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When AOL first entered the market, you could only send E-Mail to other AOL users. Eventually, faced with the potential of users leaving their platform for more

When AOL first entered the market, you could only send E-Mail to other AOL users. Eventually, faced with the potential of users leaving their platform for more interoperable (if less full-featured) alternatives, AOL relented and made their email system a proper, standards-based utility. Now, granted that scenario is not a great example as email existed as a standard long before AOL came into existence, but I do think that as the number of users on Facebook/Twitter reach their inevitable peak, those companies, too, will be faced with the need to open the gates on their walled garden. It's interesting that, thus far, both companies have delayed such a situation from arising by buying-out the other platforms people have been moving too (Instagram, Vine, etc.) and incorporating them ever-more-tightly with the parent platform. At some point, though, I think (hope?) this strategy will prove untenable and open interoperability will once again rule the web. Call it crazy speculation, but I could foresee a resurgence of RSS/Atom eventually doing to Facebook/Twitter what SMTP/POP/IMAP did to AOL. If you think about it, the only thing that RSS/Atom was ever missing from becoming what Facebook/Twitter are today is a central aggregation point in the cloud. A smart startup that pulls a user's Facebook/Twitter feeds and mixes in any other RSS/Atom, as well as allowing users to post back to Facebook/Twitter/Atom could potentially spell the death of proprietary timelines.

arihant 11y ago
History repeats itself, but not during consecutive events and not always. I think natural way social networking would go forward is that there will be a lack of interest in general purpose social networking. These will be eventually replaced by cliques kind of things that are context specific. Basically, social structure would be integrated in most products, inherently. Now that might (or might not) require a centralized social graph. But saying that RSS/Atom would replace proprietary general purpose networking gives an impression that there would still be interest in a Newsfeed going forward. It also assumes that we are at pinnacle of social networking evolution and all that needs to happen is even distribution of power. I think both statements are false. This is exactly the kind of thinking that drives FOSS products 10 years behind time. The Web is not a distributed AOL. A distributed AOL would have failed. AOL evolved into Web. There are plenty of examples of distributed protocols being evolved into proprietary one. In fact, look at the usage numbers surging on messaging apps. Compare that to rate of e-mail and SMS.
ebbv 11y ago
AOL is definitely the best comparison. AOL had a 10 year run of dominance much like Facebook has had. But we're already in a world where kids today see Facebook as something for their parents. And I know more and more people who (like myself) deleted their Facebook account years ago and don't miss it. Facebook is headed toward irrelevance. It will probably always hang on like AOL and Yahoo still do. But it won't be the center of the online universe like it has been for so long. We're already on the down side of that hill.
- arethuza 11y ago
  I think Facebook is heading for the same kind of "irrelevance" as Microsoft or IBM. Which is to say that they are irrelevant to a lot of people, particularly "early adopters", but they'll be around and profitable for a long time.
  - ebbv 11y ago
    Microsoft completely dominating the PC software industry for nearly 30 years, reaping insane profits for that entire time. In some ways they still do dominate it, certainly in terms of productivity software and business email. Similarly, IBM was computers for 30 years. Comparing them to simply the most popular social website for the past 10 years is not really fair. The fact that Facebooks value approaches those other two companies only shows how insane the current bubble is.
    - fluxquanta 11y ago
      You can't neglect the fact that while facebook's outward appearance is "social media site", which may indeed be on the decline, they do a lot of work behind the scenes just to manage such an incredible amount of data. I could easily see facebook surviving long into the future in a similar way to IBM -- with a focus that is shifted from what made them big player, but still doing valuable work (and making money) in the tech "sphere".
    - pki 11y ago
      is ibm big iron still not computers right now?>
rjaco31 11y ago
> If you think about it, the only thing that RSS/Atom was ever missing from becoming what Facebook/Twitter are today is a central aggregation point in the cloud. A smart startup [...] could potentially spell the death of proprietary timelines. I've got the feeling you underestimate how important this central aggregation point actually is. Imho I'd even say it's the paramount reason Facebook/Twitter are still the top dogs, people are just attracted to the (unique) aggregator which already has the most people.
- dublinben 11y ago
  When you can follow and interact with your friends/fans through a neutral aggregator regardless of what network they're on, what does it matter where most people are?
  - rjaco31 11y ago
    I'm not saying your point is wrong, I'm just saying that the current situation is in total opposition with this statement.
- tmaly 11y ago
  some form of distributed set of nodes based on a blockchain would be cool to see.
d4nt 11y ago
> A smart startup that pulls a user's Facebook/Twitter feeds and mixes in any other RSS/Atom, as well as allowing users to post back to Facebook/Twitter/Atom could potentially spell the death of proprietary timelines. A few years ago I would have said you were crazy. But after the race to replace Google Reader, the failure of Google+, the general sense of malaise that many people have with Facebook[1], and the political echo chamber and general bot fest that is Twitter[2], I think there's room for another player here. [1] despite, importantly, continuing to use it all the time [2] my default working assumption when someone follows me is now that it's a bot
eloisant 11y ago
Unfortunately, if we take instant messaging as an other example, the expected opening never happened in the 20 years that followed ICQ launch. We've have multiple proprietary competitors, an open standard (XMPP), Google even embraced IM federation at some point but removed it later.
jasonhansel 11y ago
A similar idea I've had -- perhaps an impractical one -- is to create a social network based on email. Status updates, friend requests, etc. would all be sent via ordinary emails with machine-readable code inside, thus creating a decentralized social network with little new infrastructure.

arihant 11y ago

History repeats itself, but not during consecutive events and not always. I think natural way social networking would go forward is that there will be a lack of interest in general purpose social networking. These will be eventually replaced by cliques kind of things that are context specific. Basically, social structure would be integrated in most products, inherently. Now that might (or might not) require a centralized social graph. But saying that RSS/Atom would replace proprietary general purpose networking gives an impression that there would still be interest in a Newsfeed going forward. It also assumes that we are at pinnacle of social networking evolution and all that needs to happen is even distribution of power. I think both statements are false. This is exactly the kind of thinking that drives FOSS products 10 years behind time. The Web is not a distributed AOL. A distributed AOL would have failed. AOL evolved into Web. There are plenty of examples of distributed protocols being evolved into proprietary one. In fact, look at the usage numbers surging on messaging apps. Compare that to rate of e-mail and SMS.

ebbv 11y ago

AOL is definitely the best comparison. AOL had a 10 year run of dominance much like Facebook has had. But we're already in a world where kids today see Facebook as something for their parents. And I know more and more people who (like myself) deleted their Facebook account years ago and don't miss it. Facebook is headed toward irrelevance. It will probably always hang on like AOL and Yahoo still do. But it won't be the center of the online universe like it has been for so long. We're already on the down side of that hill.

arethuza 11y ago
I think Facebook is heading for the same kind of "irrelevance" as Microsoft or IBM. Which is to say that they are irrelevant to a lot of people, particularly "early adopters", but they'll be around and profitable for a long time.
- ebbv 11y ago
  Microsoft completely dominating the PC software industry for nearly 30 years, reaping insane profits for that entire time. In some ways they still do dominate it, certainly in terms of productivity software and business email. Similarly, IBM was computers for 30 years. Comparing them to simply the most popular social website for the past 10 years is not really fair. The fact that Facebooks value approaches those other two companies only shows how insane the current bubble is.
  - fluxquanta 11y ago
    You can't neglect the fact that while facebook's outward appearance is "social media site", which may indeed be on the decline, they do a lot of work behind the scenes just to manage such an incredible amount of data. I could easily see facebook surviving long into the future in a similar way to IBM -- with a focus that is shifted from what made them big player, but still doing valuable work (and making money) in the tech "sphere".
  - pki 11y ago
    is ibm big iron still not computers right now?>

rjaco31 11y ago

> If you think about it, the only thing that RSS/Atom was ever missing from becoming what Facebook/Twitter are today is a central aggregation point in the cloud. A smart startup [...] could potentially spell the death of proprietary timelines. I've got the feeling you underestimate how important this central aggregation point actually is. Imho I'd even say it's the paramount reason Facebook/Twitter are still the top dogs, people are just attracted to the (unique) aggregator which already has the most people.

dublinben 11y ago
When you can follow and interact with your friends/fans through a neutral aggregator regardless of what network they're on, what does it matter where most people are?
- rjaco31 11y ago
  I'm not saying your point is wrong, I'm just saying that the current situation is in total opposition with this statement.
tmaly 11y ago
some form of distributed set of nodes based on a blockchain would be cool to see.

d4nt 11y ago

> A smart startup that pulls a user's Facebook/Twitter feeds and mixes in any other RSS/Atom, as well as allowing users to post back to Facebook/Twitter/Atom could potentially spell the death of proprietary timelines. A few years ago I would have said you were crazy. But after the race to replace Google Reader, the failure of Google+, the general sense of malaise that many people have with Facebook[1], and the political echo chamber and general bot fest that is Twitter[2], I think there's room for another player here. [1] despite, importantly, continuing to use it all the time [2] my default working assumption when someone follows me is now that it's a bot

eloisant 11y ago

Unfortunately, if we take instant messaging as an other example, the expected opening never happened in the 20 years that followed ICQ launch. We've have multiple proprietary competitors, an open standard (XMPP), Google even embraced IM federation at some point but removed it later.

jasonhansel 11y ago

A similar idea I've had -- perhaps an impractical one -- is to create a social network based on email. Status updates, friend requests, etc. would all be sent via ordinary emails with machine-readable code inside, thus creating a decentralized social network with little new infrastructure.