W3C Launches Push for Social Web Application Interoperability

W3C today launched a new Social Activity to develop standards to make it easier to build and integrate social applications with the Open Web Platform. Future standards —including vocabularies for social applications, activity streams, embedded experiences and in-context actions, and protocols to federate social information such as status updates— will address use cases that range from social business applications, to cross-organization federation, to greater user control over personal data. Read the complete joint press release with OpenSocial Foundation.

W3C chartered two groups today to carry out these activities:

• The Social Web Working Group will define the technical standards and APIs to facilitate access to social functionality as part of the Open Web Platform. These include a common JSON-based syntax for social data, a client-side API, and a Web protocol for federating social information such as status updates.
• The Social Interest Group will co-ordinate messaging around social at the W3C and formulate a broad strategy to enable social business and federation. It will harvest use-cases and review specifications produced by technical working groups in the light of those use-cases.

The Social Web Working Group's first face-to-face meeting will take place the last week of October, as part of TPAC 2014, W3C's annual gathering of Working Groups.