Identi.ca is an open microblogging service. Users can post short messages about themselves to Identi.ca, which are then broadcast to friends in their social network using instant messages (IM), RSS feeds, and the Web. The product's developer, Evan Prodromou, joins Phil and Scott to discuss the project, including its open source license.
Identi.ca is similar to existing microblogging sites such as Twitter, Jaiku, or Pownce. Unlike those services, Identi.ca's underlying software is available under an Open Source license. Identi.ca is also the first service to support OpenMicroBlogging, a standard for exchanging short messages between microblogging sites. Identi.ca also makes public user data available under a Creative Commons license in standard formats.
Evan Prodromou was born in Cincinnati, Ohio but moved to California at an early age. After graduating with a major in physics and a minor in English at the University of California at Berkeley, he spent a year writing software in Amsterdam before returning to San Francisco to join the nascent Internet boom. He did a stint working for Microsoft's Bay Area office, then lept into the Web with both feet, working on dozens of Web sites and Web software packages between 1995 and 2001. He developed a passion for Open Source software and Open Content, grass-roots Internet culture, and SF's Burning Man-oriented techno-artistico-music scene.
In 2001, he settled in Montreal, and as a side-project, started Wikitravel. He works on Wikitravel full time doing development and system administration, and try to find time to write.
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