8 ms·

A Year After Diaspora Another “Facebook Alternative” Emerges

38 points by tilt 15y ago

vnorby 15y ago
I worked with Dmitry while he was at Myspace, he definitely is very passionate about competing with Facebook -- he was many times at odds with Myspace leadership on the issue of whether to compete with them or carve our own niche and embrace their platform (you can see who won that debate). I'm glad he's finally fulfilling his vision.
leftnode 15y ago
I'm building an alternative to Facebook called Kwolla. You can install it on your own machine or use our API. I'm bootstrapping the entire thing. You can download my 1.x version of software for free or pay for a 2.0 pre-sale. I wish I could get coverage like this. :)
- ColinWright 15y ago
  And yet you don't have a link to it in your profile, or link to it from your comment. This doesn't inspire confidence.
  - leftnode 15y ago
    Need to update my profile, didn't want to totally take over the thread with my warez.
    - puredemo 15y ago
      Your warez? What is this network, some sort of pirated software from 1997?
      - leftnode 15y ago
        warez is pronounced "wares" and means your product or merchandise - http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/wares http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/wares But no, I assure you I wrote every line of it :)
        decode 15y ago
        You misspelled your word in the link. Using a z instead of s indicates the software is cracked or pirated. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/warez http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/warez
- kno 15y ago
  You want coverage you've got to secure money, TC will write and or badmouth about you if you get backing from serious folks.
troymc 15y ago
In the USA, Facebook does indeed have the largest number of active users. Outside the USA, there are serious competitors to Facebook, with larger user numbers than Facebook. Examples: Vkontakte.ru in Russia and Renren in China. Therefore it's possible, because it has been done already.
- fastfinner 15y ago
  I think Facebook is highly used 1) in countries with the latin alphabet and 2) by people who have friends/contacts in countries with latin alphabets. That's the market Alty seems to be after and that's a lot more difficult to conquer than making a facebook alternative for China or Russia.
windsurfer 15y ago
I love how the comments are powered by Facebook.
zephjc 15y ago
I hope they pick a new name before launch. Not just because 1) it is a cliché -ly suffixed name, but because 2) "Alt" doesn't tell the user what it does and 3) automatically puts its existence in opposition to something (facebook in this case) instead of being bold and claiming it is/will be the de facto social networking site.
- wmf 15y ago
  The founder's blog post says the name will be changed. I agree that it's unwise to define yourself relative to a competitor.
dpcan 15y ago
Altly? I hope that's not the final name. For those who's native language is not English, this would be a REALLY hard name to say. P.S. The Altly.com home page has a Facebook Like Us button. Eh?
SwellJoe 15y ago
This seems to be nothing like Diaspora. Diaspora sought to free users from a single entity owning and controlling their personal data. Altly seems to seek to simply be another single entity with control of your personal data. I don't see how that's a good thing for users. I also doubt it'll be much of a threat to facebook...if your only argument is that Coke has a Pepsi and Chevy has a Ford, you've got a pretty weak grasp of how markets work. New colas pretty much never succeed; Pepsi and Coke were strong regional brands that went national, and there has pretty much never been a credible threat to that market from a new company. New car manufacturers are practically impossible to build in the US (Tesla is the only new car manufacturer of note in decades, and it remains to be seen how well it will fare; Saturn doesn't count, as it's just a subsidiary of GM; AMC went under after a long struggle). Markets, in general, don't care if there's competition. Markets just insure that when a dominant player shows weaknesses, someone steps into the gap. That's happened with facebook; there are many social apps that tackle small bits of the problem (like Twitter). In order to succeed, a direct competitor to facebook needs to find a chink in facebooks armor and exploit it...not just assume that everyone will flock to an "alternative to facebook" because it is an "alternative to facebook".
- esoteriq 15y ago
  Agreed 100% and I would just add this one point. Social networks are a winner-take-all game. You're either dominant or nothing. Nobody wants to use a social network with only 400 other people on it. That would defeat the whole purpose. Of course, there are specific niches such as Twitter, but Twitter dominates its niche. In a way, social communication and network sites are anti-competitive.
  - dman 15y ago
    I think its rather early days to reach this conclusion. A social network is just a network of people. In the real world small networks of like minded people have often had a disproportionately large amount of utility. The one thing for large social networks right now is that they provide a global namespace of people which helps discoverability. But perhaps in the coming years we shall see social networks emerge for vertical talents where likeminded people can work productively (Mendeley etc come to mind). You could arguably make the point that within each of these verticals a single player will dominate.
ziadbc 15y ago
Facebook is an alternative social network to email. Real competition to Facebook won't be 'the Pepsi to Facebook's coke.' Instead, it will probably be something totally different that makes Facebook irrelevant, or at least different enough that comparisons to Facebook are not relevant.
privachi123 15y ago
While we are at fb alternatives, here is one more that attempts at protecting user privacy: Privachi. Privachi is a privacy-centric social network which attempts at putting users back in control of their social data with a combination of scattering user's data online so no one service provider knows everything about the user, and "locking" user data in such a way that only the user and her friends can "unlock" the data. Even Privachi will not be able to "unlock" the data.
- yid 15y ago
  Not sure why you were downvoted. Your site is a little light on the details of your encryption scheme, would you care to elaborate?
  - privachi123 15y ago
    Sure. Public/private keys for all users. Private key encrypted with a user's pin that is not known to us, and encrypted private key stored on servers. All of this happens at the user's browser. We don't don't have access to your private keys, so, can't decrypt posts on the server.
    - beza1e1 15y ago
      Doesn't that lead to a lot of overhead? If i have a hundred friends and i broadcast a message, then the message must be encrypted a hundred times with each friend's public key.
      - privachi123 15y ago
        Yes, you are right there is overhead involved. In our tests, however, the delays didn't end up being too high for users with up to 125 friends (even on mobile devices). Delays will be worse beyond that, but will have ways around it if it comes down to it. Will be a good problem to have :)
    - michaelchisari 15y ago
      Until a user provides their pin, and you decrypt their private key. Then you have the private key, although you may choose not to remember it. This doesn't solve the privacy issues such as with Facebook and other centralized servers, where you distrust the host as much as hackers or other users. EDIT: You may want to read this: http://wiki.appleseedproject.org/doku.php?id=future:encryption:client-side_encryption http://wiki.appleseedproject.org/doku.php?id=future:encrypti...
ansy 15y ago
What about frid.ge? It seems to solve all the problems Altly has with Facebook. And the execution seems fine aside from leaning heavily on the refrigerator theme. http://frid.ge http://frid.ge
jarin 15y ago
Might as well reserve your username in case this takes off. Hilarious that the first thing you get after reserving your username is a Facebook like button.
uast23 15y ago
The world does not seem to be getting over the "Facebook alternative" syndrome soon. Or in other words I should say that Facebook is being seriously underestimated. While it's absolutely right to try and build a better social network; calling it a Facebook alternative is wrong. It's like calling Greplin and DuckDuckGo an alternative to Google. Facebook has done way more than any other social network till date. Don't we know about the Warner Bros. deal and didn't we read the article about spotify+facebook on HN yesterday!! And what an amazing achievement it has called as Facebook comments. No one has been able to find a spot in as many major blogs and websites as Facebook comments has (and Disqus). Not to deride anyone's effort, but it takes time to build a Facebook, and replacing it ain't easy. I believe Internet is big enough to accommodate more than one Facebook and its types. EDIT: A little story. I live in India and it's known to everyone that most of the marriages here are still arranged. One of my friends was getting arranged recently and her mother wanted to see the picture of groom; and out of nowhere she said "why don't we check it on Facebook". I am pretty sure she has never used Internet before and probably never going to use it, but she knows what purpose Facebook can solve. I say that is a huge impact for any website.
roelbondoc 15y ago
Anyone can build a Facebook alternative. There is no magic list of ingredients that you'll be able to throw into a Facebook alternative that will compete with Facebook. Just becuase you are focusing on what Facebook does not do well won't give you something to be competitive with. From a high level perspective, IMO, Facebook had very similar features as Friendster, MySpace and a whole other slew of social networks. You can't just build something for the sake of competition. It has to be grown organically. People won't flock to your social network because it's better. People are like sheep, and they need to be herded like so.
puredemo 15y ago
That has to be the dumbest name I've ever heard. Is this even supposed to be serious?
webjprgm 15y ago
I wouldn't use an alternative simply because all my "friends" are on Facebook. I don't want to run two social network accounts. What you need in order to allow "competition" is to have some form of interoperability. E.g. Twitter API allows lots of companies to write Twitter apps. (Of course, now Twitter is trying to take control of all that.) E.g. how in Apple's iChat you can use AOL Instant Messanger, Jabber, etc. and talk to users of iChat or those other services. (I use Adium to put all my IMing in one place, and that includes Facebook connectivity.) So, if Altly can scrape Facebook so that by being an Altly user I can have both Altly and Facebook friends in one interface, then I might consider using it. (Still has to have a better interface and execution.)
michaelchisari 15y ago
It doesn't seem to be open source, so I'm not sure about the point of the comparison.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
ChuckFrank 15y ago
After reading about Altly this morning, I thought carefully about Mr. Shaprio's argument for a competing social / network site. And while I am inclined to give Mr. Shapiro the benefit of my doubts, believing that he likely has several cards secretly tucked up his sleeves, the argument that every great brand needs an alternative brand has never really been a great way to grow a product or service. In fact I often use the Coke/Pepsi argument as exactly the opposite argument. Relying only on brand differentiation as Pepsi has tried, will always result in massive marketing / advertising costs, and little product or service differentiation. Instead of being a Pepsi to Coke, I believe that new products or services need to create a new consumer opportunity instead of simply a new package. So instead of thinking about Coke v. Pepsi, Mr. Shapiro would do well to aspire to be either Red Bull, or Snapple, or Odwalla, or any number of successful market changing adventures. Either way, even persistent incremental improvements over a competitor is better than simply ceding the space. Here's wishing him good luck.

38 points by tilt 15y ago

I worked with Dmitry while he was at Myspace, he definitely is very passionate about competing with Facebook -- he was many times at odds with Myspace leadership on the issue of whether to compete with them or carve our own niche and embrace their platform (you can see who won that debate). I'm glad he's finally fulfilling his vision.

leftnode 15y ago

I'm building an alternative to Facebook called Kwolla. You can install it on your own machine or use our API. I'm bootstrapping the entire thing. You can download my 1.x version of software for free or pay for a 2.0 pre-sale. I wish I could get coverage like this. :)

ColinWright 15y ago
And yet you don't have a link to it in your profile, or link to it from your comment. This doesn't inspire confidence.
- leftnode 15y ago
  Need to update my profile, didn't want to totally take over the thread with my warez.
  - puredemo 15y ago
    Your warez? What is this network, some sort of pirated software from 1997?
    - leftnode 15y ago
      warez is pronounced "wares" and means your product or merchandise - http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/wares http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/wares But no, I assure you I wrote every line of it :)
      - decode 15y ago
        You misspelled your word in the link. Using a z instead of s indicates the software is cracked or pirated. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/warez http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/warez
kno 15y ago
You want coverage you've got to secure money, TC will write and or badmouth about you if you get backing from serious folks.

troymc 15y ago

In the USA, Facebook does indeed have the largest number of active users. Outside the USA, there are serious competitors to Facebook, with larger user numbers than Facebook. Examples: Vkontakte.ru in Russia and Renren in China. Therefore it's possible, because it has been done already.

fastfinner 15y ago
I think Facebook is highly used 1) in countries with the latin alphabet and 2) by people who have friends/contacts in countries with latin alphabets. That's the market Alty seems to be after and that's a lot more difficult to conquer than making a facebook alternative for China or Russia.

windsurfer 15y ago

I love how the comments are powered by Facebook.

zephjc 15y ago

I hope they pick a new name before launch. Not just because 1) it is a cliché -ly suffixed name, but because 2) "Alt" doesn't tell the user what it does and 3) automatically puts its existence in opposition to something (facebook in this case) instead of being bold and claiming it is/will be the de facto social networking site.

wmf 15y ago
The founder's blog post says the name will be changed. I agree that it's unwise to define yourself relative to a competitor.

dpcan 15y ago

Altly? I hope that's not the final name. For those who's native language is not English, this would be a REALLY hard name to say. P.S. The Altly.com home page has a Facebook Like Us button. Eh?

SwellJoe 15y ago

This seems to be nothing like Diaspora. Diaspora sought to free users from a single entity owning and controlling their personal data. Altly seems to seek to simply be another single entity with control of your personal data. I don't see how that's a good thing for users. I also doubt it'll be much of a threat to facebook...if your only argument is that Coke has a Pepsi and Chevy has a Ford, you've got a pretty weak grasp of how markets work. New colas pretty much never succeed; Pepsi and Coke were strong regional brands that went national, and there has pretty much never been a credible threat to that market from a new company. New car manufacturers are practically impossible to build in the US (Tesla is the only new car manufacturer of note in decades, and it remains to be seen how well it will fare; Saturn doesn't count, as it's just a subsidiary of GM; AMC went under after a long struggle). Markets, in general, don't care if there's competition. Markets just insure that when a dominant player shows weaknesses, someone steps into the gap. That's happened with facebook; there are many social apps that tackle small bits of the problem (like Twitter). In order to succeed, a direct competitor to facebook needs to find a chink in facebooks armor and exploit it...not just assume that everyone will flock to an "alternative to facebook" because it is an "alternative to facebook".

esoteriq 15y ago
Agreed 100% and I would just add this one point. Social networks are a winner-take-all game. You're either dominant or nothing. Nobody wants to use a social network with only 400 other people on it. That would defeat the whole purpose. Of course, there are specific niches such as Twitter, but Twitter dominates its niche. In a way, social communication and network sites are anti-competitive.
- dman 15y ago
  I think its rather early days to reach this conclusion. A social network is just a network of people. In the real world small networks of like minded people have often had a disproportionately large amount of utility. The one thing for large social networks right now is that they provide a global namespace of people which helps discoverability. But perhaps in the coming years we shall see social networks emerge for vertical talents where likeminded people can work productively (Mendeley etc come to mind). You could arguably make the point that within each of these verticals a single player will dominate.

ziadbc 15y ago

Facebook is an alternative social network to email. Real competition to Facebook won't be 'the Pepsi to Facebook's coke.' Instead, it will probably be something totally different that makes Facebook irrelevant, or at least different enough that comparisons to Facebook are not relevant.

privachi123 15y ago

While we are at fb alternatives, here is one more that attempts at protecting user privacy: Privachi. Privachi is a privacy-centric social network which attempts at putting users back in control of their social data with a combination of scattering user's data online so no one service provider knows everything about the user, and "locking" user data in such a way that only the user and her friends can "unlock" the data. Even Privachi will not be able to "unlock" the data.

yid 15y ago
Not sure why you were downvoted. Your site is a little light on the details of your encryption scheme, would you care to elaborate?
- privachi123 15y ago
  Sure. Public/private keys for all users. Private key encrypted with a user's pin that is not known to us, and encrypted private key stored on servers. All of this happens at the user's browser. We don't don't have access to your private keys, so, can't decrypt posts on the server.
  - beza1e1 15y ago
    Doesn't that lead to a lot of overhead? If i have a hundred friends and i broadcast a message, then the message must be encrypted a hundred times with each friend's public key.
    - privachi123 15y ago
      Yes, you are right there is overhead involved. In our tests, however, the delays didn't end up being too high for users with up to 125 friends (even on mobile devices). Delays will be worse beyond that, but will have ways around it if it comes down to it. Will be a good problem to have :)
  - michaelchisari 15y ago
    Until a user provides their pin, and you decrypt their private key. Then you have the private key, although you may choose not to remember it. This doesn't solve the privacy issues such as with Facebook and other centralized servers, where you distrust the host as much as hackers or other users. EDIT: You may want to read this: http://wiki.appleseedproject.org/doku.php?id=future:encryption:client-side_encryption http://wiki.appleseedproject.org/doku.php?id=future:encrypti...

ansy 15y ago

What about frid.ge? It seems to solve all the problems Altly has with Facebook. And the execution seems fine aside from leaning heavily on the refrigerator theme. http://frid.ge http://frid.ge

jarin 15y ago

Might as well reserve your username in case this takes off. Hilarious that the first thing you get after reserving your username is a Facebook like button.

uast23 15y ago

The world does not seem to be getting over the "Facebook alternative" syndrome soon. Or in other words I should say that Facebook is being seriously underestimated. While it's absolutely right to try and build a better social network; calling it a Facebook alternative is wrong. It's like calling Greplin and DuckDuckGo an alternative to Google. Facebook has done way more than any other social network till date. Don't we know about the Warner Bros. deal and didn't we read the article about spotify+facebook on HN yesterday!! And what an amazing achievement it has called as Facebook comments. No one has been able to find a spot in as many major blogs and websites as Facebook comments has (and Disqus). Not to deride anyone's effort, but it takes time to build a Facebook, and replacing it ain't easy. I believe Internet is big enough to accommodate more than one Facebook and its types. EDIT: A little story. I live in India and it's known to everyone that most of the marriages here are still arranged. One of my friends was getting arranged recently and her mother wanted to see the picture of groom; and out of nowhere she said "why don't we check it on Facebook". I am pretty sure she has never used Internet before and probably never going to use it, but she knows what purpose Facebook can solve. I say that is a huge impact for any website.

roelbondoc 15y ago

Anyone can build a Facebook alternative. There is no magic list of ingredients that you'll be able to throw into a Facebook alternative that will compete with Facebook. Just becuase you are focusing on what Facebook does not do well won't give you something to be competitive with. From a high level perspective, IMO, Facebook had very similar features as Friendster, MySpace and a whole other slew of social networks. You can't just build something for the sake of competition. It has to be grown organically. People won't flock to your social network because it's better. People are like sheep, and they need to be herded like so.

puredemo 15y ago

That has to be the dumbest name I've ever heard. Is this even supposed to be serious?

webjprgm 15y ago

I wouldn't use an alternative simply because all my "friends" are on Facebook. I don't want to run two social network accounts. What you need in order to allow "competition" is to have some form of interoperability. E.g. Twitter API allows lots of companies to write Twitter apps. (Of course, now Twitter is trying to take control of all that.) E.g. how in Apple's iChat you can use AOL Instant Messanger, Jabber, etc. and talk to users of iChat or those other services. (I use Adium to put all my IMing in one place, and that includes Facebook connectivity.) So, if Altly can scrape Facebook so that by being an Altly user I can have both Altly and Facebook friends in one interface, then I might consider using it. (Still has to have a better interface and execution.)

michaelchisari 15y ago

It doesn't seem to be open source, so I'm not sure about the point of the comparison.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

ChuckFrank 15y ago

After reading about Altly this morning, I thought carefully about Mr. Shaprio's argument for a competing social / network site. And while I am inclined to give Mr. Shapiro the benefit of my doubts, believing that he likely has several cards secretly tucked up his sleeves, the argument that every great brand needs an alternative brand has never really been a great way to grow a product or service. In fact I often use the Coke/Pepsi argument as exactly the opposite argument. Relying only on brand differentiation as Pepsi has tried, will always result in massive marketing / advertising costs, and little product or service differentiation. Instead of being a Pepsi to Coke, I believe that new products or services need to create a new consumer opportunity instead of simply a new package. So instead of thinking about Coke v. Pepsi, Mr. Shapiro would do well to aspire to be either Red Bull, or Snapple, or Odwalla, or any number of successful market changing adventures. Either way, even persistent incremental improvements over a competitor is better than simply ceding the space. Here's wishing him good luck.