In case you missed [the announcement](http://status.net/2010/01/14/walkah-joins-statusnet) yesterday, I have taken a position with the Montreal-based startup [StatusNet](http://status.net/). For the unfamiliar, StatusNet Inc is the company behind the StatusNet open source micro messaging platform.
I think StatusNet is a very interesting project and one I've been following for a long time. It's a true Open Source project that seems to be a perfect storm of technologies that interest me and a commitment to openness that I admire.
What really excites me about StatusNet, though, is challenge of federation. StatusNet installs currently ship with an implementation of a protocol known as [OpenMicroBlogging](http://openmicroblogging.org/). This means that you (or your company / organization or book club) can have your own real-time, micro messaging site (read: your own twitter) and if there's someone not on your site you'd like to follow, you can do so without having to register (and monitor) multiple sites.
We're currently planning a major update to the protocol to take advantage of some of the exciting new stuff like [PubSubHubbub](http://code.google.com/p/pubsubhubbub/) and [ActivityStreams](http://activitystrea.ms/). I'm excited to get to work on the protocol and implementation *and* tell you all about it :-)
