4 ms·

This is really sad. Makes me want to start a lean, open source social network that keeps the good stuff and does away with the bloat. I bet it could be popular

by osrec 9y ago

This is really sad. Makes me want to start a lean, open source social network that keeps the good stuff and does away with the bloat. I bet it could be popular with intelligent people! Anyone interested, email me (see profile) :p

droopyEyelids 9y ago
Intelligence is orthogonal to the basic desires Facebook uses to addict its users
- osrec 9y ago
  That's the point; it'd be nice to have something similar to Facebook without all of the addictive trash. In my opinion, the concept of a social network in itself isn't bad - it's just the monetisation bit that they've got terribly wrong, along with the use of addictive media to bolster ad revenues.
  - Balgair 9y ago
    I'm less bullish on that idea. The issue is the cost of the service. You have to pay for those servers somehow and for updating the site to the latest versions of iOS or Windows or whatever. There have been MANY attempts at implementing a 'paid FB' or just a straight attempt to tackle FB outright (Ello comes to mind). None have thus far worked. Not saying you can't try, but talk to the other creators out there first to learn from their mistakes. Again, the issue is that servers cost money and you have to find the funding somehow. Ads are good at that. Subscription services aren't thus far, but Patreon may be changing things. Still, with NN out the window now, I'd chill and wait to see how the dust settles.
    - osrec 9y ago
      You're right, but I'm tempted to do it anyway! Who's with me? Anyone? Guess it's just me! Seriously though, I know monetisation is tricky, but there must be a better alternative to ads. I'm thinking something which can perhaps enrich the quality of a user's experience for a fee, rather than earning via ads while annoying the user.
      - chiefofgxbxl 9y ago
        In some ways I think Americans are cheap. I'm imagining a paid FB-like service in the range of $5-10/mo, considering ISP packages can easily run up to $80/mo, and a FB-like site should ideally only consume a portion of that. But I think you really need to re-think the core concept of a social platform. Can't find the comment on HN, but someone a few days ago mentioned: social platform vs. social technology. A social platform is likely to be closed; Facebook only wants you to communicate via Facebook, same with Twitter, G+, etc. If you decide to email your friends instead of using FB, they lose out. A social technology, however, doesn't care about other providers as much. Think about a telephone company. They obviously want you to use their service, but they don't care if you call someone who has a different carrier. Likewise, they won't listen in to the content of your calls to tailor their service to you, because them providing you phone data and the contents of your calls are completely orthogonal. Try thinking along the lines of a social technology, rather than a social platform. E.g. my friends want to put together a movie/pizza night so they go to Facebook to create a poll to decide on a movie and pizza toppings. Why can't that be part of an SMS standard? It seems to me like SMS has a lot of potential for future iterations. Right now you can send texts and images to one or more people. Why not bake in other features like polls, appointments, etc. It truly has frustrated me that my friends will use Facebook to organize something that could easily be done over SMS if it just had a few extra features.
        osrec 9y ago
        Interesting points. I'm not sure if SMS is rich enough to support a full fledged social tech, but I kind the idea of keeping the technology open. I will definitely keep thinking about this!
        chiefofgxbxl 9y ago
        Right, SMS probably wouldn't be able to bear that full weight of a whole social tech, but I believe with just a few additional features added to its spec (or a fork), the effort-to-payoff ratio would be large, if your goal is to help ween people off of sites like Facebook. There's no reason why I shouldn't just be able to use my phone to invite a bunch of friends to some event, and have them indicate with a checkmark or red X whether they will be going or not. I have some other ideas that I was going to formally write up and thinking of submitting it to Mozilla. Feel free to email me (email in my profile) to discuss more if interested.
Nition 9y ago
https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora

by osrec 9y ago

droopyEyelids 9y ago

Intelligence is orthogonal to the basic desires Facebook uses to addict its users

osrec 9y ago
That's the point; it'd be nice to have something similar to Facebook without all of the addictive trash. In my opinion, the concept of a social network in itself isn't bad - it's just the monetisation bit that they've got terribly wrong, along with the use of addictive media to bolster ad revenues.
- Balgair 9y ago
  I'm less bullish on that idea. The issue is the cost of the service. You have to pay for those servers somehow and for updating the site to the latest versions of iOS or Windows or whatever. There have been MANY attempts at implementing a 'paid FB' or just a straight attempt to tackle FB outright (Ello comes to mind). None have thus far worked. Not saying you can't try, but talk to the other creators out there first to learn from their mistakes. Again, the issue is that servers cost money and you have to find the funding somehow. Ads are good at that. Subscription services aren't thus far, but Patreon may be changing things. Still, with NN out the window now, I'd chill and wait to see how the dust settles.
  - osrec 9y ago
    You're right, but I'm tempted to do it anyway! Who's with me? Anyone? Guess it's just me! Seriously though, I know monetisation is tricky, but there must be a better alternative to ads. I'm thinking something which can perhaps enrich the quality of a user's experience for a fee, rather than earning via ads while annoying the user.
    - chiefofgxbxl 9y ago
      In some ways I think Americans are cheap. I'm imagining a paid FB-like service in the range of $5-10/mo, considering ISP packages can easily run up to $80/mo, and a FB-like site should ideally only consume a portion of that. But I think you really need to re-think the core concept of a social platform. Can't find the comment on HN, but someone a few days ago mentioned: social platform vs. social technology. A social platform is likely to be closed; Facebook only wants you to communicate via Facebook, same with Twitter, G+, etc. If you decide to email your friends instead of using FB, they lose out. A social technology, however, doesn't care about other providers as much. Think about a telephone company. They obviously want you to use their service, but they don't care if you call someone who has a different carrier. Likewise, they won't listen in to the content of your calls to tailor their service to you, because them providing you phone data and the contents of your calls are completely orthogonal. Try thinking along the lines of a social technology, rather than a social platform. E.g. my friends want to put together a movie/pizza night so they go to Facebook to create a poll to decide on a movie and pizza toppings. Why can't that be part of an SMS standard? It seems to me like SMS has a lot of potential for future iterations. Right now you can send texts and images to one or more people. Why not bake in other features like polls, appointments, etc. It truly has frustrated me that my friends will use Facebook to organize something that could easily be done over SMS if it just had a few extra features.
      - osrec 9y ago
        Interesting points. I'm not sure if SMS is rich enough to support a full fledged social tech, but I kind the idea of keeping the technology open. I will definitely keep thinking about this!
        chiefofgxbxl 9y ago
        Right, SMS probably wouldn't be able to bear that full weight of a whole social tech, but I believe with just a few additional features added to its spec (or a fork), the effort-to-payoff ratio would be large, if your goal is to help ween people off of sites like Facebook. There's no reason why I shouldn't just be able to use my phone to invite a bunch of friends to some event, and have them indicate with a checkmark or red X whether they will be going or not. I have some other ideas that I was going to formally write up and thinking of submitting it to Mozilla. Feel free to email me (email in my profile) to discuss more if interested.

Nition 9y ago

https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora