeping the syntax requirements wide open was going to be critical to ensure wide spread adoption. And to be perfectly honest, in many ways I believe JSON is better suited for blip messages than is XML. Not in all cases, but in most. Keeping XML as the core storage medium I think makes a lot of sense, but as it relates to over-the-wire transmission of blips I believe JSON kicks XML's a$$ all over the place.
Gotta catch my connecting flight, but will follow-up tomorrow with a couple of links and some ideas as to how we can start building in support for JSON ASAP.
Thanks, Ric!
Sorry for the late reply- I have been at the Ajax Experience in Boston and had some flight problems myself.
Do you mind if I drop you a private email? Hopefully I can get past the spam filter; If not, contact myname OpenAjax.Com
@Ric,
Responded a bit ago to your private email. Will update this thread with links a bit later (as mentioned in my email in meetings all afternoon) such that anyone else with interest knows where to find us. :D
@Ric,
As per my follow-up email,
Group discussion is @ http://groups.google.com/group/llup > We've been heads down writing code, so the activity over the last 6 months has been minimal. But that's only because we've been busy writing the code that implements what we have been discussing about on that list for the previous year and half (previous discussions were just person to person via email.) Expect the list to heat up shortly. :D
Project wiki is @ http://dev.llup.org/