16 ms·

Hello: A new social network founded by Orkut's creator

234 points by TheAuditor 9y ago

deanclatworthy 9y ago
Whilst the founder has credibility in this space, I don't see what the problem is they are solving. There are many communities all across the internet, and also in centralised places like Facebook & reddit. Forums still remain hugely popular for niche community operators. The only way social is going to work and be improved going forward is through decentralisation and taking our data out of the hands of a central repository where it can be used to target us, and is more vulnerable to breaches. Once we have that baseline the other problems can be solved by the communities themselves.
- rubyfan 9y ago
  I don’t understand the decentralized part of your comment. There’s a reason Facebook and perhaps AOL before it was successful - it’s easy and everyone is there. I’m a huge privacy advocate but the decentralized Facebook alternatives are a little wonky for most to get their heads around. Jane Average user could care less about blockchain hosted personal data. In most cases Jane just wants Facebook and is a little worried about what’s happening to her data. Facebook maybe more than any other alternative is in the best position to solve the user problem here.
  - deanclatworthy 9y ago
    I agree. The whole issue with the first decentralised networks at the moment are their usability and accessibility to the average person. There’s a lot of work to be done on this. There are 1000s of people tackling the problem globally from the protocol level to the user interfaces. My point is these networks will and need to replace the centralised social model which is what this new network is.
  - gliboc 9y ago
    Decentralized is the only way to know for sure your data is not being treated server-side against your wishes. This will certainly be the future of the social internet. However, blockchain is absolutely not the only decentralization support, and might be the worst candidate to store data ever. If your comment about that was not a joke, then maybe you should actualize your knowledge on decentralized algorithms (for example, strong consensus as in the blockchain can be achieved using stellar consensus protocol, and many decentralized services work perfectly using peer to peer technology - not only file sharing). Also, I find your comment about "Jane Average" quite inappropriate. Anyone can understand it's bad to give too much power to companies whose interests are financial. Moreover, it's inacurate : the current scandal and outfire against Facebook mostly comes from "Jane Average" people, and not the technical community who's mostly saying "we already knew it".
    - bjpbakker 9y ago
      > blockchain is absolutely not the only decentralization support, and might be the worst candidate to store data ever Thank you! Was about to reply the same thing when I read that comment. > for example, strong consensus as in the blockchain can be achieved using stellar consensus protocol I don't really think a social network needs that much consensus. Not for personal data anyway. As you control your own data, there is no need for consensus with others :)
    - BeetleB 9y ago
      >Decentralized is the only way to know for sure your data is not being treated server-side against your wishes. This will certainly be the future of the social internet. As a society, we are not even close to being there. There isn't a single person I personally know who has decided to leave Facebook for this reason. >Moreover, it's inacurate : the current scandal and outfire against Facebook mostly comes from "Jane Average" people, and not the technical community who's mostly saying "we already knew it". Frankly, I see little evidence of this. It seems mostly coming from activists.
  - nailer 9y ago
    > Jane Average user could care less about blockchain hosted personal data. Agreed, but judging from the last few weeks, Jane Average apparently does care: - they have control over their data - can see the stuff they want - and can have good blocking tools Which all require decentralisation (in latter case because open APIs hurt monopolies). End users don't care about data structures in any system, centralised or not.
  - cobbzilla 9y ago
    Can Jane Average understand how email works? Because that's really all their is to understand about distributed social networks: you own your data, but if you send someone a message you should consider it public (could be shared/forwarded to anyone) unless you trust the recipient not to share it.
    - rock_hard 9y ago
      I am not really sure what you are talking about...a email account consists of either emails you received or emails you sent. So naturally for all your emails you have in your inbox the sender has them in their outbox...and every email you sent also exists as a copy in somebody else’s inbox. And you can’t control whether the other parties host their own email server or if they use a hosted service...in which case, guess what: now a third party also has a copy. Now to hosting your own email server...who is gonna stop your Datacenter from obtaining a copy of your emails? They call it backups ;) It’s easy to talk to your Barista about decentralization and blockchain as the solution to privacy...but actually making that a reality is not. And we haven’t even touched on spam...how you gonna fight that in a decentralized network? How about bots? I could go on but I hope you get the picture.
      - cobbzilla 9y ago
        spam filters work pretty well for email these days. are you suggesting that effective spam filtering mandates a centralized single-company controls-everything architecture for email? why social networks?
        rock_hard 9y ago
        Spam filters work well because they are centralized! It requires a lot of data to train the ML models...its not just a static blacklist
        cobbzilla 9y ago
        Nope, lots of effective anti-spam tools are open source and take advantage of crowd-sourced spam analysis. I remain unconvinced of the need for one company to control it.
  - 51Cards 9y ago
    I don't really see the decentralized argument. I believe it's meant to solve a noble intent but in reality for a network to be successful all the information has to be readily available. You can't have a social network that says "Hey, thanks for posting about your birthday... we'll ensure it filters out to all nodes within at least 21 days". So if all information has to be accessible and any node has access to all of it, or can aggregate it over time, then it's effectively centralized. Not to mention multiple nodes means anyone can tap into the information stream for whatever purpose. So I see a case where centralization is somewhat critical but with tighter controls over what that data can be used for. Facebook was a headlong charge into new territory in information management and now I think we need to step back and examine how we better manage that. That said I've spent about as much time thinking on it in depth as I have writing this post so I may be missing something quite obvious.
    - taylorswift_ 9y ago
      this. First, the thing that none of the decentralize advocates recognize is that outside of HN and the tech community, no one cares! When you mention the word "decentralized" to Joe Schmo of the world, you already lost him. He has no idea what you're talking about and doesn't care. Second, there is no way that a decentralized social network is going to have the quality and feature development that a centralized company will have. There is a reason people build great things in this world from buildings, to widgets, to software etc. It's called incentive. Capitalism drives innovation and it's a requirement to have the quality of product that is needed to draw eyeballs off existing platforms. Lastly, I don't buy the argument that centralized companies can't be responsible with data. Do we trust banks to hold our money? The future is not decentralized social networks.
- oblio 9y ago
  > Whilst the founder has credibility in this space, I don't see what the problem is they are solving. I imagine his problem is: he wants to make money :)
- downer61 9y ago
  The problem it solves is Google+ lol.
  - Cthulhu_ 9y ago
    troll. Orkut was a big thing before G+ came along; wouldn't be surprised if that one sucked up some of orkut's users, then lost interest and never returned to orkut, going to Facebook instead.
arthurcolle 9y ago
this seems better executed than the aesthetic disaster that is ello.co, so props to that
corobo 9y ago
With all of the news about Facebook hijacking content from mobile phones I do wish all of these new social networks would come with a website I can use, at least to test the waters
sschueller 9y ago
Still can't signup if not in the list of supported countries.
goshx 9y ago
The initial release was in 2016. The post on the home page is from 2017. They are all over the news today... good timing I guess.
- soneca 9y ago
  Yes! I was doing the math from that "13 years ago...". Anyway, it sounds like a very short time for something that was created, became a such relevant part of my life and all my friends, then disappeared. If asked from top of mind, I would say it was founded 20 years ago.
  - goshx 9y ago
    Founded in 2004, existed for 10 years. I believe this was the first mass adoption by Brazilians that was noticeable worldwide, right? I miss communities with names like “Eu abro a geladeira pra pensar” (from Brazilian Portuguese: I open the fridge to think). I haven’t seen any social media allow names and topics like that and present them in the same way that orkut did. Orkut was all about communities in a way that neither facebook or reddit are. They were part of your identity in the network. Those were nice years.
    - soneca 9y ago
      Wholeheartedly agree. Maybe it is just nostalgy, but there was something special in these communities that Facebook Groups and Subreddits just don't have it. I was part (in pt-BR): "I thought it was ice cream but it was beans" and "I like coke without gas". It is something about signaling your identity online that is less pretentious, it takes itself less seriously than what you see today on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. It also wasn't as vicious as the informal forums like 4Chan and some subreddits. These take themselves very seriously in conforming to the "let's not take ourselves too seriously" culture. It is hard to determine if it was the product or the current overall internet culture at the time that was responsible for this more healthy (IMO) environment. But having Orkut in my college years certainly made be a happier person.
- sgustard 9y ago
roadbeats 9y ago
I didn't know that Google shut down Orkut. Why did they shut down a network with such a large userbase? Was it focused on dating?
- goshx 9y ago
  iirc, lawsuits and people started to migrate to Facebook.
  - soneca 9y ago
    iirc, it was just a business decision to focus on Google+ and other efforts. A bad one in my opinion though.
- rodorgas 9y ago
  Google don’t care about shutting down products with large user base. Like Google Reader.
behringer 9y ago
Mobile only? No thanks.
- chillydawg 9y ago
  More tracking metrics for them to consume on mobile, I suppose.
- JRITSRob 9y ago
  Aye, had the same thought here. I'd've signed up to check it out. I don't own a mobile... Even if I did, I'd not download an app on spec. WebApp gives an opportunity to sell yourself with no additional buy-in. If they're looking to capitalise on FB's data revelations, asking to download binaries is the wrong way to go about it. You need a no-commitment approach here.
- davidy123 9y ago
  Ditto. It's still an open question how open and accessible to end users the Internet will be. Anything browser-based still has that potential. Well, except on iOS where the browser doesn't permit augmentation.
netrus 9y ago
This is very confusing. Your landing page is available in German, but the app is not available in Germany. Ratings in the Play Store are horrible, and support responds to bad reviews in the wrong language (English Review, Spanish response). The "download page" is 50% India and 50% all other countries. What is special about hello? After 2min on the website, I have no idea. And if I did not know orkut already, I would be soooo lost by the copy.
- batuhanicoz 9y ago
  It's the same with Turkish. There is a text in Turkish on orkut.com, but the app hello is not available in iOS App Store in Turkey.
- addicted 9y ago
  Probably because Orkut was hugely popular in 2 countries. India and Brazil. India probably dominates the downloads due to population differences.
hardasspunk 9y ago
If it allows me to remain anonymous and does not tracks me, spy me etc. I am down for it!
tomcooks 9y ago
> hello is the first social network built on loves, not likes. Ah, ok.
- truebosko 9y ago
  Game changer. Ugh, hate to be down on this product because I'm sure it had a lot of work into it but ... this just feels so disingenuous
Communitivity 9y ago
The founder has an amazing history, and the description of Hello is enticing but vague of what differentiates it. None of that matters for me though, because when I attempted to sign up from my laptop I got the message 'Sorry, we're mobile only'. I see no compelling reason to be mobile-only at full launch. Mobile-first for your MVP with early adopters, yes that makes a great deal of sense. But when a company does a full launch I think they should support as many of the major platforms as they can (Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS). Also, I am not convinced that we need yet another social media company (YASMC, "Yazz-em-see"?) that is centralized and will by necessity make money by monetizing attention. Cal Newport thinks social protocols are the answer, as he discusses in http://calnewport.com/blog/2018/03/20/on-social-media-and-its-discontents/ http://calnewport.com/blog/2018/03/20/on-social-media-and-it.... I agree. I worked on this as the OASIS XDI technical committee co-chair for a while, and am working on something new now.
- goshx 9y ago
  It was launched in 2016. I guess it didn’t get much traction at the time to justify further development.
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  Yeah, as someone who carries neither iOS or Android devices, app only social networks won't ever pick me up.
  - dorfsmay 9y ago
    It's worse... Once you've signed up through mobile, you can use it from any browser. Makes you wonder why it wants you to sign up on mobile... Wants your phone number? Wants access to you contacts?
    - radicalbyte 9y ago
      What else? I assume that the whole reddit thing is the same. Install our app so we can suck your phone dry of your personal data.
hbbio 9y ago
Just wondering: How did you (supposing Orkut reads this here) get the IP out of Google?
- raverbashing 9y ago
  I think you mean the Domain Name. Well, I think he just asked (and maybe bought for a fee)
  - puzzle 9y ago
    hello.com used to be owned by Google, too. It came with the Picasa acquisition. He probably just asked Larry for both. It's not as if he were a random employee. Somewhere on the Internet I saw that Google might own a stake (I'm a former Googler, but have no clue about any such arrangements).
appleflaxen 9y ago
Is this a Google product, then? It says he was a google engineer, but I get the impression he left. So this is independent, right?
bigato 9y ago
I tried Hello once it was launched, hopeful that it would be a viable alternative to facebook which would gain traction because of Orkut's name. I really tried to like it, but I gave up because it didn't have a way to find my real life friends back then. I don't know about now. But when I looked at it, it was all about connecting via shared interests, and apparently they didn't want me to search for people by name.
cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
I hate to say this, but it's either a terrible landing page or terrible product I'm seeing here. I totally admire the effort to bring back Orkut, but I don't see any value proposition that makes me want to try this out other than some philosophical words that anyone can say. In fact, I have never seen a product introduced in these philosophical ways succeed. The only signal I get from this is that the creator is naive (No offense, I'm sure the creator is insightful as he's the one who created one of the earliest social networks in the world, but just saying that's not what the copy on the website is signaling). If you believe in "love, not likes", I would like to see HOW you implemented it. Otherwise there are tons of social networks out there each with its own twist in "connecting with people with similar interests". Maybe there's more to the product than what the website says, and if that's the case, you should show that instead.
- johnchristopher 9y ago
  I wish the blog post had dates because from the comments I don't know if it's the hello thing from Google, a relaunch or and old blog post showcasing something that failed years ago.
- HenryBemis 9y ago
  The creator is not naive, but he/she/they are aiming to capture naive people.
- Yhippa 9y ago
  The first thing I thought was "that's cool, how do you plan on keeping the servers on?"
mmgutz 9y ago
What makes it different? Not much info and I'm not going to download an app to see.
willart4food 9y ago
So I got curious and download the app. Start setting it app and... lo and behold the app tells me that I already have an account. Fair enough I tend to try all new thing BUT . . . there's no way for me to log onto the account, the one and only option that appears in the app is to create a new account. LOL
bad_user 9y ago
App not available on the iTunes store in my country, Romania. I don't get why app developers feel the need to add restrictions like that. Don't they need early adopters? Also it's mobile only at this point. While I understand why, another app that's supposed to increase my mobile addiction won't change the world and is not going to win me over, sorry.
ggambetta 9y ago
The real question here is whether they removed the very inappropriate animated emoji.
m3kw9 9y ago
It’s Google, smelling blood
faitswulff 9y ago
I feel like Facebook Groups and Google Plus communities have proven that organizing people around their shared interests doesn't work very well.
- scandox 9y ago
  Except on Twitter it does work and very organically too.
beager 9y ago
I think we are beyond the point where services can lead with being a social network and succeed. Every service that supports multi-user interaction is a network, and every network that supports personal expression in its interactions is a social network. A service that is, as this is billed, just a social network, with no clear defining feature or problem it’s solving, is vapid and akin to the dotcom bubble. I’m finding that “social networks” should be a consequence of a product that solves a real problem, not that product’s raison d’etre. And furthermore, given the data collection/privacy zeitgeist of late, I’m of the belief that a social network developing within your service is a liability.
- igravious 9y ago
  Hear hear. While I agree with your main points I would object to your objection that someone can't launch a social network in and of itself. But I do think if you're going to launch a social network you're going to have to tell me how to differentiate your product from all the other products out there. From reading the comments here I think a new social network needs to say the following up front: - closed or open source? - centralised or decentralised? federated or not? - up-front fee, subscription service or paid for by advertising? - privacy policy, what is it? share with 3rd party? - is there an API? how granular is it? - what about sharing and following? - what specific niche are you aiming at or are you going for a general audience? - is your product aiming to be a platform? - how are you different from the incumbents? - mobile or web or native or some combination of the above? - in short, let me know your angle, and give me reasons to try you out Frankly, for me, the fact that you started another social network and let it die would discourage me from trying your new effort. And stuff like `stay beautiful' strikes me as saccharine and inauthentic though maybe I've become too cynical, clearly I'm not within the target audience.
- scrupulusalbion 9y ago
  >I’m finding that “social networks” should be a consequence of a product that solves a real problem, not that product’s raison d’etre. Facebook mainly solves one problem: How do I keep in communication with the many people I know IRL? This is a real problem for many people, especialy when you have friends/family all over the country/world. Any would-be strict competitor with Facebook will have to deal with a bootstrapping problem: How do you get enough people who know each other IRL to sign up and use the website? Relaxing any one aspect of that, I think, will make success much easier: * Enough people: You could have a niche focus (car forum) or a niche community (forum for one Eve Corp). * Know eath other IRL: You could have an anonymous forum (4chan) or a pseudonymous forum (Reddit). * Sign-up: Twitter, YouTube, and most forums don't require signups to view user-provided content. 4chan doesn't even require login to post.
GranPC 9y ago
Why is the privacy policy basically hidden away? https://hello.com/policy/privacy/ https://hello.com/policy/privacy/
- HenryBemis 9y ago
  And who doesn't wrap their text? Is this a joke? Do they really want to make it as unreadable as possible?
zouhair 9y ago
Does anyone remember the Pierre Omidyar's "manifesto" on how Ebay is all about what is good about human and that humans are mostly good by default? Can't seem to find it anywhere.
unicornporn 9y ago
> hello is the first social network built on loves, not likes. I'm sorry, but this sounds like a joke to me. Loves instead of likes? Is this the first thing you want to say about your born again social network. > I designed hello to help you connect with people who share your passions. Sound very much like the “Facebook has always been about helping people make connections” mantra. So, I guess it's Facebook with loves and mobile app only... Say what you want about Mastodon, but at least it's a real alternative.
- emblaegh 9y ago
  I thought the same, but the portuguese version of the text offer a different view: > hello is the first social network build on profound friendships instead of 'likes'. So maybe it is a social network whose focus is people you really know well instead of companies and random people? I dunno, it's still very vague.
  - unclebucknasty 9y ago
    >a social network whose focus is people you really know well instead of companies and random people Funny, that was FB's advantage over MySpace. But, I suppose FB found it too limiting to only monetize real relationships.
  - arcticfox 9y ago
    I checked and you're right. For launching an entire product, they're really dropping the ball in the first sentence. I read the English to imply that the network is based on your "loves" (passions, hobbies, goals) but the Portuguese makes it pretty obvious that's not right at all. I have a hard time interpreting the English in any way that matches the Portuguese version.
- cuchoi 9y ago
  The idea of the platform is to connect you based on interests. Do you love hiking? They will connect you with hikers.
- Cthulhu_ 9y ago
have_faith 9y ago
> The more interactions your contributions generate, the more likely you will become a persona leader. > Each milestones, unlock rewards, and add layers of fun to your social connections as you venture through hello. I thought we wanted to move away from gamified social interaction
arsalanb 9y ago
And continues to remain blocked here in the UAE.
TheAuditor 9y ago
One can't exactly understand the need for or the reason for this new product.
- Cthulhu_ 9y ago
  Because the alternatives are better? Because we need convergence? Because competition is bad? For what?
common_ 9y ago
Not sure why this has been posted here. The app is nearly abandoned and dead at this point. I know we all want alternatives to the status quo, but you're not going to find it among a bunch of copycat services that haven't solved any of the fundamental problems causing us so much trouble today.
sriram_iyengar 9y ago
Is this a real website or some click bait !
akskos 9y ago
Orkut is a finnish colloquial word for "orgasms".
- Cthulhu_ 9y ago
  and kut is Dutch for cunt.
- blunte 9y ago
  It's the guy's name. Give him a break. There are a lot of names which don't translate well in other languages. On the other hand, having your social network associated with orgasms might not be such a bad plan!
notheguyouthink 9y ago
It's strange, in all this anti-socialnetwork craze, I'm craving a social network. As it stands, I love the concept of a social network. I want a platform that facilitates at arms length socialization, because I'm rarely that in-person social with most of the people I know. A social network fills that need nicely. Yet, with that said, I don't want centralization or obvious control over the information flow and ultimately how we think/interact. I feel like a scuttlebutt[1]-like solution is the answer, but I think it needs a bit more features. Like editing, web usage from federated platforms, etc. [1]: https://www.scuttlebutt.nz https://www.scuttlebutt.nz
- pythonaut_16 9y ago
  I really like Scuttlebutt but there are still quite a few rough edges. I don't really like that pubs work by me following them and them following me. When I open Patchwork most of my feed for any given channel is filled with notifications of people subscribing to that channel rather than actual posts. But I do really like the adhoc, decentralized nature of it.
haloboy777 9y ago
Not available for India. Great. Leave out the most populous country in the world which has a long history with Orkut. I love this. (sarcasm)
- asparagui 9y ago
  > https://m.hello.com/en/download/index.html https://m.hello.com/en/download/index.html
- hsrada 9y ago
  > Not available for India. It is.
cfv 9y ago
So it's a mobile only, teen-centric social trinket that's also not available at all on my country according to the play store. Fuck that.
iamthepieman 9y ago
I know this doesn't matter as I'm a tiny minority but mobile only makes this inaccessible to me. I have no compelling reason to have a cell phone plan and this isn't going to be one either.
projectramo 9y ago
You know, no network is made for "hate" per se. The problem is that hate from the outside looks like love on the inside. You see this most clearly in conservative v liberal tribalism, but that example is so close to most people you may not see it. Even the most horrible "haters" feel they are protecting or preserving their secularism/race/religion/political opinion etc
mtgx 9y ago
I upvoted because I'd like to see more competition to FB so people don't feel as "trapped" to one network, but I see no reason why this would be much better than FB privacy-wise.
godelmachine 9y ago
I loved Orkut like anything. They had this "Recent visitors" feature which was super awesome! My second favourite feature was "Scrapbook" When Orkut was discontinued, I was too sad.
dbg31415 9y ago
Seems to be US-only?
- tfont 9y ago
  No. I put my complete +(country) and then the rest of my usual number and got a text. However, the text that I received was from a US number.
jshawl 9y ago
Bounced at gender binary selection as well as requiring a photo. Otherwise I enjoyed the progressive on boarding experience.
- SJWmocker 9y ago
  Male or female, decided for you at birth. Do not add drama or lies.
tinyhouse 9y ago
Orkut was much worse than FB regarding data privacy. I agree the author doesn't explain why Hello is different and tbh he talks about himself more than anything else.
batat 9y ago
This app can: - find accounts on the device - read your contacts Can I be social with someone chosen by my own, please?
thijser 9y ago
Weird, there seem to be two android apps for it, one old one with a quite low rating (3.3 / 5): https://www.appbrain.com/app/hello-com/com.hello.application https://www.appbrain.com/app/hello-com/com.hello.application and one launched 3 weeks ago: https://www.appbrain.com/app/hello-com/com.hello.network https://www.appbrain.com/app/hello-com/com.hello.network
zecg 9y ago
Neat idea, it used to be called friendfeed. Facebook bought it and shot it in the head.
TechExample 9y ago
First impressions: Bad UI, mobile-only, and seems to be that the feed is filled with Indians. I'm not racist but I don't want to see primarily Indian content.
_o_ 9y ago
I am not going to any non open source social network again. If self hosted even better. And no closed clients any more.
dahidahi1 9y ago
Orkut was so popular in some parts of the world like India that I always wondered why Google thought it better to shut it down. All those orkut users moved to Facebook & made Facebook a hugely popular platform. I hope the same does not happen with Hello.
- startupflix 9y ago
  I am still trying to figure out why Orkut was more popular in India.
  - barce 9y ago
    It was really popular in Brazil, too. It would be cool if they just open sourced it, or launched Orkut the 2005 edition with security patches today. I would use it if it was web only.
    - slig 9y ago
      The 2005 version is pretty trivial: each profile has friends, a scrapbook (known on FB as wall), and up to 12 pictures; Communities (forums) have topics and topics have posts. That's it. Any junior dev can build it on Rails/Django. The tricky part is scaling it. The original version as a .NET app and it couldn't handle the number of simultaneous users.
  - boobsbr 9y ago
    I think Orkut was the first available one in Brazil. It got popular because it was new and had no competition.
  - antoniogabriel 9y ago
    Brazilian here. I miss Orkut a lot, enjoyed much more than FB. I had the sense that Orkut lost a lot of users in Brazil right after "The Social Network" hit the brazilian movie theathers. Everyone jumped in the hype then.
  - donttrack 9y ago
    I remember trying it out, but it was so so slow. Thats pretty much the only thing I remember about it.
binaryorganic 9y ago
You’d think that an app that had the foresight to ask which pronouns their users preferred would not limit it to two options, or at the very least wouldn’t require an answer. Also strange that an app asking me for my real name isn’t being louder about their stance on privacy at signup (given the present climate). That said, it feels like mobile-only Reddit, but without the user base.
jarnix 9y ago
Honestly, I don't think I want to join any other free "social network" after what happened and still happens at Facebook. I would be okay to pay for a social network that respect my privacy and that would be limited in features like status, photos and groups.
- Slackwise 9y ago
  This is also a comically bad time to release yet another social network, as you've pointed out with the current atmosphere surrounding Facebook.
- s73v3r_ 9y ago
  I think many people would, depending on the price. But I think the other big thing is, "Will my friends be on it?"
4fath 9y ago
not available in Turkey. By the way founder is from Turkey as he said in motivation part.
cs702 9y ago
Nowadays, whenever I read about any new for-profit social network platform, no matter what their new twist is, my gut reaction is to feel as if they're asking: "Please give your data to us instead of Facebook, Google, or the other usual suspects."
jug 9y ago
The social network I'd like to try is this: * Funded by subscriptions. * Free from ads. * Since it is not ad dependent, yes, it can also provide a chronological timeline. * Two post types supported: Text and Photo. Because sometimes a photo does tell a thousand words. * Links to websites not supported in posts. Avoids viral proliferation of dumbed down politics, fake news, or stupid memes. If you want to get to the web or read the news, don't use a social network. They're here for you to be social. As in talk. Chat. Write things about your day. Ask others about their day. You get the picture. Being social. * Shares or "retweets" not supported. Also to disrupt viral spreading of stuff that is almost never about socializing, and nowadays instead disturbingly often about wanting to be virally spread as a goal in itself. * And finally... "Likes" not supported. You don't chat with friends at a café to get nods, right? You chat because you have something to say. If what you post is never commented on, yes, you can take it as a hint that you have little interesting to say. You can then choose to ignore that, or not. Comments, a will by others to interact, were always the true "like" anyway. If you write to be "liked", as many on Facebook do, you write for the wrong reasons, at least on a SOCIAL network. Since it is funded by subscriptions, it ought to lift the quality by this fact alone. Less shitposting. I guess one might say I want a social network. I have yet to see one that is just a social network.
- todd3834 9y ago
  Disabling links to websites in posts for the sake of preventing fake news is kind of sad. I get why but it feels like punishing the majority for the minority of bad actors. It’s also still possible to spread fake news without a link. Anyways, this is your ideal network and so please disregard my opinion on how it should work :)
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- NetOpWibby 9y ago
  Shameless plug: - https://socii.network https://socii.network - https://hub.socii.network https://hub.socii.network I’m working on a social network that does most of what you mentioned. I never thought about reposts being a quick and easy way of stopping the spread of viral misinformation, I like that idea.
kseistrup 9y ago
Google Play Store says “This item is not available in your country.” (Denmark) Hello's loss, not mine…
b3orn 9y ago
Previously on Hacker News in 2016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12231101 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12231101
sidkhanooja 9y ago
The service looks like a ripoff of Instagram (loves, not likes) and Reddit (communities). What problem is the site exactly trying to solve? I had to spend the better part of a month trying to hound my friends to use Signal. I am not going to waste time for a service that's not even worth the effort.
- rambossa 9y ago
  Exactly. Everyone thinks that the main competitor for building communities is Facebook.com. But fbook.com does not build communities, they digitize existing ones. So all these new apps come out with "better facebooks" not realizing (or accepting) that they already exist as Twitter, Reddit, and Instagram. These existing platforms are very good at true connection and community building. How does "Hello" fit into that?
- romuloab42 9y ago
  Regarding communities, this was one of the strongest features from Orkut. I remember having lots of fun hunting niches/bizares communities (and not so much fun when I found out some communities I was part of got sold/traded, and then got renamed to something completely different, mostly for advertising purposes).
Marc_Bryan 9y ago
Oh no! Not again! Seriously! We don't want another social network. It's time to go nuclear! Protect your data, history and everything. The time for the machines to take over is imminent! Your data is the key!
lucasnichele 9y ago
Please do not put something like a chat or messenger. I have 6 apps to communicate, each type of person has a different channel to speak.
roymckenzie 9y ago
The next social network I join will be decentralized with a heavy focus on design and usability. Gtfo
dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
> Oh no, it looks like you're trying to access the hello app from your desktop or laptop (we're mobile only) Good bye, Orkut! You didn't even give me a chance to convince me I should make the effort of installing yet another app on my phone.
- barce 9y ago
  When I read your comment, I immediately thought of someone using a web proxy to find security flaws.
majani 9y ago
Is there any successful social network that launched with a big splash? Big launches seem counter productive in social. You have a shitload of random people signing up, only to find that their friends are not yet on the network and they leave disappointed. Seems like grassroots marketing is the only way with social media
chaz6 9y ago
I never could figure out why Orkut did not see the success that Facebook did. Unfortunately this incarnation requires an Android or iOS app so it is a non-starter for me.
NelsonMinar 9y ago
Back in 2004 Orkut and Google were sued by Affinity Engines, alleging Orkut stole their source code to start the social network at Google. The lawsuit was settled in 2006 but the details of that settlement have never been made public. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/402902/did-google-steal-source-code/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/402902/did-google-steal-s...
zealsham 9y ago
I find it funny how the app makers and founder talks about spreading love and meeting people of similar interest but the app is made unavailable for most west African countries .
fataliss 9y ago
Just want to point out that in their ToS, they specify that while you have the option of deleting your User data, they are not responsible in any way for doing so and can't guarantee that you deleting the data will actually delete your data... That's a big no for me right there.
adrianwaj 9y ago
One of the problems I've seen with FB is invisible followers. A whole bunch of people, possibly very famous people could be following you and you'd never know it. (same with IG) There must be user-levels on FB, and FB might even be charging money to their most privileged users for various rights you couldn't imagine. Even getting a verified account could cost a lot of money, who knows? add: actually I just imagined what rights they have: IP theft, made legal. As soon as you upload something to FB and IG (a photo or text,) it belongs to FB, right? So say you upload a photo and some famous person likes it and copies it 99% of the way, but they have the permission to do that from FB then it's not theft, right? But there must be a guilty conscience otherwise why hide the famous person from doing the following in the first place? It's a leaching mentality. You've walked through the jungle and got some leaches stuck to you. Whose fault is that?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

234 points by TheAuditor 9y ago

Whilst the founder has credibility in this space, I don't see what the problem is they are solving. There are many communities all across the internet, and also in centralised places like Facebook & reddit. Forums still remain hugely popular for niche community operators. The only way social is going to work and be improved going forward is through decentralisation and taking our data out of the hands of a central repository where it can be used to target us, and is more vulnerable to breaches. Once we have that baseline the other problems can be solved by the communities themselves.

rubyfan 9y ago
I don’t understand the decentralized part of your comment. There’s a reason Facebook and perhaps AOL before it was successful - it’s easy and everyone is there. I’m a huge privacy advocate but the decentralized Facebook alternatives are a little wonky for most to get their heads around. Jane Average user could care less about blockchain hosted personal data. In most cases Jane just wants Facebook and is a little worried about what’s happening to her data. Facebook maybe more than any other alternative is in the best position to solve the user problem here.
- deanclatworthy 9y ago
  I agree. The whole issue with the first decentralised networks at the moment are their usability and accessibility to the average person. There’s a lot of work to be done on this. There are 1000s of people tackling the problem globally from the protocol level to the user interfaces. My point is these networks will and need to replace the centralised social model which is what this new network is.
- gliboc 9y ago
  Decentralized is the only way to know for sure your data is not being treated server-side against your wishes. This will certainly be the future of the social internet. However, blockchain is absolutely not the only decentralization support, and might be the worst candidate to store data ever. If your comment about that was not a joke, then maybe you should actualize your knowledge on decentralized algorithms (for example, strong consensus as in the blockchain can be achieved using stellar consensus protocol, and many decentralized services work perfectly using peer to peer technology - not only file sharing). Also, I find your comment about "Jane Average" quite inappropriate. Anyone can understand it's bad to give too much power to companies whose interests are financial. Moreover, it's inacurate : the current scandal and outfire against Facebook mostly comes from "Jane Average" people, and not the technical community who's mostly saying "we already knew it".
  - bjpbakker 9y ago
    > blockchain is absolutely not the only decentralization support, and might be the worst candidate to store data ever Thank you! Was about to reply the same thing when I read that comment. > for example, strong consensus as in the blockchain can be achieved using stellar consensus protocol I don't really think a social network needs that much consensus. Not for personal data anyway. As you control your own data, there is no need for consensus with others :)
  - BeetleB 9y ago
    >Decentralized is the only way to know for sure your data is not being treated server-side against your wishes. This will certainly be the future of the social internet. As a society, we are not even close to being there. There isn't a single person I personally know who has decided to leave Facebook for this reason. >Moreover, it's inacurate : the current scandal and outfire against Facebook mostly comes from "Jane Average" people, and not the technical community who's mostly saying "we already knew it". Frankly, I see little evidence of this. It seems mostly coming from activists.
- nailer 9y ago
  > Jane Average user could care less about blockchain hosted personal data. Agreed, but judging from the last few weeks, Jane Average apparently does care: - they have control over their data - can see the stuff they want - and can have good blocking tools Which all require decentralisation (in latter case because open APIs hurt monopolies). End users don't care about data structures in any system, centralised or not.
- cobbzilla 9y ago
  Can Jane Average understand how email works? Because that's really all their is to understand about distributed social networks: you own your data, but if you send someone a message you should consider it public (could be shared/forwarded to anyone) unless you trust the recipient not to share it.
  - rock_hard 9y ago
    I am not really sure what you are talking about...a email account consists of either emails you received or emails you sent. So naturally for all your emails you have in your inbox the sender has them in their outbox...and every email you sent also exists as a copy in somebody else’s inbox. And you can’t control whether the other parties host their own email server or if they use a hosted service...in which case, guess what: now a third party also has a copy. Now to hosting your own email server...who is gonna stop your Datacenter from obtaining a copy of your emails? They call it backups ;) It’s easy to talk to your Barista about decentralization and blockchain as the solution to privacy...but actually making that a reality is not. And we haven’t even touched on spam...how you gonna fight that in a decentralized network? How about bots? I could go on but I hope you get the picture.
    - cobbzilla 9y ago
      spam filters work pretty well for email these days. are you suggesting that effective spam filtering mandates a centralized single-company controls-everything architecture for email? why social networks?
      - rock_hard 9y ago
        Spam filters work well because they are centralized! It requires a lot of data to train the ML models...its not just a static blacklist
        cobbzilla 9y ago
        Nope, lots of effective anti-spam tools are open source and take advantage of crowd-sourced spam analysis. I remain unconvinced of the need for one company to control it.
- 51Cards 9y ago
  I don't really see the decentralized argument. I believe it's meant to solve a noble intent but in reality for a network to be successful all the information has to be readily available. You can't have a social network that says "Hey, thanks for posting about your birthday... we'll ensure it filters out to all nodes within at least 21 days". So if all information has to be accessible and any node has access to all of it, or can aggregate it over time, then it's effectively centralized. Not to mention multiple nodes means anyone can tap into the information stream for whatever purpose. So I see a case where centralization is somewhat critical but with tighter controls over what that data can be used for. Facebook was a headlong charge into new territory in information management and now I think we need to step back and examine how we better manage that. That said I've spent about as much time thinking on it in depth as I have writing this post so I may be missing something quite obvious.
  - taylorswift_ 9y ago
    this. First, the thing that none of the decentralize advocates recognize is that outside of HN and the tech community, no one cares! When you mention the word "decentralized" to Joe Schmo of the world, you already lost him. He has no idea what you're talking about and doesn't care. Second, there is no way that a decentralized social network is going to have the quality and feature development that a centralized company will have. There is a reason people build great things in this world from buildings, to widgets, to software etc. It's called incentive. Capitalism drives innovation and it's a requirement to have the quality of product that is needed to draw eyeballs off existing platforms. Lastly, I don't buy the argument that centralized companies can't be responsible with data. Do we trust banks to hold our money? The future is not decentralized social networks.
oblio 9y ago
> Whilst the founder has credibility in this space, I don't see what the problem is they are solving. I imagine his problem is: he wants to make money :)
downer61 9y ago
The problem it solves is Google+ lol.
- Cthulhu_ 9y ago
  troll. Orkut was a big thing before G+ came along; wouldn't be surprised if that one sucked up some of orkut's users, then lost interest and never returned to orkut, going to Facebook instead.

arthurcolle 9y ago

this seems better executed than the aesthetic disaster that is ello.co, so props to that

corobo 9y ago

With all of the news about Facebook hijacking content from mobile phones I do wish all of these new social networks would come with a website I can use, at least to test the waters

sschueller 9y ago

Still can't signup if not in the list of supported countries.

goshx 9y ago

The initial release was in 2016. The post on the home page is from 2017. They are all over the news today... good timing I guess.

soneca 9y ago
Yes! I was doing the math from that "13 years ago...". Anyway, it sounds like a very short time for something that was created, became a such relevant part of my life and all my friends, then disappeared. If asked from top of mind, I would say it was founded 20 years ago.
- goshx 9y ago
  Founded in 2004, existed for 10 years. I believe this was the first mass adoption by Brazilians that was noticeable worldwide, right? I miss communities with names like “Eu abro a geladeira pra pensar” (from Brazilian Portuguese: I open the fridge to think). I haven’t seen any social media allow names and topics like that and present them in the same way that orkut did. Orkut was all about communities in a way that neither facebook or reddit are. They were part of your identity in the network. Those were nice years.
  - soneca 9y ago
    Wholeheartedly agree. Maybe it is just nostalgy, but there was something special in these communities that Facebook Groups and Subreddits just don't have it. I was part (in pt-BR): "I thought it was ice cream but it was beans" and "I like coke without gas". It is something about signaling your identity online that is less pretentious, it takes itself less seriously than what you see today on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. It also wasn't as vicious as the informal forums like 4Chan and some subreddits. These take themselves very seriously in conforming to the "let's not take ourselves too seriously" culture. It is hard to determine if it was the product or the current overall internet culture at the time that was responsible for this more healthy (IMO) environment. But having Orkut in my college years certainly made be a happier person.
sgustard 9y ago

roadbeats 9y ago

I didn't know that Google shut down Orkut. Why did they shut down a network with such a large userbase? Was it focused on dating?

goshx 9y ago
iirc, lawsuits and people started to migrate to Facebook.
- soneca 9y ago
  iirc, it was just a business decision to focus on Google+ and other efforts. A bad one in my opinion though.
rodorgas 9y ago
Google don’t care about shutting down products with large user base. Like Google Reader.

behringer 9y ago

Mobile only? No thanks.

chillydawg 9y ago
More tracking metrics for them to consume on mobile, I suppose.
JRITSRob 9y ago
Aye, had the same thought here. I'd've signed up to check it out. I don't own a mobile... Even if I did, I'd not download an app on spec. WebApp gives an opportunity to sell yourself with no additional buy-in. If they're looking to capitalise on FB's data revelations, asking to download binaries is the wrong way to go about it. You need a no-commitment approach here.
davidy123 9y ago
Ditto. It's still an open question how open and accessible to end users the Internet will be. Anything browser-based still has that potential. Well, except on iOS where the browser doesn't permit augmentation.

netrus 9y ago

This is very confusing. Your landing page is available in German, but the app is not available in Germany. Ratings in the Play Store are horrible, and support responds to bad reviews in the wrong language (English Review, Spanish response). The "download page" is 50% India and 50% all other countries. What is special about hello? After 2min on the website, I have no idea. And if I did not know orkut already, I would be soooo lost by the copy.

batuhanicoz 9y ago
It's the same with Turkish. There is a text in Turkish on orkut.com, but the app hello is not available in iOS App Store in Turkey.
addicted 9y ago
Probably because Orkut was hugely popular in 2 countries. India and Brazil. India probably dominates the downloads due to population differences.

hardasspunk 9y ago

If it allows me to remain anonymous and does not tracks me, spy me etc. I am down for it!

tomcooks 9y ago

> hello is the first social network built on loves, not likes. Ah, ok.

truebosko 9y ago
Game changer. Ugh, hate to be down on this product because I'm sure it had a lot of work into it but ... this just feels so disingenuous

Communitivity 9y ago

The founder has an amazing history, and the description of Hello is enticing but vague of what differentiates it. None of that matters for me though, because when I attempted to sign up from my laptop I got the message 'Sorry, we're mobile only'. I see no compelling reason to be mobile-only at full launch. Mobile-first for your MVP with early adopters, yes that makes a great deal of sense. But when a company does a full launch I think they should support as many of the major platforms as they can (Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS). Also, I am not convinced that we need yet another social media company (YASMC, "Yazz-em-see"?) that is centralized and will by necessity make money by monetizing attention. Cal Newport thinks social protocols are the answer, as he discusses in http://calnewport.com/blog/2018/03/20/on-social-media-and-its-discontents/ http://calnewport.com/blog/2018/03/20/on-social-media-and-it.... I agree. I worked on this as the OASIS XDI technical committee co-chair for a while, and am working on something new now.

goshx 9y ago
It was launched in 2016. I guess it didn’t get much traction at the time to justify further development.
ocdtrekkie 9y ago
Yeah, as someone who carries neither iOS or Android devices, app only social networks won't ever pick me up.
- dorfsmay 9y ago
  It's worse... Once you've signed up through mobile, you can use it from any browser. Makes you wonder why it wants you to sign up on mobile... Wants your phone number? Wants access to you contacts?
  - radicalbyte 9y ago
    What else? I assume that the whole reddit thing is the same. Install our app so we can suck your phone dry of your personal data.

hbbio 9y ago

Just wondering: How did you (supposing Orkut reads this here) get the IP out of Google?

raverbashing 9y ago
I think you mean the Domain Name. Well, I think he just asked (and maybe bought for a fee)
- puzzle 9y ago
  hello.com used to be owned by Google, too. It came with the Picasa acquisition. He probably just asked Larry for both. It's not as if he were a random employee. Somewhere on the Internet I saw that Google might own a stake (I'm a former Googler, but have no clue about any such arrangements).

appleflaxen 9y ago

Is this a Google product, then? It says he was a google engineer, but I get the impression he left. So this is independent, right?

bigato 9y ago

I tried Hello once it was launched, hopeful that it would be a viable alternative to facebook which would gain traction because of Orkut's name. I really tried to like it, but I gave up because it didn't have a way to find my real life friends back then. I don't know about now. But when I looked at it, it was all about connecting via shared interests, and apparently they didn't want me to search for people by name.

cocktailpeanuts 9y ago

I hate to say this, but it's either a terrible landing page or terrible product I'm seeing here. I totally admire the effort to bring back Orkut, but I don't see any value proposition that makes me want to try this out other than some philosophical words that anyone can say. In fact, I have never seen a product introduced in these philosophical ways succeed. The only signal I get from this is that the creator is naive (No offense, I'm sure the creator is insightful as he's the one who created one of the earliest social networks in the world, but just saying that's not what the copy on the website is signaling). If you believe in "love, not likes", I would like to see HOW you implemented it. Otherwise there are tons of social networks out there each with its own twist in "connecting with people with similar interests". Maybe there's more to the product than what the website says, and if that's the case, you should show that instead.

johnchristopher 9y ago
I wish the blog post had dates because from the comments I don't know if it's the hello thing from Google, a relaunch or and old blog post showcasing something that failed years ago.
HenryBemis 9y ago
The creator is not naive, but he/she/they are aiming to capture naive people.
Yhippa 9y ago
The first thing I thought was "that's cool, how do you plan on keeping the servers on?"

mmgutz 9y ago

What makes it different? Not much info and I'm not going to download an app to see.

willart4food 9y ago

So I got curious and download the app. Start setting it app and... lo and behold the app tells me that I already have an account. Fair enough I tend to try all new thing BUT . . . there's no way for me to log onto the account, the one and only option that appears in the app is to create a new account. LOL

bad_user 9y ago

App not available on the iTunes store in my country, Romania. I don't get why app developers feel the need to add restrictions like that. Don't they need early adopters? Also it's mobile only at this point. While I understand why, another app that's supposed to increase my mobile addiction won't change the world and is not going to win me over, sorry.

ggambetta 9y ago

The real question here is whether they removed the very inappropriate animated emoji.

m3kw9 9y ago

It’s Google, smelling blood

faitswulff 9y ago

I feel like Facebook Groups and Google Plus communities have proven that organizing people around their shared interests doesn't work very well.

scandox 9y ago
Except on Twitter it does work and very organically too.

beager 9y ago

I think we are beyond the point where services can lead with being a social network and succeed. Every service that supports multi-user interaction is a network, and every network that supports personal expression in its interactions is a social network. A service that is, as this is billed, just a social network, with no clear defining feature or problem it’s solving, is vapid and akin to the dotcom bubble. I’m finding that “social networks” should be a consequence of a product that solves a real problem, not that product’s raison d’etre. And furthermore, given the data collection/privacy zeitgeist of late, I’m of the belief that a social network developing within your service is a liability.

igravious 9y ago
Hear hear. While I agree with your main points I would object to your objection that someone can't launch a social network in and of itself. But I do think if you're going to launch a social network you're going to have to tell me how to differentiate your product from all the other products out there. From reading the comments here I think a new social network needs to say the following up front: - closed or open source? - centralised or decentralised? federated or not? - up-front fee, subscription service or paid for by advertising? - privacy policy, what is it? share with 3rd party? - is there an API? how granular is it? - what about sharing and following? - what specific niche are you aiming at or are you going for a general audience? - is your product aiming to be a platform? - how are you different from the incumbents? - mobile or web or native or some combination of the above? - in short, let me know your angle, and give me reasons to try you out Frankly, for me, the fact that you started another social network and let it die would discourage me from trying your new effort. And stuff like `stay beautiful' strikes me as saccharine and inauthentic though maybe I've become too cynical, clearly I'm not within the target audience.
scrupulusalbion 9y ago
>I’m finding that “social networks” should be a consequence of a product that solves a real problem, not that product’s raison d’etre. Facebook mainly solves one problem: How do I keep in communication with the many people I know IRL? This is a real problem for many people, especialy when you have friends/family all over the country/world. Any would-be strict competitor with Facebook will have to deal with a bootstrapping problem: How do you get enough people who know each other IRL to sign up and use the website? Relaxing any one aspect of that, I think, will make success much easier: * Enough people: You could have a niche focus (car forum) or a niche community (forum for one Eve Corp). * Know eath other IRL: You could have an anonymous forum (4chan) or a pseudonymous forum (Reddit). * Sign-up: Twitter, YouTube, and most forums don't require signups to view user-provided content. 4chan doesn't even require login to post.

GranPC 9y ago

Why is the privacy policy basically hidden away? https://hello.com/policy/privacy/ https://hello.com/policy/privacy/

HenryBemis 9y ago
And who doesn't wrap their text? Is this a joke? Do they really want to make it as unreadable as possible?

zouhair 9y ago

Does anyone remember the Pierre Omidyar's "manifesto" on how Ebay is all about what is good about human and that humans are mostly good by default? Can't seem to find it anywhere.

unicornporn 9y ago

> hello is the first social network built on loves, not likes. I'm sorry, but this sounds like a joke to me. Loves instead of likes? Is this the first thing you want to say about your born again social network. > I designed hello to help you connect with people who share your passions. Sound very much like the “Facebook has always been about helping people make connections” mantra. So, I guess it's Facebook with loves and mobile app only... Say what you want about Mastodon, but at least it's a real alternative.

emblaegh 9y ago
I thought the same, but the portuguese version of the text offer a different view: > hello is the first social network build on profound friendships instead of 'likes'. So maybe it is a social network whose focus is people you really know well instead of companies and random people? I dunno, it's still very vague.
- unclebucknasty 9y ago
  >a social network whose focus is people you really know well instead of companies and random people Funny, that was FB's advantage over MySpace. But, I suppose FB found it too limiting to only monetize real relationships.
- arcticfox 9y ago
  I checked and you're right. For launching an entire product, they're really dropping the ball in the first sentence. I read the English to imply that the network is based on your "loves" (passions, hobbies, goals) but the Portuguese makes it pretty obvious that's not right at all. I have a hard time interpreting the English in any way that matches the Portuguese version.
cuchoi 9y ago
The idea of the platform is to connect you based on interests. Do you love hiking? They will connect you with hikers.
Cthulhu_ 9y ago

have_faith 9y ago

> The more interactions your contributions generate, the more likely you will become a persona leader. > Each milestones, unlock rewards, and add layers of fun to your social connections as you venture through hello. I thought we wanted to move away from gamified social interaction

arsalanb 9y ago

And continues to remain blocked here in the UAE.

TheAuditor 9y ago

One can't exactly understand the need for or the reason for this new product.

Cthulhu_ 9y ago
Because the alternatives are better? Because we need convergence? Because competition is bad? For what?

common_ 9y ago

Not sure why this has been posted here. The app is nearly abandoned and dead at this point. I know we all want alternatives to the status quo, but you're not going to find it among a bunch of copycat services that haven't solved any of the fundamental problems causing us so much trouble today.

sriram_iyengar 9y ago

Is this a real website or some click bait !

akskos 9y ago

Orkut is a finnish colloquial word for "orgasms".

Cthulhu_ 9y ago
and kut is Dutch for cunt.
blunte 9y ago
It's the guy's name. Give him a break. There are a lot of names which don't translate well in other languages. On the other hand, having your social network associated with orgasms might not be such a bad plan!

notheguyouthink 9y ago

It's strange, in all this anti-socialnetwork craze, I'm craving a social network. As it stands, I love the concept of a social network. I want a platform that facilitates at arms length socialization, because I'm rarely that in-person social with most of the people I know. A social network fills that need nicely. Yet, with that said, I don't want centralization or obvious control over the information flow and ultimately how we think/interact. I feel like a scuttlebutt[1]-like solution is the answer, but I think it needs a bit more features. Like editing, web usage from federated platforms, etc. [1]: https://www.scuttlebutt.nz https://www.scuttlebutt.nz

pythonaut_16 9y ago
I really like Scuttlebutt but there are still quite a few rough edges. I don't really like that pubs work by me following them and them following me. When I open Patchwork most of my feed for any given channel is filled with notifications of people subscribing to that channel rather than actual posts. But I do really like the adhoc, decentralized nature of it.

haloboy777 9y ago

Not available for India. Great. Leave out the most populous country in the world which has a long history with Orkut. I love this. (sarcasm)

asparagui 9y ago
> https://m.hello.com/en/download/index.html https://m.hello.com/en/download/index.html
hsrada 9y ago
> Not available for India. It is.

cfv 9y ago

So it's a mobile only, teen-centric social trinket that's also not available at all on my country according to the play store. Fuck that.

iamthepieman 9y ago

I know this doesn't matter as I'm a tiny minority but mobile only makes this inaccessible to me. I have no compelling reason to have a cell phone plan and this isn't going to be one either.

projectramo 9y ago

You know, no network is made for "hate" per se. The problem is that hate from the outside looks like love on the inside. You see this most clearly in conservative v liberal tribalism, but that example is so close to most people you may not see it. Even the most horrible "haters" feel they are protecting or preserving their secularism/race/religion/political opinion etc

mtgx 9y ago

I upvoted because I'd like to see more competition to FB so people don't feel as "trapped" to one network, but I see no reason why this would be much better than FB privacy-wise.

godelmachine 9y ago

I loved Orkut like anything. They had this "Recent visitors" feature which was super awesome! My second favourite feature was "Scrapbook" When Orkut was discontinued, I was too sad.

dbg31415 9y ago

Seems to be US-only?

tfont 9y ago
No. I put my complete +(country) and then the rest of my usual number and got a text. However, the text that I received was from a US number.

jshawl 9y ago

Bounced at gender binary selection as well as requiring a photo. Otherwise I enjoyed the progressive on boarding experience.

SJWmocker 9y ago
Male or female, decided for you at birth. Do not add drama or lies.

tinyhouse 9y ago

Orkut was much worse than FB regarding data privacy. I agree the author doesn't explain why Hello is different and tbh he talks about himself more than anything else.

batat 9y ago

This app can: - find accounts on the device - read your contacts Can I be social with someone chosen by my own, please?

thijser 9y ago

Weird, there seem to be two android apps for it, one old one with a quite low rating (3.3 / 5): https://www.appbrain.com/app/hello-com/com.hello.application https://www.appbrain.com/app/hello-com/com.hello.application and one launched 3 weeks ago: https://www.appbrain.com/app/hello-com/com.hello.network https://www.appbrain.com/app/hello-com/com.hello.network

zecg 9y ago

Neat idea, it used to be called friendfeed. Facebook bought it and shot it in the head.

TechExample 9y ago

First impressions: Bad UI, mobile-only, and seems to be that the feed is filled with Indians. I'm not racist but I don't want to see primarily Indian content.

_o_ 9y ago

I am not going to any non open source social network again. If self hosted even better. And no closed clients any more.

dahidahi1 9y ago

Orkut was so popular in some parts of the world like India that I always wondered why Google thought it better to shut it down. All those orkut users moved to Facebook & made Facebook a hugely popular platform. I hope the same does not happen with Hello.

startupflix 9y ago
I am still trying to figure out why Orkut was more popular in India.
- barce 9y ago
  It was really popular in Brazil, too. It would be cool if they just open sourced it, or launched Orkut the 2005 edition with security patches today. I would use it if it was web only.
  - slig 9y ago
    The 2005 version is pretty trivial: each profile has friends, a scrapbook (known on FB as wall), and up to 12 pictures; Communities (forums) have topics and topics have posts. That's it. Any junior dev can build it on Rails/Django. The tricky part is scaling it. The original version as a .NET app and it couldn't handle the number of simultaneous users.
- boobsbr 9y ago
  I think Orkut was the first available one in Brazil. It got popular because it was new and had no competition.
- antoniogabriel 9y ago
  Brazilian here. I miss Orkut a lot, enjoyed much more than FB. I had the sense that Orkut lost a lot of users in Brazil right after "The Social Network" hit the brazilian movie theathers. Everyone jumped in the hype then.
- donttrack 9y ago
  I remember trying it out, but it was so so slow. Thats pretty much the only thing I remember about it.

binaryorganic 9y ago

You’d think that an app that had the foresight to ask which pronouns their users preferred would not limit it to two options, or at the very least wouldn’t require an answer. Also strange that an app asking me for my real name isn’t being louder about their stance on privacy at signup (given the present climate). That said, it feels like mobile-only Reddit, but without the user base.

jarnix 9y ago

Honestly, I don't think I want to join any other free "social network" after what happened and still happens at Facebook. I would be okay to pay for a social network that respect my privacy and that would be limited in features like status, photos and groups.

Slackwise 9y ago
This is also a comically bad time to release yet another social network, as you've pointed out with the current atmosphere surrounding Facebook.
s73v3r_ 9y ago
I think many people would, depending on the price. But I think the other big thing is, "Will my friends be on it?"

4fath 9y ago

not available in Turkey. By the way founder is from Turkey as he said in motivation part.

cs702 9y ago

Nowadays, whenever I read about any new for-profit social network platform, no matter what their new twist is, my gut reaction is to feel as if they're asking: "Please give your data to us instead of Facebook, Google, or the other usual suspects."

jug 9y ago

The social network I'd like to try is this: * Funded by subscriptions. * Free from ads. * Since it is not ad dependent, yes, it can also provide a chronological timeline. * Two post types supported: Text and Photo. Because sometimes a photo does tell a thousand words. * Links to websites not supported in posts. Avoids viral proliferation of dumbed down politics, fake news, or stupid memes. If you want to get to the web or read the news, don't use a social network. They're here for you to be social. As in talk. Chat. Write things about your day. Ask others about their day. You get the picture. Being social. * Shares or "retweets" not supported. Also to disrupt viral spreading of stuff that is almost never about socializing, and nowadays instead disturbingly often about wanting to be virally spread as a goal in itself. * And finally... "Likes" not supported. You don't chat with friends at a café to get nods, right? You chat because you have something to say. If what you post is never commented on, yes, you can take it as a hint that you have little interesting to say. You can then choose to ignore that, or not. Comments, a will by others to interact, were always the true "like" anyway. If you write to be "liked", as many on Facebook do, you write for the wrong reasons, at least on a SOCIAL network. Since it is funded by subscriptions, it ought to lift the quality by this fact alone. Less shitposting. I guess one might say I want a social network. I have yet to see one that is just a social network.

todd3834 9y ago
Disabling links to websites in posts for the sake of preventing fake news is kind of sad. I get why but it feels like punishing the majority for the minority of bad actors. It’s also still possible to spread fake news without a link. Anyways, this is your ideal network and so please disregard my opinion on how it should work :)
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NetOpWibby 9y ago
Shameless plug: - https://socii.network https://socii.network - https://hub.socii.network https://hub.socii.network I’m working on a social network that does most of what you mentioned. I never thought about reposts being a quick and easy way of stopping the spread of viral misinformation, I like that idea.

kseistrup 9y ago

Google Play Store says “This item is not available in your country.” (Denmark) Hello's loss, not mine…

b3orn 9y ago

Previously on Hacker News in 2016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12231101 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12231101

sidkhanooja 9y ago

The service looks like a ripoff of Instagram (loves, not likes) and Reddit (communities). What problem is the site exactly trying to solve? I had to spend the better part of a month trying to hound my friends to use Signal. I am not going to waste time for a service that's not even worth the effort.

rambossa 9y ago
Exactly. Everyone thinks that the main competitor for building communities is Facebook.com. But fbook.com does not build communities, they digitize existing ones. So all these new apps come out with "better facebooks" not realizing (or accepting) that they already exist as Twitter, Reddit, and Instagram. These existing platforms are very good at true connection and community building. How does "Hello" fit into that?
romuloab42 9y ago
Regarding communities, this was one of the strongest features from Orkut. I remember having lots of fun hunting niches/bizares communities (and not so much fun when I found out some communities I was part of got sold/traded, and then got renamed to something completely different, mostly for advertising purposes).

Marc_Bryan 9y ago

Oh no! Not again! Seriously! We don't want another social network. It's time to go nuclear! Protect your data, history and everything. The time for the machines to take over is imminent! Your data is the key!

lucasnichele 9y ago

Please do not put something like a chat or messenger. I have 6 apps to communicate, each type of person has a different channel to speak.

roymckenzie 9y ago

The next social network I join will be decentralized with a heavy focus on design and usability. Gtfo

dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago

> Oh no, it looks like you're trying to access the hello app from your desktop or laptop (we're mobile only) Good bye, Orkut! You didn't even give me a chance to convince me I should make the effort of installing yet another app on my phone.

barce 9y ago
When I read your comment, I immediately thought of someone using a web proxy to find security flaws.

majani 9y ago

Is there any successful social network that launched with a big splash? Big launches seem counter productive in social. You have a shitload of random people signing up, only to find that their friends are not yet on the network and they leave disappointed. Seems like grassroots marketing is the only way with social media

chaz6 9y ago

I never could figure out why Orkut did not see the success that Facebook did. Unfortunately this incarnation requires an Android or iOS app so it is a non-starter for me.

NelsonMinar 9y ago

Back in 2004 Orkut and Google were sued by Affinity Engines, alleging Orkut stole their source code to start the social network at Google. The lawsuit was settled in 2006 but the details of that settlement have never been made public. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/402902/did-google-steal-source-code/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/402902/did-google-steal-s...

zealsham 9y ago

I find it funny how the app makers and founder talks about spreading love and meeting people of similar interest but the app is made unavailable for most west African countries .

fataliss 9y ago

Just want to point out that in their ToS, they specify that while you have the option of deleting your User data, they are not responsible in any way for doing so and can't guarantee that you deleting the data will actually delete your data... That's a big no for me right there.

adrianwaj 9y ago

One of the problems I've seen with FB is invisible followers. A whole bunch of people, possibly very famous people could be following you and you'd never know it. (same with IG) There must be user-levels on FB, and FB might even be charging money to their most privileged users for various rights you couldn't imagine. Even getting a verified account could cost a lot of money, who knows? add: actually I just imagined what rights they have: IP theft, made legal. As soon as you upload something to FB and IG (a photo or text,) it belongs to FB, right? So say you upload a photo and some famous person likes it and copies it 99% of the way, but they have the permission to do that from FB then it's not theft, right? But there must be a guilty conscience otherwise why hide the famous person from doing the following in the first place? It's a leaching mentality. You've walked through the jungle and got some leaches stuck to you. Whose fault is that?

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