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Do we really need one more Social Network?

• michaelchisari 16y ago
  Yes, because a distributed protocol means that it will effectively be the last social network.
  • metamemetics 16y ago
    that's pretty delusional. Users don't care about protocols, they care about interface usability. And the ONLY thing that makes a social network valuable is its users. There will always be more room for more niche social networks with well defined UX constraints if developers continue the facebook trend of bloat sites with ambiguous constraints.
    • michaelchisari 16y ago
      It's really quite simple. Once an open protocol is established and popularized, then social networks are just software that connect into the distributed network. Think of it in terms of SMTP and e-mail. Mail providers come and go, but nobody has to move email providers because all their friends changed emails.
      • metamemetics 16y ago
        > Once an open protocol is established and popularized "popularized" is the most important and hardest part, you can't risk using it in an assumption. The problem domain you are working in is the exemplar of the chicken-and-egg user growth difficulties. Also if it really was just a protocol: the only thing being developed would be QuickSocial, it would not be called a social network because a protocol is not the place creating the social experience, it would be marketed to developers and bloggers as an improved and easy to add replacement for OpenID, 50% of the work would be on rigorously defining QuickSocial specification, the other 50% on developing plugins for all platforms and languages.
        • michaelchisari 16y ago
          it would be marketed to developers and bloggers as an improved and easy to add replacement for OpenID, 50% of the work would be on rigorously defining QuickSocial specification, the other 50% on developing plugins for all platforms and languages. That's part of the plan. QuickSocial is being developed as an abstracted PHP class library that's quite easy to implement.
          • joe_the_user 16y ago
            Maybe I'm being patronize and you know all this all but I'll just note that a protocol is about one level of abstraction above a class library. I'm biased because I'm working with c++ but I'd suggest the protocol be developed like most protocols - in a language neutral fashion. This involves writing it in a fashion akin to an abstract language. Normally, such a protocol spec simply say what byte means what and where each byte goes. Then the protocol can be implemented in any language. For example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Http http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Http Also, I'd suggest only creating a new protocol for things that really can't be done existing protocols (such as Internet mail). You always layer your application on top of an existing protocol if it serves your purposes.
            • michaelchisari 16y ago
              Nothing about the protocol is PHP-specific, but the initial implementation is written in PHP.
  • ashitvora 16y ago
    I don't agree with this. There are many other problems to be solved. World doesn't need yet another Social Network.