Re: [projectvrm] Intentcasting infrastructure?

[Florian Kleedorfer < >]

Hi Phil,

If I understand the concept of pico (persistent computing object) right, it is pretty close to what we call 'need' in these papers. The example of the pothole is interesting; it shows that we get to the same conclusions:

Last year we had a prototype app, more or less the product of a hackathon, called the WTFapp (and WTF stands for, well, WTF?!). With that app, users can create 'needs' (in your lingo, picos) that represent their discontent with something. Matching services connect those objects such that people who complain about the same problem can coordinate to do something about it. Behind the scenes, of course, it uses the Web of needs technology. Currently that app is dysfunctional, alas, but we'll revitalize it. Anyway: http://bit.ly/1fjHaYI

The thing about the pothole is, you cannot, of course, create *the* public representation of the pothole, but you can create *yours*. In your article http://wnd.li/91Trq4 you say, "First, the pot hole has to have a unique identity in time and space (i.e. it's a Spime).". How such a public representation comes into being is a very intriguing question, considering that the Web is decentralized and indeed anybody can say anything about anyting.
One (probably postmodern) answer is that it has to arise somehow from the people's individual representations of the pothole (or their _expression_ of discontent about it), which are somehow merged in a dynamic collective process by those people, who, in the following will accept that merged representation as adequately identifying the pothole for a specific purpose, for example, reporting it to authorities. With the WTF app, we took first steps in that direction.

Anyway, as I think the concepts are close enough, I'd like to include the pico concept in our paper - how should I cite your work? And where can I read more?

best,
Florian

Am 08.03.2014 18:27, schrieb Phil Windley:

" type="cite">

I’ve looked through the publications on #webofneeds. I want to spend more time with them. 

I love the idea of representing intent and need as an object that can be computationally manipulated. Similar to the idea of giving potholes online avatars per http://wnd.li/91Trq4 

We haven’t spent a lot of time on is the semantics of objects representing needs, so I’m excited to understand more fully #webofneeds. 


From: Florian Kleedorfer 
 
 ">
 
Reply: Florian Kleedorfer 
 
 ">
 
Date: March 6, 2014 at 10:28:04 AM
To: ProjectVRM list 
 
 ">
 
Subject:  [projectvrm] Intentcasting infrastructure?  

Dear VRM community,  

I was recently nudged to look into VRM by Brent Shambough (hat tip). I  
read Doc Searls' book and browsed the wiki, and I found out that the  
project I've been working on over the last years is actually what this  
community may call a distributed intentcasting infrastructure. The  
project is called 'Web of needs'. Probably the best current link is  
this: http://researchstudio-sat.github.io/webofneeds/ - (no real demo  
yet, you must read the publications, sorry)  

I've been searching the VRM wiki and related websites for a technical  
project that provides some kind of platform for the pRFP/intentcasting  
idea, but the closest thing I found was the (very impressive) KRL  
system, which by itself is not the kind of infrastructure I had  
suspected this community was building, and http://intently.co/, which  
pretty much seems to do what the Web of needs infrastructure provides,  
but is centralized. And I've seen the blog entries describing the Omie  
project.  

To say in a nutshell what the system we're working on does: supply and  
demand are objects that live on the Web (like your twitter account lives  
on the Web), only that they can live on different servers or domains.  
Their content is described as linked data, which allows standardized  
data access and machine readability. Matching services crawl that data  
and find suitable matches between these objects. When a match is found,  
the matching service sends 'hint' messages to the objects involved,  
pointing at the appropriate counterpart. The object's owners can react  
by establishing a connection and then exchange messages. All sorts of  
fancy protocols can be stacked on top of that, eg. to have business  
transactions with a guaranteed outcome. The goal is to make the Web one  
marketplace where supply and demand have the same status.  

My question, dear VRM community, is the following: Is there some  
development going on in the community that is similar to what we're  
doing?  
Pointers, hints, explanations are welcome!  

Note: I'm working on another paper on Web of needs. The information you  
provide may find its way into the related work section unless you forbid  
:)  

Thanks for your time!  
Best regards,  

Florian