Understanding pump.io

What is it?


pump.io is an activity stream server

that models a social network

with a simple REST API.

Activities

  • Record what happened
  • Real things we do
  • Digital things we do
  • Subject-verb-object structure
  • Extensible structure


Subject Verb Object

  • Evan posted a photo.
  • Karen liked Evan's photo.
  • John created a project.
  • Bill joined John's project.
  • Bill added a task to John's project.
  • Maria followed Bill.
  • Maria added Bill to her "Friends" list.
  • John updated his profile.

Custom activities

  • Edward planted strawberries.
  • Janet did a 15 minute workout on the elliptical machine.
  • Bill ate a breakfast burrito at Celia's.
  • Jennifer killed the Dragon King for 18,000 gold.
  • Server 075 had a disk error.

Audience

  • Who is the activity for?
  • Determined by the program and the author
  • Some "default"
  • Only the audience can see the activity

Audience examples

  • All Laura's followers
  • John, Alison, and Frank
  • People on Dennis's "Family" list
  • Members of the "New Auditorium" project
  • Everyone in the world

Streams

  • Group activities together
  • Organized around a theme
  • In reverse chronological order (newest first)

Example streams

  • The activities Bill did.
  • The activities by people Bill follows.
  • The activities shared with a group.
  • The activities about an image.
  • The activities sent directly to Josephine.
  • The major activities that Jane did.
  • The minor activities by people Karen follows.

Major? Minor?

  • Separates "important" from "background" activities
  • Major activities generally create new objects.
  • Minor activities modify or respond to existing objects.
  • Minor activities change the social graph.

REST API

  • Consistent JSON representation
  • Endpoints for each stream
  • All streams are readable
  • Some streams are writable
  • Streams are filtered by audience


Representing objects

  • Unique ID
  • Object type
  • Other information varies by type
{
"id": "tag:social.example,2013:user:1481",
"objectType": "person",
"displayName": "Evan Prodromou",
"url": "http://social.example/evanp",
"image": {
"url": "http://avatar.social.example/evanp.jpg"
}
}

Representing activities

  • Actor (is an object)
  • Verb
  • Object (is an object)
  • Summary
{
"id": "urn:uuid:85e80e20-cd1b-11e2-82f1-c8f73398600c",
"actor": {
"id": "tag:social.example,2013:user:1481",
"objectType": "person"
},
"verb": "create",
"object": {
"id": "http://social.example/note/13",
"objectType": "note",
"content": "Hello, World"
},
"summary": "Evan created a note."
}

REST endpoints

  • Inbox: stream of activities by people Alice follows (read-only)
  • Outbox: stream of activities with Alice as the subject (read-write)
  • Direct inbox: stream of activities with Alice as the audience (read-only)

Activity distribution

  • Bill sends a new activity to his outbox endpoint
  • pump.io distributes the activity to the right inbox streams based on the audience and the social graph
  • Other users get the new activity in their inboxes


Social graph

  • Who follows whom
  • Who is on a contact list
  • Who is a member of a group
  • Determined by past activities

Social graph

  • Dave follows Helen +
  • Helen posts a photo =
  • the post-photo activity is in Dave's inbox.

Accessing the social graph

  • REST API endpoints
  • Streams of objects (not activities)

Social graph examples

  • All Deirdre's followers.
  • Members of Stan's "Coworkers" list.
  • Members of the "Softball Team" group.

What can I use it for?

  • Web-based social network
  • mobile social network
  • activity streams for apps
  • embedded activity

Learning more

  • http://pump.io/
  • http://activitystrea.ms/
  • https://e14n.com/evan

Understanding pump.io

By Evan Prodromou

Understanding pump.io

This is a quick overview of what pump.io is and how to use it

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