1. CodeStock 2011 Speaker Voting

    The speaker voting at this years CodeStock conference (June 3rd/4th in Knoxville, TN) has just opened. I really like the fact that all attendees can vote on the sessions they want to see. So if you want me there and hear about some interesting stuff regarding OpenSocial, OpenID and it’s problems, the Federated Social Web and the protocols around it, or some advanced JavaScript Mash-Up techniques, you can vote for one of my proposals:

    Mashing up JavaScript – Advanced techniques for modern web applications

    Track / Area: Developer / Web - JavaScript
    Technology: JavaScript, WebSockets, CORS, OAuth2, Caja, HTML5
    General / Specific Experience Level:     Intermediate / Intermediate
    Start Time / Length / 70 min
    Nowadays many modern web applications are solely relying on JavaScript to render their frontend and only provide an API endpoint at their backend, resulting in a much more fluent and desktop-application-like user experience. But if you want to create mashups, load data from many different places or include external widgets into your site, you are quickly running into boundaries because of browser and security restrictions. In this presentation I will talk about techniques, some older, some brand new, and show you examples which will help you to:
    • make API calls to external domains.
    • authenticate these calls through OAuth without compromising your secrets.
    • load external content and JavaScript widgets safely.
    • send JavaScript messages between frames on different domains.
    • get real-time notifications from your backend.
    • and use the browser to store the some of the user’s data.

    http://www.codestock.org/Sessions/mashing-up-javascript-advanced-techniques-for-modern-web-applications.aspx

    Opening up the Social Web - Standards that are bridging the Islands

    Track / Area: Developer / Web
    Technology:     Federated Social Web, open standards
    General / Specific Experience Level:     Beginner / Beginner
    Start Time / Length / 70 min
    Social networks are not closed off to the rest of the web anymore. Various standards like ActivityStreams, PubSubHubbub, WebFinger, OpenSocial, Salmon, OEmbed, XAuth or OExchange are emerging to open them up to other websites and projects like Diaspora or Status.NET are already using them in production. I will introduce these protocols, show how they work together, how you can benefit from them and give an outlook on how they can possibly change the world of social networks.

    http://www.codestock.org/Sessions/opening-up-the-social-web-standards-that-are-bridging-the-islands.aspx

    Distributed Identities with OpenID

    Track / Area: Developer / Web
    Technology:     OpenID, OAuth, OAuth2, OpenID Connect
    General / Specific Experience Level: Beginner / Beginner
    Start Time / Length     / 70 min
    The era of many separated logins and identities in the web is slowly coming to an end. Currently many of the big players are spurring this on with their own proprietary solutions, but open standards are starting to get more support as well with OpenID being the most promising one. In this session I will start off discussing what identity means offline and online and the ways one uses different identities quite naturally. Based on this I will introduce different concepts of how you can represent your identities in the web, where current problems are and what solutions different players came up with. Besides the currently wide spread proprietary solutions, such as Facebook Connect or Twitter Anywhere, I will highlight OpenID as an open and distributed alternative. I will show how OpenID works for users and developers, where it currently fails and how OpenID is planned to evolve in the future through emerging specifications like OAuth2 and OpenID Connect. Additionally I will give an outlook on how browser vendors could possibly influence the identity game drastically by better authorization support such as the use of client side certificates.

    http://www.codestock.org/Sessions/distributed-identities-with-openid.aspx

    How to create social apps for millions of users

    Track / Area: Developer / Web
    Technology:     OpenSocial, PHP, JavaScript
    General / Specific Experience Level:     Beginner / Beginner
    Start Time / Length / 70 min
    When OpenSocial was first introduced three years ago, the main goal was to create an open and distributed alternative to the closed off Facebook platform for social apps. Since then much has happened: The specification as well as the OpenSocial foundation behind it have majored and powerful new features and concepts have been introduced. More and more social networks are implementing OpenSocial containers, allowing developers to reach over 900 million users with one social app. Additionally education organizations and enterprise companies like IBM, SAP, SurfNET or Atlassian are seeing the benefits of an open standard to connect their applications more tightly and to open them up to other developers. In this presentation I will introduce you to the OpenSocial specification and walk you through a live-programming example to show you how easy it is to connect an existing PHP web application to enterprise products such as Google Mail or Confluence and social networks alike, integrating it right into your user’s existing tools and workflows.

    http://www.codestock.org/Sessions/how-to-create-social-apps-for-millions-of-users.aspx

  2. Confoo 2011

    I’m very happy to have been chosen to speak about OpenID and OpenSocial at this years Confoo conference in Montreal, Canada (March, 9th to March, 11th).

    Here arte the details:

    Distributed Identities with OpenID

    The era of many separated logins and identities in the web is slowly coming to an end. Currently many of the big players are spurring this on with their own proprietary solutions, but open standards are starting to get more support as well with OpenID being the most promising one. In this session I will show how OpenID works for users and developers, where it currently fails and how OpenID is planned to evolve in the future.

    How to create social apps for millions of users

    Social apps have become very popular in the last years. In this session I will show you how to create an OpenSocial app which can be used by over 900 million users on many social networks around the world. After introducing you to the main concepts behind OpenSocial I will demonstrate live that it is easier than you think to develop a rich social app. Additionally to the basics like accessing the user’s social graph or integration with external APIs, I will also highlight features that will help you with a quick viral distribution, tight integration into the user’s social experience and access through mobile devices.

    http://confoo.ca/en/speaker/bastian-hofmann

  3. First VZ GeekCon

    On December 7th we organized the first GeekCon in Berlin. It was a very fun event and I’m looking forward to the next event.

    This time I did two sessions. I introduced the technical background of VZ-ID and VZ-Login and I spoke about the Federated Social Web.

    Here are the slides:

  4. WebTech 2010

    I’ll be speaking at this years WebTech conference in Mainz about OpenID and the Federated Social Web.

    The Details:

    Opening up the Social Web - Standards that are bridging the Islands

    Social networks are not closed off to the rest of the web anymore. Various standards like ActivityStreams, PubSubHubbub, WebFinger, OpenSocial, Salmon, OEmbed, XAuth or OExchange are emerging to open them up to other websites. I will introduce these protocols, show how they work together, how you can benefit from them and give an outlook on how they will change the world of social networks.

    13.10.2010 | 11:45 - 12:45 | Room: Dijonsaal

    Distributed Identities with OpenID

    The era of many separated logins and identities in the web is slowly coming to an end. Currently many of the big players are spurring this on with their own proprietary solutions, but open standards are starting to get more support as well with OpenID being the most promising one. In this session I will show how OpenID works for users and developers, where it currently fails and how OpenID is planned to evolve in the future.

    12.10.2010 | 16:30 - 17:30 | Room: Dijonsaal

    You can find more information at http://webtechcon.de/

    Here are the slides: