Spin around PlazeCamp

Of course today would be the day that the back-end of the Plazes weblog stops working for me, so no updates there until it gets fixed. But here’s a quick spin around the room:

By 11:00 a.m. there were 20 people here, and there are now about 24. We got started around 11:15 a.m. with introductions from Stefan, and then moved right into a introduction to the Plazes API documentation from Tilmann Singer.

Tilmann began with a caution that the API is still a “pre-release,” and so is subject to change (although not dramatic wholesale change) going forward. He then ran through the basic concepts involved: REST, the privacy model, authentication, and using cURL as an all-purpose testing tool. He took us on a run-through of the main API methods — how to retrieve an activity stream, how to create an activity, etc. while I stumbled along on a German MacBook keyboard, hunting for the vertical bar and confusing ‘Z’ and ‘Y’, showing examples live.

We finished up the “formal” part of the morning with a “flashlight round,” going around the room with each person introducing themselves and telling a little bit about why they are here today. Interests ranged from the technical to the academic to the artistic, and ideas put forth included building a mobile version of the Plazer, better Javascript-integration, building a KDE version of the Plazer and building an OS X Dashboard widget.

Right now there’s a lot of discussion happening in small groups all over the space, and little bits of hacking breaking out slowly.