New Open Source Microblogging Service: Identi.ca

You can’t follow Tim Berners-Lee on Twitter, but you can on identi.ca, a microblogging service that runs on open source software.

And while I wouldn’t dream of giving up Twitter any time soon, an open source platform may offer some interesting options for governments. For example, could this software be used to run an internal “inside the firewall” microblogging service, the equivalent of an agency intranet? Since I believe microblogging could eliminate many types of email — and while I dream of a day when email inboxes collect little more than digital dust — an internal go-wild microblogging service could revolutionize internal communications in any office.

And, for the very same reasons it’s useful to keep work and private email accounts separate, a “work” microblogging account running securely on a government server could be very useful, especially if accounts were automatically set up and indexed for all employees agency- or department-wide. (Why doesn’t Lotus Notes do this?)

According to the Identi.ca site: “The Laconica software that runs Identi.ca supports OpenMicroBlogging 0.1. Anyone can make a new installation of Laconica on their own servers, and users of that new installation can subscribe to notices from Identi.ca.”

While Identi.ca doesn’t out-Twitter Twitter yet, the site claims new features are coming “soon,” including:

* More AJAX-y interface
* Maps
* Cross-post to Pownce, Jaiku, etc.
* Pull messages from Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku, etc.
* Facebook integration
* Image, video, audio notices

In fact, you can already use Identi.ca to cross-post to Twitter, but the app to update Facebook was buggy when I tried it. Also, be aware that all posts are available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0.

Definitely worth checking out.

Follow me on Identi.ca at johnable (or I’m johnable on that “other” mircoblogging service, Twitter).