I had reported on Mozilla jumping into “online services” earlier this month. Today, they quietly announced a new project called Weave, that allows you to take control of your metadata and store it on Mozilla servers, once you set up an account.
The idea behind Weave is that all your personal information — bookmarks, passwords and account names, for example — are synced to your Mozilla account via Firefox. If you lose your computer, you can download Firefox, log into your account and you can restore all that information. You can do some of this today if you use Google Browser Sync and Dot Mac services. You can start by creating an account with Mozilla Services. You will need Firefox 3.0 or higher to get this working.
Mozilla has set-up a code of ethics, which make me view this project more positively. For instance, all client side data is encrypted. I like the fact that Mozilla is a neutral entity and is less likely to commercially abuse the information at their disposal. If you take a longer term view, Mozilla can become the data broker for all future web services, especially for those who don’t want to throw in their lot with commercial vendors such as Google, Microsoft and Facebook.
And Opera drops the ball again. They announced similar sync services months ago, along with a bunch of cool features that are going to be out in Firefox sooner than their own browser. Looks like they’d rather whine to the EU than implement their cool ideas.
This coming from a longtime Opera fanboy. Opera, you’re hurting me.
The fun thing about this is, that Mozilla does similar things to what Flock does, but on a way bigger scale. Flock implements bookmarks sharing, Mozilla looks at bookmark sharing as a platform application that other apps should be able to work with.
I really look forward to how this thing evolves…
@Foofy
Opera announced basic bookmarks- and settings-synchronization, which is a nice feature, but not nearly as much. Mozilla trys to create an infrastrukture, based on open standards/protocols which can be used by application providers.
I think that Mozilla and Wikipedia will be the next two player for 2008.
Hang on, Google are Moz’s biggest funder via the Firefox Search default. Just wait for Goog to step in with ‘support’. Shessh Om, do some thinking.
@ zeroinfluencer.
The minute google steps in here, the whole thing is going to fall apart.
Also given how much resources Google is putting behind Webkit, the Firefox competitor, the cozy relationship between the two isn’t going to be forever.
You know Frenemies…
@Om Malik
C’mon fella.
Weave is a mix of OpenId, OAuth and identity as a microformat, making end user a definable first order object in the chain of a network of services. That’s FBook’s directive.
What Weave affords is an API for Geo Locating, Ambient Intimacy and the broader social grid, giving rich datasets about cultural behaviour. Smells like OpenSocial to me.
Mozilla has zero interest in building software that reports an understanding on system-actors; if anything, Chris Messina “thoughts-on-mozilla” clearly open up the relevance of Mozilla’s participation with the Internet, namely, assist in the crafting of wafer thin client applications that provide friction free delivery of enrichening data.
To whom that data is desirable to is easy. As Yahoo tries to craft a geo-location mediaesque business model, Microsoft’s stance in Enterprise services, leave Google (or the next smart indexer) to build the essential models of human behaviour.
Weave could be the answer to the Identity2.0 question that Dick Hardt asked a couple of years ago. What does the network of trust look like?
Firefox is the kitchen sink; with Weave, Mozilla have just added the silt trap – and they know who would be interested in being it’s caretaker.
Mozilla is Google’s Switzerland – a country built upon Frenemies.
Well, that’s good news for Mozilla fanatics! Just hoping for reliability and ease of use. 🙂
Nhick
http://www.itrush.com
@nhick:
“Mozilla fanatics” – nice term.
Anyway, bookmark sharing etc. as described is 3 hours of programming for most web apps/teams (and has been replicated by almost every player on the planet for the last five years). Not sure why folks and bloggers still get excited about it – maybe the schematic looks somehow official, or metadata made it sound high tech.
Mozilla needs to do something useful. I suggest simply switching on inline SVG in plain HTML, for example. Or just mimicking IE for 6 months for the good features.
[..]I have been browsing Firefox plugin site for last two years…. for one very important solution to my Bookmarks Sync Up from Mozilla. All this while, I have tried Google Browser Sync and Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer. But I am never satisfied.
I always thought that this kind of user data management can be a big potential for building new services around and we have already numbers of Social bookmarking solutions (del.icio.us, technocrati, stumble upon) out there which makes me happy but confused (which one to use?) At this point of time, Web King, Google has already taken consolidated lead into this area with Browser Syn and Toolbar, it will be a hard to catch run for Mozilla. Reason, why would I change if experience with Google is increasingly satisfying!!![..]
All my passwords and account names on Mozilla’s servers? You have got to be kidding.
@ Michael,
From what they are saying – all the information is encrypted on the client side, so from that perspective, it is def. secure. Of course, what ends up happening could be a whole different thing.
There is certainly potential if they truly implement the “cloud”
http://tinyurl.com/3yu7g4
Dataportability.org is a much better and truly open endeavor that cuts across browsers or OSes. As for Mozilla, extensions have already been around for over a couple of years that offer this functionality.