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The real anti-Facebook is good old email

wired.com

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Re: The real anti-Facebook is good old email

#61

Post by qq66 »

WWKong wrote: post #18
jsaxton86 wrote: post #12

I moved out of state a couple of years ago, and when I stopped using Facebook, I realized: 1: Facebook never was a good way of keeping in touch with friends and family back home for a number of reasons 2: I needed to be doing a better job of keeping in touch with friends and family back home My solution was to set up a newsletter. The idea is every 3-4 months I send out a mass email to friends and family describing w…

I'm glad you got good response. I suspect for most people, including me, the treatment would be the same as any other newsletter.

I think that's the expectation, as it is with Facebook updates -- that most people who see your post will ignore it, but they will be generally aware of it in case they do feel like reading it.

Re: The real anti-Facebook is good old email

#62

Post by joe_the_user »

jsaxton86 wrote: post #12

I moved out of state a couple of years ago, and when I stopped using Facebook, I realized: 1: Facebook never was a good way of keeping in touch with friends and family back home for a number of reasons 2: I needed to be doing a better job of keeping in touch with friends and family back home My solution was to set up a newsletter. The idea is every 3-4 months I send out a mass email to friends and family describing w…

I applaud your energy and focus. If I had more energy and focus myself, I would be something, perhaps to keep up with subcultures of interest rather than old friends.

But that said, I think I'm similar to most people in not being easily able to jump to newsletter type activity. The thing is, if I were to do that, it would still be me relating to N other people rather than, say, all those N other people also relating to each other. That might make things even better for me but I don't see how that's an improvement over Facebook.

Facebook has given me a relationship of sorts with 30-40 people who I previously hadn't interacted with for 10 or even twenty years and lets me barely keep up relations with a number of others. That includes people I'd lost contact with BEFORE the Internet even began.

Most people who aren't on Facebook aren't starting newsletters, they're just isolated - maybe one of their friends sends them a newsletter. I would see one in ten people with a newsletter for all ten as not a desirable replacement to eight in ten people having a way to directly relate to each other.

And certainly electronic media produces all sorts of problems for things-like-community, especially face to face community but that's a bigger issue than Facebook in particular.

Re: The real anti-Facebook is good old email

#63

Post by amelius »

aws_ls wrote: post #51

I don't think email is a good replacement for Facebook. Rather what we need is open (email protocol like) social networks. The problem with Facebook is that its a monopoly, and closed. What if it were open, such that I can send a friend request from G+ to Facebook. Just like I can easily send an email from yahoo email id to gmail. This openness, if incorporated, can solve the monopoly problem as well. Plus we don't h…

I think we need multiple protocols. One for ordinary messages (ok, we have email for that), one for statuses, one for tagging people, one for publishing events, one for indicating which events you are going to, etc.

Re: The real anti-Facebook is good old email

#64

Post by joe_the_user »

rdtsc wrote: post #37
jsaxton86 wrote: post #12

I moved out of state a couple of years ago, and when I stopped using Facebook, I realized: 1: Facebook never was a good way of keeping in touch with friends and family back home for a number of reasons 2: I needed to be doing a better job of keeping in touch with friends and family back home My solution was to set up a newsletter. The idea is every 3-4 months I send out a mass email to friends and family describing w…

I think email works better because people perceive it as a more direct message just to them. If say, you send an email and bcc people on it, they feel like they were sent a direct one-on-one personal message (even if they objectively know it is a newsletter). Status updates on Twitter, Facebook, etc, when it was obvious that they are for multiple people not just a one-to-one message don't produce the same effect. Peo…

Once a newsletter reaches a certain size, it feel less personal than even a Facebook post. But with a small circulation, sure.

Re: The real anti-Facebook is good old email

#65

Post by catshirt »

cortesoft wrote: post #53
aws_ls wrote: post #51

I don't think email is a good replacement for Facebook. Rather what we need is open (email protocol like) social networks. The problem with Facebook is that its a monopoly, and closed. What if it were open, such that I can send a friend request from G+ to Facebook. Just like I can easily send an email from yahoo email id to gmail. This openness, if incorporated, can solve the monopoly problem as well. Plus we don't h…

That is what diaspora tried to do. It has not gone well.

the issue of course, is that they conflated protocol with experience.

when someone does this right- the technology will be indistinguishable from Facebook for the typical user.

Re: The real anti-Facebook is good old email

#66

Post by joe_the_user »

qq66 wrote: post #61
WWKong wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad you got good response. I suspect for most people, including me, the treatment would be the same as any other newsletter.

I think that's the expectation, as it is with Facebook updates -- that most people who see your post will ignore it, but they will be generally aware of it in case they do feel like reading it.

The "like" may seem kind of petty but it is a way for people to note that they did read what you wrote without them having to draft a reply of some sort. In that sense, "likes" are very useful.

Re: The real anti-Facebook is good old email

#67

Post by [deleted] »

ddw wrote: post #46
[deleted] wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

I tried Sublevel when it started, but wasn't getting much out of it. I posted a lot, followed a bunch of strangers and tried to have conversations with them. Eventually I stopped checking it at all and forgot about it. I think the people on it appreciate the qualities that you mention, but unfortunately those features don't add up to a burgeoning and intriguing social network. Perhaps Facebook and Twitter are the las…

[deleted]

Re: The real anti-Facebook is good old email

#68

Post by joe_the_user »

amelius wrote: post #63
aws_ls wrote: post #51

I don't think email is a good replacement for Facebook. Rather what we need is open (email protocol like) social networks. The problem with Facebook is that its a monopoly, and closed. What if it were open, such that I can send a friend request from G+ to Facebook. Just like I can easily send an email from yahoo email id to gmail. This openness, if incorporated, can solve the monopoly problem as well. Plus we don't h…

I think we need multiple protocols. One for ordinary messages (ok, we have email for that), one for statuses, one for tagging people, one for publishing events, one for indicating which events you are going to, etc.

The thing about multiplicity is that most people aren't glued to multiple applications. The ideal for someone not putting a lot of effort to computers themselves is to just have a single window where everything of interest comes through. A single application that melds together multiple protocols would nice. But then you're talking something that seems like Facebook to the end-user but has the delivery mode changed.

Re: The real anti-Facebook is good old email

#70

Post by amelius »

joe_the_user wrote: post #68
amelius wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we need multiple protocols. One for ordinary messages (ok, we have email for that), one for statuses, one for tagging people, one for publishing events, one for indicating which events you are going to, etc.

The thing about multiplicity is that most people aren't glued to multiple applications. The ideal for someone not putting a lot of effort to computers themselves is to just have a single window where everything of interest comes through. A single application that melds together multiple protocols would nice. But then you're talking something that seems like Facebook to the end-user but has the delivery mode changed.

The important issue is that we might want different identities for every protocol. Right now, lots of people prefer to have different identities on youtube than on gmail.
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