Okay, so there’s this technology called FOAF that’s supposed to allow you to put an XML file on your site that describes a bit about who you are and your relationship to other people. It’s a sort-of XML schema for social networking. It occurred to me today, though, when I was looking at a complete stranger’s website: why go to all the trouble? I mean, sure, the FOAF thing might catch on and have real interesting applications—but, we already have these lovely things called blogrolls. They’re everywhere.
Certainly it wouldn’t be hard to determine that “Ken is interested in Christianity, blogging, Apple Computer, and the Mozilla project” and that there’s a possibility that anyone who links to Ken is likely interested in the same things? That’s not fool-proof, of course: not everyone who visits here is interested in what I have to say about blogging or my faith, for example. But, if you cross-referenced me with another name, say Asa Dotzler, and found sites that link to us both, you can start to narrow your search to find people who are also interested in the Mozilla project. It’s sort of like digital name dropping. 
Hm. Add a GUI to illustrate this blogroll network and let people click through it, and you would have one interesting project.
A couple minutes later: Drat! Google won’t let you search more than one “link:www.blah.com” type entry. Perhaps this could be a job for…the Google API?
More minutes: Ah. Not surprisingly, Mark thought of this, like, a year ago. Still, though. His purpose was to find people of interest who are being read by the people he reads. I want to find people who are reading the people that I read. This is key because I’d like to connect to people reading non-blog type sites as well. In other words, “find me all the people who are linked to Mark Pilgrim and TheOoze.”
Question: anyone have any code suggestions in ASP “classic” (not .Net), PHP or Perl? Or, at least, any examples of Google API implementation?
