5 ms·

All of us who have engineering talent should think about what we can do to make it easier for people to set up their own presence on an international online net

All of us who have engineering talent should think about what we can do to make it easier for people to set up their own presence on an international online network such as the Internet. If that means rethinking some of the essentials of IP, TCP, DNS, HTTP or HTML then we should do it, if it makes it easier for people to get away from the walled gardens. I've had my own domains since 1999. I used to think it was easy to set up a blog. When I was young I thought it was really fun to write basic HTML. I've been online for many years. But I've come to realize that a lot of things that I found easy are a bit too much for most people. In particular, paying something like $35 a year for a domain name, and maybe $5 a month for online hosting, is way, way, way beyond the commitment most people want to make. So I wonder if there are ways this can be made simpler or cheaper? I enjoy online conversation. And comments people post to my blog. I very much enjoy having full control over my own blog: http://www.smashcompany.com/ http://www.smashcompany.com/ I'd like everyone to have the experience that I have. But we need to find a way to make it much easier, otherwise the walled gardens will still be the default even 25 years from now.

tammer 8y ago
I think this is valid and needed but I often wonder if we over-focus on the open web as the alternative over the other biggest widespread open technology in the world: email. I go to a lot of art & music performances. Lately, and particularly for the last few events I’ve attended, the performer emphasized joining their (MailChimp-managed) mailing list, because they didn’t want to seem uncool by promoting Facebook. I don’t know exactly what it looks like, but I strongly suspect the social graph that disrupts Facebook gets built on email, somehow. Something like MailChimp, but without the direct marketing/conventional newsletter expectation baggage and a focus on message consumers as well as producers. The advantages of “push” style communication, flexibility in styling messages, and potential for advertising all seem to me like a revolution waiting to happen. The openness of email, combined with the fact that everyone has one (even millennials!) are icing.
- jslabovitz 8y ago
  I just hosted a small house concert last night for about 20 people; the age range was 18-50, I reckon. I put out a sheet of paper with spaces for names & contact info, for folks who wanted to be notified for future shows, and intentionally left the contact method open -- I figured if they wanted a group text, or a FB msg, I could do that. I was surprised to find that every person who signed up wrote their email address. So you may just might be right. Granted, this is a rural area (West Virginia, US) and there's far less incessant use of smartphones and the like. So my experience might not apply to more urban places.
  - lowercased 8y ago
    I have no idea how I'd give you my 'facebook address' - you'd look me up, but it might be private, or you might find the other one of me with my same name, or... I dunno. Problems. If you send them an email with your FB page in it, a certain % will follow then, because it's a way to get some more passive updates when they want. EDIT: 30 years ago, everyone would have given you a street mailing address, even though some possibly had faxes or may have wanted a phone call or to be paged when you had updates.
  - thaumasiotes 8y ago
    It seems pretty likely that the first person who signed up wrote their email address, and everyone else saw it and assumed that space was for email addresses.
- miles_matthias 8y ago
  Well what this looks like is Google Groups, or a startup like groups.io. I maintain an email networking group over at CTOLunches.com, and email is the only channel I allow. Several people have asked about Slack, but email is the tried & true async medium that won't be going away ever. For a social network, I see it being a cross between a Google Group and a newsletter. * List my profile somewhere with a sign up box to "subscribe to updates and conversation from Miles and his network." * Every 3-6 weeks, I receive an email from the platform asking me what's been up with me, and I simply reply, which then gets sent to people who subscribed from updates from me. * Calendar integration -- when I add an event to my calendar, I have the option of including it in my next update to my email network to let them know I'm doing it. (ex: I'm speaking next month at some conference) * Community participation -- if anyone who subscribes to my email updates/network wants to email my network (ex: do you know anyone who...), I get an email saying my subscriber Bob wants to ask my network a connection, would you like to include it in your next email update to your network? If I respond yes, then it is also listed in my next email update to my network. Something like that would be awesome.
kanox 8y ago
Is the problem here really about closed platforms? I don't think problems such as "spending too much time on validation" would be fixed if the author published photos on a personal blog instead of facebook/instagram. For example: > I tended to post carefully constructed photos on Instagram about once a week, which seemed like a reasonable cadence, with a focus on my relationship, career and travels (I'd alternate them to give off the impression that I'm a balanced person). Like most users, I'd pay close attention to the number of likes and views I received I'd say the problem is that public exposure is by itself stressful, no matter the platform.
- cgriswald 8y ago
  Public exposure is stressful but itself; but surely the platform can make choices that increase or decrease that stress. For instance, most platforms provide a public popularity score. I imagine some people at least would spend less time fretting about the number of likes they get if they were the only ones who got to see it.
  - kanox 8y ago
    But people would still be judging you. All the time. Even when you're sleeping.
alexashka 8y ago
Has it occurred to you that walled gardens are not a problem, but a solution, for most people? If the garden fulfills your needs, the walls are not a problem. You're not unlike the folks who propose society stinks and we're going to organize and have our own group with rules that don't wall us in. Those groups have never lasted long and fall apart due to people being people. It's not the rules, it's people being people, that make things good, or sucky. Changing people is a fool's errand - start with yourself to realize the futility of the task if so inclined :)
kris-s 8y ago
I had a similar feeling so I built filigree.app. Im planning on shutting it down soon, but it might be reborn more focused on small blogs. You can try it out if youd like with this invite code kris-ffdd9e150679
imron 8y ago
> paying something like $35 a year for a domain name Why are you paying $35 for domain names? Your site is a .com so it shouldn't be more than $10/year.
- fencepost 8y ago
  This may include the cost of inexpensive hosting.
  - thaumasiotes 8y ago
    Probably not, given that hosting was itemized separately. >> In particular, paying something like $35 a year for a domain name, and maybe $5 a month for online hosting, is way, way, way beyond the commitment most people want to make.
- daxorid 8y ago
  As a customer of Network Solutions, I can answer this: without persistent legal threats and follow-through, it's impossible to transfer a domain out to a cheaper provider. The transfer form doesn't work. Emailing doesn't work. Calling doesn't work. Ultimately, it's just not worth it to bother.
hylianwarrior 8y ago
IIRC this is pretty much the mission of glitch.com - democratizing web presence and giving the power to create back to regular people.
0x54D5 8y ago
I also maintain my own blog. A $10 a month VM on Digital Ocean buys me a server. I have managed to solve the chat problem as well. I have A Synapse Matrix.org server for chat. It's perfect end to end encryption. It's a pain to get people to actually use it but once they do it's actually really reliable and has never failed me once since I've started running it. I use it with my SO and I know that what we say to each other can never ever be spied on by a third party including the pictures and videos we send to each other over the server. The clients on Android, iOS, OS X, and Windows are all actually very good. I use them all. On top of this I run a blog where I wrote the source code myself from the ground up. Framework and all. No normal person is gonna do that. What we actually need is an application using a subscription based protocol. We can't have one company have defacto control over pictures, texts, discussions. I didn't quit Facebook and Instagram because I wanted to stop sharing. I got tired of being spied on. I got tired of the ads. I got tired of random people trying to sell me something. I would much rather people hosted their own photo feed which could be a literal exact clone of the Instagram photos. Host just that and let me subscribe to a standard feed. It should cost literally pennies a year to host your content. People subscribe to your "feed" by "friending" you. When you see this friend request you set what they can see right there. And you'd be able to run a feed for a group, personal, business, whatever. It would let you publish pictures, events, and discussions. No one can ban you from the platform because it will be ubiquitous like email. You can even put in public/private keys and make it super secure. This is what we need. How do you host it? How do you make it easy to use? These are the problems we should tackle. I was thinking a blockchain would be a convenient "free" host. It's just slower than I'd like but for posting events or photos I'd be willing to wait a few minutes.
agumonkey 8y ago
is internet presence even important ? old school boards were peak IMO

tammer 8y ago

I think this is valid and needed but I often wonder if we over-focus on the open web as the alternative over the other biggest widespread open technology in the world: email. I go to a lot of art & music performances. Lately, and particularly for the last few events I’ve attended, the performer emphasized joining their (MailChimp-managed) mailing list, because they didn’t want to seem uncool by promoting Facebook. I don’t know exactly what it looks like, but I strongly suspect the social graph that disrupts Facebook gets built on email, somehow. Something like MailChimp, but without the direct marketing/conventional newsletter expectation baggage and a focus on message consumers as well as producers. The advantages of “push” style communication, flexibility in styling messages, and potential for advertising all seem to me like a revolution waiting to happen. The openness of email, combined with the fact that everyone has one (even millennials!) are icing.

jslabovitz 8y ago
I just hosted a small house concert last night for about 20 people; the age range was 18-50, I reckon. I put out a sheet of paper with spaces for names & contact info, for folks who wanted to be notified for future shows, and intentionally left the contact method open -- I figured if they wanted a group text, or a FB msg, I could do that. I was surprised to find that every person who signed up wrote their email address. So you may just might be right. Granted, this is a rural area (West Virginia, US) and there's far less incessant use of smartphones and the like. So my experience might not apply to more urban places.
- lowercased 8y ago
  I have no idea how I'd give you my 'facebook address' - you'd look me up, but it might be private, or you might find the other one of me with my same name, or... I dunno. Problems. If you send them an email with your FB page in it, a certain % will follow then, because it's a way to get some more passive updates when they want. EDIT: 30 years ago, everyone would have given you a street mailing address, even though some possibly had faxes or may have wanted a phone call or to be paged when you had updates.
- thaumasiotes 8y ago
  It seems pretty likely that the first person who signed up wrote their email address, and everyone else saw it and assumed that space was for email addresses.
miles_matthias 8y ago
Well what this looks like is Google Groups, or a startup like groups.io. I maintain an email networking group over at CTOLunches.com, and email is the only channel I allow. Several people have asked about Slack, but email is the tried & true async medium that won't be going away ever. For a social network, I see it being a cross between a Google Group and a newsletter. * List my profile somewhere with a sign up box to "subscribe to updates and conversation from Miles and his network." * Every 3-6 weeks, I receive an email from the platform asking me what's been up with me, and I simply reply, which then gets sent to people who subscribed from updates from me. * Calendar integration -- when I add an event to my calendar, I have the option of including it in my next update to my email network to let them know I'm doing it. (ex: I'm speaking next month at some conference) * Community participation -- if anyone who subscribes to my email updates/network wants to email my network (ex: do you know anyone who...), I get an email saying my subscriber Bob wants to ask my network a connection, would you like to include it in your next email update to your network? If I respond yes, then it is also listed in my next email update to my network. Something like that would be awesome.

kanox 8y ago

Is the problem here really about closed platforms? I don't think problems such as "spending too much time on validation" would be fixed if the author published photos on a personal blog instead of facebook/instagram. For example: > I tended to post carefully constructed photos on Instagram about once a week, which seemed like a reasonable cadence, with a focus on my relationship, career and travels (I'd alternate them to give off the impression that I'm a balanced person). Like most users, I'd pay close attention to the number of likes and views I received I'd say the problem is that public exposure is by itself stressful, no matter the platform.

cgriswald 8y ago
Public exposure is stressful but itself; but surely the platform can make choices that increase or decrease that stress. For instance, most platforms provide a public popularity score. I imagine some people at least would spend less time fretting about the number of likes they get if they were the only ones who got to see it.
- kanox 8y ago
  But people would still be judging you. All the time. Even when you're sleeping.

alexashka 8y ago

Has it occurred to you that walled gardens are not a problem, but a solution, for most people? If the garden fulfills your needs, the walls are not a problem. You're not unlike the folks who propose society stinks and we're going to organize and have our own group with rules that don't wall us in. Those groups have never lasted long and fall apart due to people being people. It's not the rules, it's people being people, that make things good, or sucky. Changing people is a fool's errand - start with yourself to realize the futility of the task if so inclined :)

kris-s 8y ago

I had a similar feeling so I built filigree.app. Im planning on shutting it down soon, but it might be reborn more focused on small blogs. You can try it out if youd like with this invite code kris-ffdd9e150679

imron 8y ago

> paying something like $35 a year for a domain name Why are you paying $35 for domain names? Your site is a .com so it shouldn't be more than $10/year.

fencepost 8y ago
This may include the cost of inexpensive hosting.
- thaumasiotes 8y ago
  Probably not, given that hosting was itemized separately. >> In particular, paying something like $35 a year for a domain name, and maybe $5 a month for online hosting, is way, way, way beyond the commitment most people want to make.
daxorid 8y ago
As a customer of Network Solutions, I can answer this: without persistent legal threats and follow-through, it's impossible to transfer a domain out to a cheaper provider. The transfer form doesn't work. Emailing doesn't work. Calling doesn't work. Ultimately, it's just not worth it to bother.

hylianwarrior 8y ago

IIRC this is pretty much the mission of glitch.com - democratizing web presence and giving the power to create back to regular people.

0x54D5 8y ago

I also maintain my own blog. A $10 a month VM on Digital Ocean buys me a server. I have managed to solve the chat problem as well. I have A Synapse Matrix.org server for chat. It's perfect end to end encryption. It's a pain to get people to actually use it but once they do it's actually really reliable and has never failed me once since I've started running it. I use it with my SO and I know that what we say to each other can never ever be spied on by a third party including the pictures and videos we send to each other over the server. The clients on Android, iOS, OS X, and Windows are all actually very good. I use them all. On top of this I run a blog where I wrote the source code myself from the ground up. Framework and all. No normal person is gonna do that. What we actually need is an application using a subscription based protocol. We can't have one company have defacto control over pictures, texts, discussions. I didn't quit Facebook and Instagram because I wanted to stop sharing. I got tired of being spied on. I got tired of the ads. I got tired of random people trying to sell me something. I would much rather people hosted their own photo feed which could be a literal exact clone of the Instagram photos. Host just that and let me subscribe to a standard feed. It should cost literally pennies a year to host your content. People subscribe to your "feed" by "friending" you. When you see this friend request you set what they can see right there. And you'd be able to run a feed for a group, personal, business, whatever. It would let you publish pictures, events, and discussions. No one can ban you from the platform because it will be ubiquitous like email. You can even put in public/private keys and make it super secure. This is what we need. How do you host it? How do you make it easy to use? These are the problems we should tackle. I was thinking a blockchain would be a convenient "free" host. It's just slower than I'd like but for posting events or photos I'd be willing to wait a few minutes.

agumonkey 8y ago

is internet presence even important ? old school boards were peak IMO