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I think the problem with general purpose social networks, is that they are general purpose. HN, Goodreads, StackOverflow, they all have problems, but they basi

I think the problem with general purpose social networks, is that they are general purpose. HN, Goodreads, StackOverflow, they all have problems, but they basically work, I find them useful. HN has the least UI features, and works the best. What all three have in common is a narrower focus. Certain kinds of topics are relevant, most topics are excluded. That's why they work. I wish Orkut the best of luck, but I don't think luck is enough. To get a productive social network, it needs to have a more well defined purpose than "be social". The problem with Facebook, Twitter, etc. is not fundamentally their software (though that has plenty of problems), because Goodreads has plenty of software problems. The main determinant of whether or not a social network is useful, is if it has a well-defined use case. It is not a coincidence or bad luck or even bad software that causes general purpose social networks to descend to the lowest common denominator of conversation.

culi 4y ago
I don't hate myself enough to ever try to build a platform that could compete in the social networking space. But if I DID, I would definitely focus on getting niche communities in there I need to be able to convince the social choice theory community,[0] banana growing hobbyists,[1] permaculturists,[2] etc why they should switch. Perhaps I could focus on fractured communities like all the drug forums[3][4][5][6] and have strong privacy protections. Or perhaps I could focus on up-and-coming communities like the different subcommunities in the generative art/cellular automata scenes. Or maybe even reviving communities in decline like the demoscene community. Once you've become THE platform for one of these niches, you will already have a stable base. Serve them well! You just need to expand from there. Niche communities are the pillars of "alt" social networks The other big part is definitely optimizing for SEO with tiny load times the way Reddit and HN have done [0] https://www.votingtheory.org/forum/ https://www.votingtheory.org/forum/ [1] http://www.bananas.org/ http://www.bananas.org/ [2] https://permies.com/ https://permies.com/ [3] https://bluelight.org/xf/ https://bluelight.org/xf/ [4] https://www.shroomery.org/ https://www.shroomery.org/ [5] https://drugs-forum.com/ https://drugs-forum.com/ [6] https://www.erowid.org/ https://www.erowid.org/
- culi 4y ago
  I should also point out that I really don't think you can get success by explicitly starting out trying to replace these existing communities. Rather you should figure out how you can compliment them and provide what isn't there or address existing concerns. For example, you can try aggregating content if the communities are spread out and serve as a sort of "hub"

culi 4y ago

I don't hate myself enough to ever try to build a platform that could compete in the social networking space. But if I DID, I would definitely focus on getting niche communities in there I need to be able to convince the social choice theory community,[0] banana growing hobbyists,[1] permaculturists,[2] etc why they should switch. Perhaps I could focus on fractured communities like all the drug forums[3][4][5][6] and have strong privacy protections. Or perhaps I could focus on up-and-coming communities like the different subcommunities in the generative art/cellular automata scenes. Or maybe even reviving communities in decline like the demoscene community. Once you've become THE platform for one of these niches, you will already have a stable base. Serve them well! You just need to expand from there. Niche communities are the pillars of "alt" social networks The other big part is definitely optimizing for SEO with tiny load times the way Reddit and HN have done [0] https://www.votingtheory.org/forum/ https://www.votingtheory.org/forum/ [1] http://www.bananas.org/ http://www.bananas.org/ [2] https://permies.com/ https://permies.com/ [3] https://bluelight.org/xf/ https://bluelight.org/xf/ [4] https://www.shroomery.org/ https://www.shroomery.org/ [5] https://drugs-forum.com/ https://drugs-forum.com/ [6] https://www.erowid.org/ https://www.erowid.org/

culi 4y ago
I should also point out that I really don't think you can get success by explicitly starting out trying to replace these existing communities. Rather you should figure out how you can compliment them and provide what isn't there or address existing concerns. For example, you can try aggregating content if the communities are spread out and serve as a sort of "hub"