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I think it's been mentioned before that standardization of social networking protocols might work, to the point that they become part of the Internet itself, li
by wolfrom 16y ago
I think it's been mentioned before that standardization of social networking protocols might work, to the point that they become part of the Internet itself, like e-mail. I think it is only a matter of time (2-3 years) before the majority of Internet users will simply use distributed systems where their social data will be spread over several services (proprietary or open source), and the sharing of that data will follow a standard protocol (maybe a future blend of ActivityStea.ms, Salmon, and others).
Facebook will survive, most likely, but I think its influence will slowly wane to the point where they will be just another "media company" like AOL and Yahoo.
- wccrawford 16y agoHas there been any standardization of those protocols yet? I know Diaspora was working on an entire site, but I don't recall them using any standards... Or even making them.
- wolfrom 16y agoThere are a few different standards, but I don't think it's achieved the level of a W3C style consortium. Google's been working on initiatives, and even Facebook is involved. Appleseed and Cliqset are two products which I believe already implement several protocols, while Diaspora is meant to do the same from what I've read.
- cmelbye 16y agoThey've been having discussions with various standards groups which I forget the names of at the moment.
- what 16y agoThere are some draft specs on the activitystrea.ms site. FB seems to implement them in Open Graph. http://activitystrea.ms/spec/1.0/ http://activitystrea.ms/spec/1.0/ http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/ http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/ http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/Using_Activity_Streams http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/Using_Activity...
- mortenjorck 16y agoBest case: Facebook becomes the AOL of social networking Worst case: Facebook becomes the MS Exchange of social networking
- noblethrasher 16y agoBest case for whom? AOL is a walled garden (which is what FB is now). At least with an Exchange-like scheme I'd have some modicum of control (see Diaspora).
- Raphael 16y agoAOL fell by the wayside.
- glhaynes 16y agoHow would that look from an end-user standpoint? If I'm a person who doesn't know a thing about protocols or technology and uses Facebook a lot, what causes me to start to migrate over to the distributed services? Particularly because one of the great strengths of Facebook is exactly that it's not distributed: all the people you know, in one place. So it seems like to replace one of the core functionalities provided, there has to be some centralized component. And then it's hard for me to see what benefit decentralization is providing for either the user or the service. An alternative social architecture seems appealing in some ways but I just can't see the [realistic, might actually happen with a significant chunk of the Facebook crowd] vision of how we'd ever get there from here.
- wolfrom 16y agoI think of that component as a very good area for a startup, which is why I'm part of such a team. I don't think it's unrealistic for one person to use Twitter, Flickr and YouTube for their social networking, while another person uses Facebook and LinkedIn; both should eventually be able to share with each other through a service that specializes in bringing everyone together.
- glhaynes 16y agoDoes your model include a central feed?
- wolfrom 16y agoIt does, depending on your definition. Aggregation of activity streams is a part of it.
- glhaynes 16y agoDoes the user have to set that up? Or does it just happen automatically? That to me seems one of the main advantages of centralization of this sort of thing: users just automatically get publicly posted photos, posts, invitations, etc. from anybody they've friended and vice-versa.