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I stopped at about the same time as you, but I actually returned a couple of months ago. Without friending anyone. And the reason? I use Facebook as a very simp
by sveme 11y ago
I stopped at about the same time as you, but I actually returned a couple of months ago. Without friending anyone. And the reason? I use Facebook as a very simple way to get news about really minor things of importance to me:
+ my climbing gym has some new routes!
+ a new video by K.I.Z, yeah!
+ oh, demonstration against some Nazis demonstrating in my neighbourhood, should definitely go there
+ Someone's looking for a climbing partner next weekend, finally heading out to the rocks again!
So likes have become a poor-man's subscription to an RSS feed and groups have become an easy to follow replacement of forums. The key in these cases is the newsfeed, which is okay for having an overview of important stuff (and without friends is not crowded with inane stuff).
I repeatedly have idle thoughts about a startup idea, combining Facebook with github's business model: Any entity such as users, companies, organizations get a page where they can post arbitrary stuff like on their current facebook profile. Users can subscribe and get an overview on their newsfeed. So far, just like Facebook but without the social crap. Financing is not done through targeted ads but by requiring companies to pay for the service - something like 500 subscribers are free, 1000 - 10 $/months etc. Quite rough around the edges, the idea, but I personally would like such a service. Anyone interested in working on that with me?
- Xeoncross 11y agoSo, like twitter with more media and text options?
- sveme 11y agoYes, somewhat. Anything shareable. The major point would be the github-like financing model: It's not the individual users that pay for the service by enabling targeted ads but companies that want to get in contact with potential customers on their page. It seems like a minor difference but would have quite strong effects on user privacy - there would not be a need for ever more tracking of every online activity.
- nosuchthing 11y agoEllo recently tried this, and they're still making good progress
- recursive 11y agoFor me it's more like twitter that anyone I know actually uses.
- nosuchthing 11y ago..That would just be Tumblr
- city41 11y agoMore like Facebook is to RSS what HTML email is to plaintext. I don't find Twitter is at all useful for keeping on top of interests.
- xirdstl 11y agoThis is exactly what I did too, for similar reasons. I use Facebook like Twitter. There are some organizations I'm interested in that don't use Twitter and instead post updates or news only on Facebook. I much prefer Facebook with zero friends
- bentcorner 11y agoYou can get an RSS feed from a facebook for some things, personally I use this with ifttt to get email of posts by various institutions (e.g., my kid's school) that I want to follow.
- jsingleton 11y agoFor climbing partners; I came across the founder of http://www.climbfind.com http://www.climbfind.com at a wall a while ago but I don't use it myself. Seems more focused on the US, Canada and Australia. The founder was an Aussie IIRC. I think your idea has legs but it might be worth focusing on a niche area first (like climbing) and expanding after. Much like Facebook started with Universities.
- tenementfunster 11y agoOMG U CLIMB TOO? ^5