SocialFromTheStart
Launchpad Entry: desktop-karmic-social-from-the-start
Created: 2009-05-24
Contributors: KenVanDine
Packages affected: gwibber
Summary
The Social from the start initiative is to bring the popular social networks closer to the desktop by enabling more desktop applications to access social networks.
Release Note
Gwibber provides the engine to connect to many popular social networks. This gives Ubuntu users easy, centralised access to identify themselves on their desktop. There will be a gwibber user interface that will show you a feed of what your friends are doing as well as integration with user switching/presence applet to tell friends what the user is up to. Later other applications can take advantage of this as well, banshee, f-spot, etc.
Rationale
Being "Social" is fun, trendy, and very viral. We should make the desktop more social, making it easier for users to not only use their computer but participate in something much larger, be it ubuntu or any other community they have an interest in.
User stories
Steve boots his new netbook with Ubuntu for the first time, he starts the web browser and goes to http://www.facebook.com so he can tell his friends how cool Ubuntu is. An extension detects he is interested in facebook based on his usage of the site, and prompts him to setup his facebook account on his desktop. Three weeks later, he visits http://twitter.com, Steve is then prompted to configure his twitter account, just like he had done for facebook.
- Jill has had her Ubuntu desktop for a while, she already configured the services she likes to use. She is going out to adopt a new cat from a local shelter and wants to tell her friends on facebook about it, she simply clicks on the applet on the top right and sets her status. The action of setting her status has updated her away message in pidgin, set her status on facebook as well as any other social networks she participates in.
- Laurie has had her Ubuntu desktop for a while, and being a heavy facebook user, she has already configured her facebook account on her desktop. When her friends update their status, she sees the notification bubbles and the messaging indicator gets updated to reflect the un-read statuses from her friends. To read the closer, Laurie simply clicks on her friend's name in the messaging indicator. This opens a gwibber viewer, which also lets her reply to the status.
Assumptions
We should reuse as much as we can, which is why the initial thoughts are around integration of gwibber. We also assume gwibber can be split out into a service with a separate frontend using dbus to communicate.
Design
Three components
1. configuration UI
- probably in the gnome about-me UI
2. Service (running over dbus)
- probably started on demand with dbus service activation
3. Gwibber UI
- Frontend that reads status, renders them in some feed, and updates status, etc.
- potentially other applications that can read or write from the service
From the Start
1. Installer
- nobody really liked this idea
2. First run experience (OEM config)
- configure social networks on first boot
3. configure as we get hints the user is interested
- firefox extension that detects visits to social networking sites, and suggests you configure your desktop to use them effectively.
Implementation
UI Changes
The design team is doing a UI review now.
Code Changes
- Split gwibber into frontend and backend
- add configuration to about-me
- make configuration available as a dbus service
Migration
- Depending on what "From the start" means, we should prompt for upgrading users to configure their accounts
- We should also consider the migration plan for existing gwibber users.
Test/Demo Plan
- Configuration
- Add account information for supported social networks
- Feeds
- Verify feeds are available by viewing the feed
- Post your own status and confirm all the configured networks get the status update
Unresolved issues