Related Projects
From Socialwiki
We can classify similar projects in three categories (Web URL tools, Naming Systems, Directory Systems):
Contents |
Web URL Tools
- TinyURL It is a web URL-toURL mapper that aims to reduce long URLs with short ones. TynyURL is a complete success and receives around 2 billion hits per month. Our system can also play this role (go://sort -> http://..........)
- Persistent URL (PURL) A PURL is a Persistent Uniform Resource Locator. Functionally, a PURL is a URL. However, instead of pointing directly to the location of an Internet resource, a PURL points to an intermediate resolution service. SocialDNS can also play this role without problems.
- GeoURL GeoURL is a location-to-URL reverse directory. This will allow you to find URLs by their proximity to a given location. Find your neighbor's blog, perhaps, or the web page of the restaurants near you. GeoURL is listing 2,496,296 sites.
Naming Systems
- Digital Object Identifier The DOI System provides a framework for persistent identification, managing intellectual content, managing metadata, linking customers with content suppliers, facilitating electronic commerce, and enabling automated management of media. DOI names can be used for any form of management of any data, whether commercial or non-commercial. DOI includes is both a naming and a directory service so it is similar to our approach. Our main difference is the namespace using a URL scheme and our naming conventions using TLDs. Furthermore, our system is completely open and available to third parties.
- Uniform Resource Names URNs are persistent identifiers for information resources. RFC 1737 defines URNs and gives requirements for them. It is a persistent naming system enabling different namespaces. They do not provide meta-information and directory services, and they are not using like us the URL scheme for specifying the namespace.
- Domain Name System The Domain Name System (DNS) associates various information with domain names; most importantly, it serves as the "phone book" for the Internet by translating human-readable computer hostnames, e.g. www.example.com, into IP addresses, e.g. 208.77.188.166, which networking equipments need to deliver information. It also stores other information such as the list of mail servers that accept email for a given domain.
Authors of DNS have clearly stated that DNS will not become a Directory for indexed domains. More concretely, in In whose domain: name service in adolescence, Don Mitchell, Scott Bradner, K Claffy (1996) said: "We feel that the reliance on the DNS for a directory service only indicates our desperate need for a real directory service; it does not prove that the DNS should be that service. We also feel that facilitating the use of the DNS as a directory service is the wrong goal and that the Internet needs a universal directory system to continue to move forward".
IMPORTANT: Although we use DNS naming conventions (Web TLDs) our system is not a competitor for DNS. SocialDNS is a Web Naming and Directory system mapping URLs to URLs. It is absurd to pretend to replace the DNS system with such Web-like infrastructure. SocialDNS is NOT another alternative DNS root nor aims to replace the current DNS for locating information. It complements the existing DNS to offer advanced services that are beyond the scope of the existing infrastructure.
Directory Systems
In general, the term “directory” refers to a structured collection of objects organized by subject, much like a library card catalog or yellow pages telephone listing. Structuring a directory—usually using a taxonomy of some form—and placing objects under specific subject headings are done by humans. They may assign the same subject heading to more than one object and the same object may be assigned to more than one subject—that is, it may appear under more than one heading. In the case of Internet directories, the objects are Internet locations—Web sites or Web pages, typically. (From Signposts in Cyberspace: The Domain Name System and Internet Navigation).
In Signposts in Cyberspace: The Domain Name System and Internet Navigation, authors state that: "as the Internet developed in size, scope, and complexity, the DNS was unable to satisfy many Internet users’ needs for navigational assistance". In this scenario, search engines like Google or yahoo have superseded the DNS as the de facto Internet directory.
SocialDNS aims to become a major directory for Web resources offering powerful search mechanisms. Meta-information is provided by users so they can decide how the system index their resources. Furthermore, the main difference with existing systems like Yahoo or Google is that SocialDNS database is open and free. We publish all the information in standard XML files so that third parties can use this information for free.
Other projects
- Google "I'm feeling lucky"
For the moment, Google is not a naming service and it is not providing Persistent Identifiers. This may change if they perceive the important relationship between naming and search.
What is "I'm feeling lucky ? Many times, google obtains the result you were expecting in the first result. Nevertheless, you cannot use this combination of keywords all the time. Note that things are moving and rankings change and evolve in Google. If you look for Nokia you will be lucky. But imagine that your small company is releasing a new product. Could you create a marketing campaign saying "Google: product company" ? No, you should instead use a DNS name like http://www.company.com/products/productID. And you could also use go://productID or go://productID.company.
The conclusion is that persistent and short memorable names are needed. While it is true that Google is being used many times as a naming service, this is because people need short memorable names. SocialDNS could fill that gap providing short memorable and PERSISTENT names.
These standards may seem similar to SocialDNS but there exist important differences. Let`s explain the differences:
The format of RFC 3368 URLs is: go://[<host>]?[<common-name>]*[;<attribute>=[<type>,]<value>]
Examples of such URLs are:
go://cnrp.foo.com?Mercedes%20Benz;geography=US-ga go://cnrp.foo.org?Martin%20J.%20D%C3%BCrst go://cnrp.foo.com?id=5432345 go://?Mercedes%20Benz
As you can see, a DNS host field is required to ask about several keywords or queries. If no host field is included (go://?Mercedes%20Benz) the protocol assumes that host = localhost.
We can now understand the true difference between SocialDNS and RFC 3368. SocialDNS is a namespace that converts URLs-to-URLs and supports the concept of Web TLDs.
Example:
go://socialdns --> http://www.socialdns.net go://zope.py -> (.PY WebTLD is resolved by http://...) and this WebTLD resolves the zope subdomain (http://www.zope.org/).
RFC 3368 is just a keyword search protocol that does not define a new namespace with Web TLDs. RFC 3368 requires that you include the host to contact with to ask queries.
- But, why SocialDNS is using go:// if RFC 3368 already standardised that ?
The answer is that SocialDNS selected this handler go:// for its simplicity and relationship to our protocol. We believe that if the system is a success SocialDNS may become a defacto standard and supersede this RFC. We will then try to follow the Internet standards track. In the worst case, we could change to other handler like to://, g:// ... there are endless possibilities.
