Note: this is an initial draft and work in progress open for discussion and gathering feedback.

Introduction

During the development of Partigi (API) we thought about how great it would be to have a standard that would let you have a way to import/export/reuse your opinions in different contexts/sites, so that if I have reviewed books in Amazon I dont have to enter them again in Partigi, or if that I have reviewed tv shows in Partigi I can go to a TV guide site and it can read my preferences from what I did in Partigi.

Inspired by the DiSo project, microformats, and the so, we came up with the concept/name of CulturalGraph: a portable representation of your cultural preferences. A standard API based in existing standards such as hReview which has the info about what you like, what you don't, what you want and have consumed, etc.

It would be like a personal sitemap of your tastes that is published and accesible to any party to use, and it would work in a federated scheme: any party could be a publisher and a consumer, so there is no central control.

What

• A portable representation of your cultural preferences: valoration, textual review, access to users' opinions in your social circle (relationships defined by microformats)
• Technically based in existing standards, microformats way
• Federated scheme: everyone can be a producer and consumer of the CulturalGraph
• Info about products I have consumed, I'm consuming, or want to consume; and what I own or what I want to get

Problem we aim to solve

Be able to reuse that information in different contexts without extra cost.

CulturalGraph content

• Product
• Product identification
• Consumption
• I want to consume
• I am consuming
• I have consuming
• Ownership
• I want to own
• I own
• ?? I own and want to pass it on / sell ??
• Opinion
• Rating: n/n (as in hReview)
• Review

User Cases

Producing CulturalGraph

• From Amazon I can export all my valorations, reviews, and info about items I like, dislike, own or want
• ToDo: how can we export this info now? API?
• From Last.fm I can export music groups I enjoy
• ToDo: how do you export your ratings?
• From Upcoming I can export events I have enjoyed

Consuming CulturalGraph

• I go to Last.fm, provide my CulturalGraph, and get a personalized list of shows based on my cultural preferences
• I go to Amazon, provide my CulturalGraph, and I can get recommendations based on my past consumption and Amazon knowledge
• I go to a newspaper, provide my CulturalGraph, and get a list of reviews of items I will probably enjoy, ignoring items I already have consumed or own

Item types

• Movies
• TV Shows
• Videogames
• Books
• Theatre

Possible items types (is lifestyle part of our culture?)

• Gadgets
• Furniture
• Destinations
• Places/Neighbouthoods where I have lived
• Restaurants
• ...

More ToDos

• Techincal Definition
• Federation
• Implementations
• Partigi
• Partigi as a producer
• Partigi as a consumer
• External agents which use Partigi API to put and retrieve CulturalGraph information

Related work 

• The Mine Project
• APML

Feedback? Comments? Ideas? Recommendations? Drop by http://groups.google.es/group/partigi-api (if the discussion grows we can move to a specific group)