Taylor Parsons

how to add the bookmark on msdn widget to blogs.msdn.com

Social Platform Feed Service - Part 2 of 2

Constructing Your Own Feed Query

The query name in the query string is a collection of conditions in reverse polish notation.  It allows for the programmer to create a very rich set of conditions in the query.http://services.social.microsoft.com/feeds/feed/?query=nsrecursion/True/eq/ns/SocialBookmarking/eq/ns/ForumThreads/eq/and/and&user=taylorparsons&count=100&sort=Recency

query=name/value/operator

query string parameters

Social Platform Feed Service - Part 1 of 2

When we released the Social Bookmarks Preview I did a blog post titled "MSDN Social Platform Feed Service".  I am writing a two part update to that post to go over the changes in the feed service.

Part 1 - Why feeds matter, what's new, and how to use the Social application to build feeds.

Part 2 - More details on the parameters to build your feeds from scratch or change the feeds that we deliver in the Social app. -

Part 1 - Why feeds matter, what's new, and how to use the Social application as a feed builder

Why Feeds Matter

Feeds allow you to track one or more tags to stay on top of those topics for what the community finds important.  Feeds are also a great way syndicate your bookmarks within your network.  The v1 release of MSDN Social, TechNet Social and Expression Social allows for some very customizable feeds. 

What's New

With the release of MSDN Social, TechNet Social and Expression Social we have updated the feeds service to support which supports the following:

• User feeds (new):  User feeds contain just the bookmarks that a user has marked as public.  You can subscribe to other peoples feed and they can subscribe to your feed.
• Feed for a date range (new): Feeds can be limited to a pre-defined date range (1 day, 1 week, 1 month, and 1 year).  
• Feeds for application namespace (updated): Feeds can be limited to just forums threads, or just social bookmarks or both.
• Count (new):  Set the number of bookmarks to be returned on a feed (max of 100).
• Feed by tag  (same): Get a feed by one or more tags
• Feed by brand (same): Get feeds by brand MSDN, TechNet and Expression.
• Locale (new): Get feeds for your locale.

There are two large differences between the preview and the v1 of the feed service for Social are:

1. The base URL has changed:
   • from: http://servicescommunity.microsoft.com
   • to http://services.social.microsoft.com
2. The name value pair are now within the query string it changed
   • from: http://services.community.microsoft.com/feeds/feed/query/namespace/05666658-68ba-4d5f-83c4-a088015f92ce/eq/namespace/b22788b8-c8f1-4df3-aa44-1f457f092c93/eq/or
   • to:  http://services.social.microsoft.com/feeds/feed/?query=brand/Microsoft/eq/nsrecursion/True/eq/timespan/P7D/eq/ns/SocialBookmarking/eq/ns/ForumThreads/eq/locale/1033/eq/and/and/and/and/and&count=100&sort=Popularity

Use the Social application as a feed builder

In the Social Bookmarks preview, the feed  link was static.  With the MSDN Social, TechNet Social and Expression Social v1 release the link to the feed updates as you change your feed.

For example, in this screen shot below I am used the tag filter in the Social application, I am filtered by the tag "social bookmaking" and changed the filter to "Most Recent".

Clicking the RSS icon link changes as you adjust the filter.  http://services.social.microsoft.com/feeds/feed/?  query=brand/Microsoft/eq/nsrecursion/True/eq/ns/SocialBookmarking/eq/ns/ForumThreads/eq/tag/social+bookmarking/eq/locale/1033/eq/and/and/and/and/and&count=100

Here is another example using my feed.  I signed-in and change the navigation from "Community Bookmarks" to "My Home", and clicked called "socialbookmarks".  Now the feed icon points to my bookmarks with the selected tag of "socialbookmarks" http://services.social.microsoft.com/feeds/feed/?query=nsrecursion/True/eq/ns/SocialBookmarking/eq/ns/ForumThreads/eq/tag/socialbookmarks/eq/and/and/and&user=taylorparsons&count=100&sort=Recency

Part 2 - More details on the parameters to build your feeds from scratch or change the feeds that we deliver in the Social app.

Tech-Ed Online: Fishbowl interview on Social Bookmarks

Tech-Ed Online is creating a whole series of interviews worth checking out.

Tech-Ed 2008 - Developer Week - Meeting the customers - report 1

I have to admit when I first came into the event location I was not that impressed and mostly overwhelmed by the sheer size of the event center.   To quote Steve Butler, "Tech-Ed is where the rubber meets that road", he could not have been more correct.  I can't even begin to tell you how satisfying it is to meet people as they pass by and invite them into the demo space by saying have you see our new Social Bookmarks preview?  They light-up, and come right in to see the demo.  On day 1 my demos where going to the stack showing how you can manage your items bookmarked through tags on Forums, as well as your social bookmarks.  Every time I pivot on a bookmark by display name I hear a WOW, nice, and I like that.   On day 2 I changed my demo and had people log-in.  This was really great every single user already had a display name.  Some had posted once in a forum, others had a subscription.  Even it was just several people it was great to see the hard work we did with our sister team Servers and Tools Services (STOS) who own the central store for display names.  It really proved itself out that we need one profile store for all user information to make it as easy as possible for our customers to engage within each of our web apps. 

Some verbatim's and feedback from people at Tech-Ed Developer week:

1. During nearly half of the Social Bookmarks demos people wanted to know where and when our public API will be available.  I often asked why they wanted an API, and I got a few answers.  One was I want to build my own custom MSDN experience.  Another wants to use the Social Platform within his business to help his customers connect with each other.  I have to say if I have learned anything over the years when you create an an API people use it in ways you never intended or imagined.  It will be really hard for us to not have an API that our customers can code against, it is a base expectation these days for any social application. 
2. Groups:  I heard interest in groups.  The base use was I want to be able to see what my friends and co-workers are bookmarking.  Another idea I heard was to use your friends as a white list and only they can see certain attributes about what you are doing and have full access to your profile. 
3. While showing our the search improvement, one guy said "I will get back time in my life you just made it easier for me to search".
4. Another fellow was interested with mobile social bookmarks. He wanted to gain access to his bookmarks from his cell phone. 

MSDN Social Platform Feed Service

Un-official documentation

As you can see there is a   RSS link on the "All Bookmarks" view.  This is a link returning the most recent bookmarks added by uses to the Social Platform.

In this post I am going to explain the syntax on the REST feed service and the parameters you can pass the data you care about.

First lets start with the parameters that the Social Platform recognizes.  The maximum number of items you can get from the Social Platform feed service is 100.

Parameters

Conditional Operators

Description of the queries

The Social Platform feed service was written for developers.  It uses polish notation , enabling you do create complex logical queries, through a  REST interface

From the Social Bookmarks application you will find one link this brings back the default query which included both forum threads and social bookmarks:

RSS:  http://servicescommunity.microsoft.com/feeds/feed/query/namespace/05666658-68ba-4d5f-83c4-a088015f92ce/eq/namespace/b22788b8-c8f1-4df3-aa44-1f457f092c93/eq/or

ATOM: http://servicescommunity.microsoft.com/feeds/feed/query/namespace/05666658-68ba-4d5f-83c4-a088015f92ce/eq/namespace/b22788b8-c8f1-4df3-aa44-1f457f092c93/eq/or?format=atom10

Let's break the REST call down

The base URI: http://services.community.microsoft.com/feeds/feed/query

First condition: /namespace/05666658-68ba-4d5f-83c4-a088015f92ce (ForumThreads)

first operator: eq

Second condition: /namespace/b22788b8-c8f1-4df3-aa44-1f457f092c93  (social bookmarks)

second operator: eq

third operator: or

Let's narrow the query by a tag condition.

/tag/technology/eq/and

Put it all together and here is a valid query:

http://services.community.microsoft.com/feeds/feed/query/namespace/05666658-68ba-4d5f-83c4-a088015f92ce/eq/namespace/b22788b8-c8f1-4df3-aa44-1f457f092c93/eq/or/tag/technology/eq/and

Example queries

1. MSDN and Social Bookmarks
   • http://services.community.microsoft.com/feeds/feed/query/namespace/b22788b8-c8f1-4df3-aa44-1f457f092c93/eq/brand/msdn/eq/and
2. Expression and Social Bookmarks
   • http://services.community.microsoft.com/feeds/feed/query/namespace/b22788b8-c8f1-4df3-aa44-1f457f092c93/eq/brand/expression/eq/and
3. Technet and Social Bookmarks
   • http://services.community.microsoft.com/feeds/feed/query/namespace/b22788b8-c8f1-4df3-aa44-1f457f092c93/eq/brand/technet/eq/and
4. Social Bookmarks tagged with csharp
   • http://services.community.microsoft.com/feeds/feed/query/namespace/b22788b8-c8f1-4df3-aa44-1f457f092c93/eq/tag/csharp/eq/and

Introduction video on Social Bookmarks - Preview for MSDN, Technet and Expression

Check out our team's interview on Channel 9

"MSDN has been the de facto place on the web to find all things Microsoft platform developer related. It's not always been perfect, but certainly most Microsoft platform focused developers require MSDN to complete their missions and to learn about new possibilities based on the latest platform innovations. The MSDN team has been hard at work creating some interesting community features with the primary goal of enabling MSDN users to add significant value to their peers via forums, wikis and other social constructs. New on this list of communityware on MSDN is Social Bookmarking and enhanced user Profile. I caught up with some of the folks behind this work to chat about the What, How and Why...
Meet Chris Slemp, PM Profile, Taylor Parsons, Lead PM Social Bookmarking, Brent Serbus, PM Forums and Bryan Thomas, Dev Lead Social Bookmarking."

http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=406924

Seeking feedback on the MSDN, Technet and Expression Social Bookmarks - Preview

Feedback wanted!

We want on feedback the Social Bookmarks Preview have created for Technical Professionals to share links that they think the community should know about.

The link to the Social Bookmarks - Preview Apps are here as tiny URLs:

http://msdnbookmarks.com

http://technebookmarks.com

http://expressionbookmarks.com

We have created a forums app where you can ask question of the engineering and product planning team that is has build the Social Bookmarks - Preview.

Tell us what works and what does not work, we are listening and will reply on every question.

 Feedback wanted!

Community Platform: Preview of Social Bookmarks for MSDN and Technet

We just hit our Feature Complete milestone for Social Bookmarks and enhanced profile for the Microsoft MSDN and Technet sites. 

You can read more about it here on Jeff Day's blog.

Technical Program Manager with deep understanding of the Social Web

The Microsoft Developer Division Server & Tools Online Team is seeking a program manager to help us build innovative new Community Platform web applications, including forums, community-driven portals, blogs, social bookmarks, a feeds and tags service, plus content management. Our team is focused on transforming MSDN, TechNet and the (new) Expression web sites into the most innovative, community-focused web sites within Microsoft and the industry.
Making our sites more community driven not only helps our customers become more successful, but it improves our business by encouraging customers to engage more deeply with both Microsoft and each other. Our goal is to help technical professionals worldwide become more successful by connecting them to relevant resources, peers, and experts from Microsoft and the community.
In this role, you will collaborate with other program managers, developers and testers to define, build and deliver the platform. You will help drive features that enable critical capabilities, such as social bookmaking, tag cloud browsing, tag and search experience integration, feed syndication and more.
This job is a good fit if you…
•     Have deep understanding of Web 2.0 and online communities, especially social bookmarking, etc.
•     Possess great abstract thinking and analytical skills.
•     Enjoy working in a complex, fast moving environment.
•     Are an experienced program manager.
•     Have experience working with agile engineering processes.
•     Work experience directly related to engineering of complex web sites, tools and user experiences.
•     Experience shipping products/web sites.
•     Strong cross-group collaboration skills.
Specific qualifications include:
•     Strong technical background with expertise in web technologies like HTTP, ASP.NET, SQL Server, AJAX, JavaScript, XML
•     Work experience directly related to engineering of complex web sites, tools and user experiences
•     3-5 years successful experience as a technical PM. (Microsoft PM experience desirable but not required.)
•     Strong cross-group collaboration skills
•     Demonstrated ability to write stories, functional specs and other technical documents
•     Experience shipping products/web sites
•     BS or higher in technical field

blogging around

I have been writing blog posts here and there.  At thins point I have so many accounts I need to search the web to locate accounts.  Anyway, I am looking for a blog that has the following features. 

1. In-line spell checker that puts a red line under the misspelled word.
2. Large block quotes to reference other blogs.
3. tagging for both the author and the viewer to link bloggers together by one or more tags.
4. Support for RSS and Feeds.
5. Viral marketing suggestions and widgets for the blog.
6. Browser plug-in to enable right click blog post, so I can post from any highlight content to my blog.  Live Spaces supports this which is why I have been mostly blogging there.
7. Support for in-line widgets from other sites for video, slideshows, other data sources
8. blog level stats

Other blogging locations I have been using:

• Live spaces
• http://www.xanga.com/taylorparsons

RSS feeds I read daily to stay current with public API's and Web2.0 in general

1. Programmable Web http://blog.programmableweb.com/
2. Read/Write Web http://feeds.feedburner.com/readwriteweb
3. Alex Barnett http://del.icio.us/rss/alexbarn
4. Google Tags http://del.icio.us/rss/tag/google
5. Tagging Tags http://del.icio.us/rss/tag/tagging
6. Todd Bishop http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/index.xml
7. Life Hacker http://feeds.gawker.com/lifehacker/full