Evan Prodromou
Friends, I need your help. I'm working on the Far Horizons chapter for the #ActivityPub book, where I discuss future applications for AP. I've got dating, enterprise software, job search, IOT, marketplace, and others.
What's a far-out application of ActivityPub you've thought of that I might not have?
Tim Chambers
@evan Podcasting fully integrating for cross-app comments, Wikipedia fully integrating (they have taken first step with rel=me) Yelp-like reviews services, TicketMaster and EventBright-like services…
Rui Seabra
@evan
I'm almost 100% sure AP Tinder like has been suggested, but just in case... ;) 😅
Rui Seabra
@evan
Nothing is recognized as mainstream unless it's used for sex/porn one way or another!
Ken Walker :caflag:
@evan Data storage along the lines of Solid Pod?
Sebastien Provencher
@evan bullish on the idea that we could build a better version of Nextdoor using ActivityPub. Lots of hyperlocal data exhausts from various silos could come together in a better way, could stimulate local conversations and democracy. (I'm an optimist! :) )
Evan Prodromou
@mapache good one!
Maho Pacheco 🦝🍻
@evan House market search. Rent or buy. Zillow.
Evan Prodromou
@fraying omg @thisisaaronland is up to shenanigans
Derek Powazek 🐐
@evan Museum weirdness a la https://millsfield.sfomuseum.org/blog/2024/03/12/activitypub/
Evan Prodromou
Thank you everyone for your delightful responses. Better than I could have ever dreamed. Keep them coming.
OldManToast
@evan I don't know how it would work, what it would do, but some kind of collection tracker/shared collections list
Yohan Yukiya Seseㆍ사요한・謝雪矢
I'll just write down what I can think of.
I. Gaming
A. We already have an AP-based game running. It utilises polls and let the public decide the course of action of the character.
B. I think we can further expand the use of AP in gaming. What I have in mind is, an account's statistics (following, followers, activeness [how many posts per day; which time of the day; how many characters; was there an image attached; etc.], and other metrics) determines the user's character in a game software/app. There are various formulas in place to avoid intentional spamming and gaming the system, but that's up to the gamedev to develop.
C. Another I can think of is a trading-style game based on AP accounts.
It is similar to a now-defunct game that uses a website, and puts them up in a fictional stock exchange (I can't remember the name, but it lasted almost 20+ years).
Another similar game is play.empire.kred. Their style is a user is placed in a fictional trading market. A user adds their SNS profiles/pages which will help establish their value. And if they also keep on updating, it gives them more score and increases their stock value.
We can combine both and apply it to AP accounts. Again these are fictional, no crypto, no conversion of “fictional money” to real-money (the game publisher is going to have serious trouble with SEC if that happens).
II. Emergency Response & Mapping system.
With the decentralised, distributed, federated nature of the network, different towns, and cities, can establish their own instances for emergency response & mapping systems. They either have an AI, or manual labour, monitoring the fediverse network for certain keywords, and they boost it so their own instance will see it and record it on their server.
Then their responders, or another AI system, processes this information and collate it in an easy to consume database their responders, and key people, can easily pull info from. And there will also be a map available for them, based on the information from the boosted posts.
These instances are exclusive, and the accounts boosting doesn't have to be followed by anyone other than those in the response teams. So these accounts are aware of users to watch for, users voluntarily request to be monitored for certain keywords (opt-in). OR, they tag the account in case of emergency reports.
For example, me:
“Hi @-philippinedisasterreponse We currently have 300 injuries, and counting, here at street name, city name, due to the super typhoon.”
Then their AI collates it, put it in their database. The account will probably reply to acknowledge the report. And their response teams can open their internal map and info system to see the reports and other relevant information.
It can also be useful in “trapped” situations. If the victim still have Internet access, and in such a situation hotlines are more likely flooded with calls; a post in the fediverse can at least make the rescuers aware where they are.
Yohan Yukiya Seseㆍ사요한・謝雪矢
III. Collaborative + Shared Fiction
Writers, authors, who are open to a collaborative + shared fiction can use the fediverse. It can either be in long form or microblogging form.
In a microblogging form, each author writes up to 10,000 characters worth of story, then pass it on to the next author who will continue it. And so on.
Then a tool parses their thread so it can be viewed as one book, and it autogenerates the credits.
The shared part is, allowing other authors to create another branch of the same world that is happening elsewhere or elsewhen (or both). Same world.
IV. OpenBadge integration?
V. Internal communication
IIRC, #Mozilla already did this back in the Laconica/StatusNet days. Again, IIRC, they setup their own private instance, and only select accounts were allowed to communicate to the rest of the fediverse network.
All the employees have an account in the internal instance. They communicate there to send updates during their participation in some event where they need a fast way to send updates to each other.
Then the select accounts that can connect to the “outside world” are used to send updates to the fans/guests.
If this can be duplicated, other companies can copy (and improve) what @mozilla did 10+ years ago.
(aside: Did Mozilla publish a case study of what they did then? And how they did their setup?)
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