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There's an inherent tension between people's desire for granular control and their resistance to exercising that control, ie I want robust lists, but I don't wa

There's an inherent tension between people's desire for granular control and their resistance to exercising that control, ie I want robust lists, but I don't want to have to manage them. I kind of feel like once list/group data is portable between services/networks, it won't be as big of a problem, since you'd only have to do it once, and management after that can be at the time of contact creation/connection. I also think using the physical place metaphors more explicitly could be interesting. Like you could make a "bar" place, where your bar friends gather. Functionally I suppose it would be identical to Facebook groups. What I'm really hoping for, though is that in the future once identity data is portable, the existing social networks will be more akin to places. Facebook will be the place for shallow, bland, regulated, cursory interaction. Twitter will be the place for shouting loud and pithy aphorisms in public. You could create private places for different purposes as the needs arise.

bjtitus 16y ago
I don't know that I agree that data portability is the problem. Nearly everyone (college aged kids) I know use Facebook exclusively for social networking. I don't think they care if their groups are portable. I think the root problem is encouraging people to make them. I think this is why Groups became shareable but a better UX or automatic algorithm for creating them would help tremendously. Some kind of incentive for creating groups would help as well. I think the group messaging features could do this (group text, especially).
- joebadmo 16y ago
  You're probably right, and I'm speaking mostly from my place of aversion to Facebook. But anecdotally I feel like there is a slow shift away from Facebook happening. Dave Winer talks about the cyclical nature of these things, and I think I agree that while we're in a closed part of the cycle right now, we're heading toward a more open one.

bjtitus 16y ago

I don't know that I agree that data portability is the problem. Nearly everyone (college aged kids) I know use Facebook exclusively for social networking. I don't think they care if their groups are portable. I think the root problem is encouraging people to make them. I think this is why Groups became shareable but a better UX or automatic algorithm for creating them would help tremendously. Some kind of incentive for creating groups would help as well. I think the group messaging features could do this (group text, especially).

joebadmo 16y ago
You're probably right, and I'm speaking mostly from my place of aversion to Facebook. But anecdotally I feel like there is a slow shift away from Facebook happening. Dave Winer talks about the cyclical nature of these things, and I think I agree that while we're in a closed part of the cycle right now, we're heading toward a more open one.