4 ms·

The open web is a network of information while facebook is a network of people. Social is about interaction between people so I disagree that the open web is mo

The open web is a network of information while facebook is a network of people. Social is about interaction between people so I disagree that the open web is more social. The open web may be more connected but facebook is more social because the connections are mainly between people. And while facebook is in many ways a closed system it is weaving itself seamlessly into the fabric of the web with the open graph initiative. Search engines may not be able to crawl facebook directly but through it's graph api website developers can access that information.

joubert 16y ago
Perhaps the open web is more social in the same way going to a party where you meet new people is more social than just hanging out with the same people all the time.
- silkodyssey 16y ago
  Great point. Hacker news is a great example of a space that is both open and social.
- zppx 16y ago
  And our social habits are not structured in the same way that Facebook presents it to us, the unstructured "Open Web" is closer to real life.
moe 16y ago
The open web is a network of information while facebook is a network of people I disagree. Facebook is nothing more than bundle of services that happen to be conveniently integrated and laced together by the friends graph. Facebook will shatter like all previous monoliths have once we've figured out how to distribute said graph in a sensible way. To clarify I'll repeat what I've said elsewhere before (which is mostly in line with the article): I consider facebook a temporary stepstone in internet evolution. The early commercial internet was dominated by closed ecosystems called AOL and compuserve. A bit later we had portals like lycos and yahoo. Today it's google and facebook. The pattern seems obvious, the systems become more open and distributed at each step. But wait, Facebook looks more like a step back, closer to AOL rather than the other direction, you say? I'd argue that this is also how internet evolution works; one-step-back, two-steps-forward. New concepts seem to first emerge in the form of walled gardens. The first person to integrate and evolve a new concept (such as the friends graph, or twitter) will usually do so inside a closed test tube, simply because that's the most natural way to go (cf. prototyping). Then, when the concepts mature to a point of massive popularity the test tube will inevitably begin to crackle and smaller, "do-one-thing-and-do-it-well" style services start to form in the puddles around the monolith. If you want to see the future internet then you should look less at facebook and more at the puddle surrounding it.

joubert 16y ago

Perhaps the open web is more social in the same way going to a party where you meet new people is more social than just hanging out with the same people all the time.

silkodyssey 16y ago
Great point. Hacker news is a great example of a space that is both open and social.
zppx 16y ago
And our social habits are not structured in the same way that Facebook presents it to us, the unstructured "Open Web" is closer to real life.

moe 16y ago

The open web is a network of information while facebook is a network of people I disagree. Facebook is nothing more than bundle of services that happen to be conveniently integrated and laced together by the friends graph. Facebook will shatter like all previous monoliths have once we've figured out how to distribute said graph in a sensible way. To clarify I'll repeat what I've said elsewhere before (which is mostly in line with the article): I consider facebook a temporary stepstone in internet evolution. The early commercial internet was dominated by closed ecosystems called AOL and compuserve. A bit later we had portals like lycos and yahoo. Today it's google and facebook. The pattern seems obvious, the systems become more open and distributed at each step. But wait, Facebook looks more like a step back, closer to AOL rather than the other direction, you say? I'd argue that this is also how internet evolution works; one-step-back, two-steps-forward. New concepts seem to first emerge in the form of walled gardens. The first person to integrate and evolve a new concept (such as the friends graph, or twitter) will usually do so inside a closed test tube, simply because that's the most natural way to go (cf. prototyping). Then, when the concepts mature to a point of massive popularity the test tube will inevitably begin to crackle and smaller, "do-one-thing-and-do-it-well" style services start to form in the puddles around the monolith. If you want to see the future internet then you should look less at facebook and more at the puddle surrounding it.