Ionrock Dot Org

In college I started out as a communications major. I have no idea why, but the concept of communications appealed to me. Unfortunately, the actually classes did not, so I switched to history. I enjoyed the classes even though the concept was not very important to me. When I finally got around to software, I was prepared for the crappy classes and assignments along side having a passion for the subject. As a result, life is pretty nice.

The more I think about communications as a concept, the more I believe that technology fails at the nuances. The nuance and delicate intricacies of meaning make quantifying an idea nearly impossible. Technology has always failed in providing the expressiveness by either inundating users with options or simply forcing ideas into incorrect paradigms. My hope is that Bright Content can help to push the issue of expression, so communication can improve over the web.

Currently, we are working on Annotations. The concept is pretty much like a comment. As a person comments (via comment forms or trackbacks), an annotation reflects some data regarding some resource. What is interesting to me is that an annotation will not be limited to expressing some opinion or argument. An annotation can be any "thing" that is applied to a resource where application is not decided by the annotation itself.

For example, an annotation might describe one way to render an Atom entry. The annotation could contain an XML body that describes what relative URL you can find the representation at and what XSLT to use in creating that representation. The annotation itself is nothing more than a resource, but by providing a description of how to apply that specific annotation, it can be applied. By focusing on providing a description, you offer an opportunity to render the application of the annotation. In the comments use case, the application is simply referencing each other. From the standpoint of the annotator, it is pointing to the original content and from the content provider's perspective, the application is simply listing the comments. In other words the way an annotation actually gets "applied" to a reference may or may not be something that is immediately visible in some user view.

It is a subtle concept but it reveals a consistent theme in RESTful services. A resource and representation are not actions in themselves, but are players to be acted upon. RESTful services and design promotes using the file as the interface much like you see in operating systems. I can't imagine a world without files, and yet the web has essentially made an effort to do just that. It has been successful of course, but hopefully, as we realize why, the web can be even more expressive and truly improve communication on and off line.