Webfinger and SWD
From OStatus Community Group
This is an analysis of the relative values of Webfinger and SWD for OStatus use.
Webfinger
Webfinger is a mechanism for determining links and properties related to an identity.
It uses the Host-Meta protocol to discover a URI template for an XRD document describing the account.
Pros
- OStatus 1.0 and below use Webfinger. Multiple implementations, 10s of thousands of sites.
- Discovery of multiple links and properties can happen in one request. For example: profile data, activity stream feed, pubsubhubbub hub, and salmon endpoint. This saves several discovery hits.
- Supports both XML and JSON.
Cons
- JSON version not widely (?) implemented.
- No formal standards document with IP agreements (?)
