[DotGNU]Building User-Centric Experiences

[Bill Lance]

Rikard Linde note on Web transports lead me to this,
from the mouth of the beast itself.

http://www.microsoft.com/myservices/services/userexperiences.asp

This includes the first list of these .NET services
that I've seen.  They are most interesting.



The initial set of .NET My Services will include: 

.NET Profile. Name, nickname, special dates, picture, 
   address. 
.NET Contacts. Electronic relationships/address book.
.NET Locations. Electronic and geographical location  
   and rendezvous. 
.NET Alerts. Alert subscription, management, and      
   routing. 
.NET Presence. Online, offline, busy, free, which     
   device(s) to send alerts to. 
.NET Inbox. Inbox items like e-mail and voice mail,   
   including existing mail systems. 
.NET Calendar. Time and task management. 
.NET Documents. Raw document storage. 
.NET ApplicationSettings. Application settings. 
.NET FavoriteWebSites. Favorite URLs and other Web    
   identifiers. 
.NET Wallet. Receipts, payment instruments, coupons,  
   and other transaction records. 
.NET Devices. Device settings, capabilities. 
.NET services. Services provided for an identity. 
.NET Lists. General purpose lists. 
.NET Categories. A way to group lists.



As I look at this list, and read the rest of the
article, I get the curious sense of an exercise in
normalizing a relational database.  The emphasis on
being "personal" is true, since it is the person that
is being normalized.  

These Services are not about remote program functions
as I'm heard them discussed here and elsewhere.  Thu
they may be part of the plumbing, the purpose is
something else.  

More fundamentaly, they are attempting to create a
dynamic data model of individual user/subscribers. 
And then to get people to carry on the business,
communications, and entertainment through the
mediation of that model.  Looked at from that
perspective, I am stunned by the audacity of the
bastards.  And here I thought they were just trying to
take over the internet.  Silly me.

All of these Services seemed designed to reflect
activities that we do in our daily lives to the extent
that we do business and communication in some manner
with others for both persoanl and professional
purpose.  
Together, they make up the personal data model, along
with along with methods to both modify the data and to
modify or act on connecting clients, both the
subscriber and the other being delt with.  The so
called WEbServices are simply methods that act with
the data.  It's a rather classic OOP object, actually,
implemented on the internet.  The idea is that
subscribers will use, and developers will develop,
applications designed to conduct their life on the net
using this service.

The value in this to MS is obvious.  They draw a
revenue from everybody involved in this digitale
mediation of life.  (I think Mr Gate has forgotten
what he said about the friction free nature of the
internet.  This system of his creates enormous
friction.)  The value to the subscriber is
convienance.  

Anyway, since dotgnu will be compaired to .NET, we
hope, it may be useful to develop thinking about the
objective of MS's .NET and how it may contrast with
dotgnu's objectives.

Putting aside the philisophical questions (at what
point does the mediation agent become more valid than
the meat user? there's a doozy), if MS wants to create
virtual people, what does dotgnu want to do?  We have
discussed managing personal data.  Does this
necessarity require an active digital mediation agent
to solve?

Another interesting thought is the the subscriber
controlling the use of his data.  From MS's
description in the article, is sounds like a policy
rules based system will need to be used.  Anyonew
who's messed with firewall rules know about unintended
effects of interacting policy rules.

How is dotgnu going to approach this problem?


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