Recently, I’ve been playing a little with the Twitter REST API, and with Sinatra, the new Ruby web framework that all the cool kids are into.
On the back of said playing, I’ve just released a pre-alpha (if there is such a thing) version of SemanticTweet.
Basically, SemanticTweet is a simple web service that generates a FOAF RDF document for you from your list of Twitter friends and followers. It does this using the Twitter REST API. This service uses public Twitter data only, and so doesn’t need your Twitter username or password.
FOAF, which stands for friend-of-a-friend, if you’re unfamiliar with it, is a semantic web representation of your list of friends. It’s typically represented in a semantic web format known as RDF: resource description framework. To give you an idea of what a FOAF document looks like, here’s my one, as generated by SemanticTweet.
One of the benefits of this approach is that it ensures that you don’t have to build and maintain your FOAF file by hand (or using a service like FOAF-a-matic), which is a real pain. This service will dynamically generate the FOAF file each time its queried. The second big benefit is that it turns your friends’ Twitter pages into dereferenceable URIs, which means that a semantic web browser or search engine can traverse from link-to-link, just like a standard web page, and all without having to explicitly call the Twitter API.
One way you can use this service/document is by embedding it in your blog/website. Just add a line to the <head> section of your template which reads:
<link rel="meta"
type="application/rdf+xml"
title="FOAF"
href="http://semantictweet.com/your-twitter-screen-name" />
This approach is what Tim Berners-Lee refers to as Linked Data. Check out his excellent talk at TED to get a better idea of this movement.
There’s plenty more to do, and plenty of ways in which Twitter data can be presented in a semantic webby way, to allow more interesting documents to be produced, so watch this space.
So run, don’t walk, over to semantictweet.com, and check it out. You too can have that FOAF document you’ve always wanted but were afraid to ask for. Let me know if you have any comments or observations.
You can follow developments on blog.semantictweet.com and @semantictweet.
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