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Ask HN: Do you think we'll see any Twitter/Facebook real-competitor?

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Re: Ask HN: Do you think we'll see any Twitter/Facebook real-competitor?

#21

Post by jzd »

henriquea wrote: post #14
junto wrote: post #6

I think (hope) that eventually these centralised monoliths will be taken over by distributed versions. The Internet Of Things IoT will be a precursor to any device being a node in a massive mesh net. That means that I can run my own private, secure personal social node on my cell phone, or even on my toaster. The front end app will literally just be a front. The backend processing can be done on any number of nano-cl…

Really like the idea about our own distributed/private-cloud version but I struggle to see ordinary users using it.

Plebs can't handle decentralization.

Re: Ask HN: Do you think we'll see any Twitter/Facebook real-competitor?

#23

Post by arihant »

jballanc wrote: post #11

When AOL first entered the market, you could only send E-Mail to other AOL users. Eventually, faced with the potential of users leaving their platform for more interoperable (if less full-featured) alternatives, AOL relented and made their email system a proper, standards-based utility. Now, granted that scenario is not a great example as email existed as a standard long before AOL came into existence, but I do think…

History repeats itself, but not during consecutive events and not always.

I think natural way social networking would go forward is that there will be a lack of interest in general purpose social networking. These will be eventually replaced by cliques kind of things that are context specific. Basically, social structure would be integrated in most products, inherently. Now that might (or might not) require a centralized social graph.

But saying that RSS/Atom would replace proprietary general purpose networking gives an impression that there would still be interest in a Newsfeed going forward. It also assumes that we are at pinnacle of social networking evolution and all that needs to happen is even distribution of power. I think both statements are false. This is exactly the kind of thinking that drives FOSS products 10 years behind time.

The Web is not a distributed AOL. A distributed AOL would have failed. AOL evolved into Web. There are plenty of examples of distributed protocols being evolved into proprietary one. In fact, look at the usage numbers surging on messaging apps. Compare that to rate of e-mail and SMS.

Re: Ask HN: Do you think we'll see any Twitter/Facebook real-competitor?

#24

Post by ebbv »

jballanc wrote: post #11

When AOL first entered the market, you could only send E-Mail to other AOL users. Eventually, faced with the potential of users leaving their platform for more interoperable (if less full-featured) alternatives, AOL relented and made their email system a proper, standards-based utility. Now, granted that scenario is not a great example as email existed as a standard long before AOL came into existence, but I do think…

AOL is definitely the best comparison. AOL had a 10 year run of dominance much like Facebook has had.

But we're already in a world where kids today see Facebook as something for their parents. And I know more and more people who (like myself) deleted their Facebook account years ago and don't miss it.

Facebook is headed toward irrelevance. It will probably always hang on like AOL and Yahoo still do. But it won't be the center of the online universe like it has been for so long. We're already on the down side of that hill.

Re: Ask HN: Do you think we'll see any Twitter/Facebook real-competitor?

#25

Post by arethuza »

ebbv wrote: post #24
jballanc wrote: post #11

When AOL first entered the market, you could only send E-Mail to other AOL users. Eventually, faced with the potential of users leaving their platform for more interoperable (if less full-featured) alternatives, AOL relented and made their email system a proper, standards-based utility. Now, granted that scenario is not a great example as email existed as a standard long before AOL came into existence, but I do think…

AOL is definitely the best comparison. AOL had a 10 year run of dominance much like Facebook has had. But we're already in a world where kids today see Facebook as something for their parents. And I know more and more people who (like myself) deleted their Facebook account years ago and don't miss it. Facebook is headed toward irrelevance. It will probably always hang on like AOL and Yahoo still do. But it won't be t…

I think Facebook is heading for the same kind of "irrelevance" as Microsoft or IBM.

Which is to say that they are irrelevant to a lot of people, particularly "early adopters", but they'll be around and profitable for a long time.

Re: Ask HN: Do you think we'll see any Twitter/Facebook real-competitor?

#26

Post by rjaco31 »

jballanc wrote: post #11

When AOL first entered the market, you could only send E-Mail to other AOL users. Eventually, faced with the potential of users leaving their platform for more interoperable (if less full-featured) alternatives, AOL relented and made their email system a proper, standards-based utility. Now, granted that scenario is not a great example as email existed as a standard long before AOL came into existence, but I do think…

> If you think about it, the only thing that RSS/Atom was ever missing from becoming what Facebook/Twitter are today is a central aggregation point in the cloud. A smart startup [...] could potentially spell the death of proprietary timelines.

I've got the feeling you underestimate how important this central aggregation point actually is. Imho I'd even say it's the paramount reason Facebook/Twitter are still the top dogs, people are just attracted to the (unique) aggregator which already has the most people.

Re: Ask HN: Do you think we'll see any Twitter/Facebook real-competitor?

#27

Post by d4nt »

jballanc wrote: post #11

When AOL first entered the market, you could only send E-Mail to other AOL users. Eventually, faced with the potential of users leaving their platform for more interoperable (if less full-featured) alternatives, AOL relented and made their email system a proper, standards-based utility. Now, granted that scenario is not a great example as email existed as a standard long before AOL came into existence, but I do think…

> A smart startup that pulls a user's Facebook/Twitter feeds and mixes in any other RSS/Atom, as well as allowing users to post back to Facebook/Twitter/Atom could potentially spell the death of proprietary timelines.

A few years ago I would have said you were crazy. But after the race to replace Google Reader, the failure of Google+, the general sense of malaise that many people have with Facebook[1], and the political echo chamber and general bot fest that is Twitter[2], I think there's room for another player here.

[1] despite, importantly, continuing to use it all the time

[2] my default working assumption when someone follows me is now that it's a bot

Re: Ask HN: Do you think we'll see any Twitter/Facebook real-competitor?

#29

Post by losvedir »

henriquea wrote: post #14
junto wrote: post #6

I think (hope) that eventually these centralised monoliths will be taken over by distributed versions. The Internet Of Things IoT will be a precursor to any device being a node in a massive mesh net. That means that I can run my own private, secure personal social node on my cell phone, or even on my toaster. The front end app will literally just be a front. The backend processing can be done on any number of nano-cl…

Really like the idea about our own distributed/private-cloud version but I struggle to see ordinary users using it.

Same. I'm very excited about sandstorm.io, though. A lot of very smart people behind it, and the idea of being able to install "SaaS" apps onto your personal server at the click of a button from an app store, but where you own the data and can move from Linode to AWS to a home server, etc, is very cool.
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