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The real anti-Facebook is good old email

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Re: The real anti-Facebook is good old email

#161

Post by icc97 »

pjbrunet wrote: post #125
copsarebastards wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diaspora was written by a bunch of college students who were unqualified to be implementing the security protocols necessary. Given that one of the biggest reasons people want to move off Facebook is security, that's a no-go. The fact that Diaspora failed at implementing this idea doesn't mean that the idea is bad.

Another reason it failed, they used Ruby--which at the time was a pain in the ass to install. (Would not install on 99.9% of shared hosts and VPS was still a new thing.) I've said it before, I'm pretty sure it would work if it was built on top of WordPress. I'm sure this idea is in the back of Matt Mullenweg's mind somewhere. Gravatar has profiles now, but where is that going...? Well, I shouldn't say it failed. I do…

There is BuddyPress - it seems to be still reasonably actively developed

Re: The real anti-Facebook is good old email

#162

Post by Gracana »

knight17 wrote: post #137
Gracana wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't know it supported RSS, so I tried it. Seems nice enough: https://imgur.com/NdqMcbx

Does the search folders work for RSS feeds too?

It does. The RSS feed items are treated like emails, so you can choose a feed folder or multiple folders and set up whatever search parameters you want. I set one up to show all articles posted by "ris," and it worked as you'd expect.

Re: The real anti-Facebook is good old email

#163

Post by copsarebastards »

technomancy wrote: post #115
copsarebastards wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diaspora was written by a bunch of college students who were unqualified to be implementing the security protocols necessary. Given that one of the biggest reasons people want to move off Facebook is security, that's a no-go. The fact that Diaspora failed at implementing this idea doesn't mean that the idea is bad.

> The fact that Diaspora failed at implementing this idea doesn't mean that the idea is bad. I don't think the parent meant to imply it's a bad idea; only that Diaspora kind of sucked all the oxygen out of the "social networks done right" room, and now if you want to float an alternative you have to contend with a lot more skepticism than you would have before.

I tend to believe that skepticism is irrelevant when you have a quality product. The Diaspora folks simply didn't have a quality product, and none has yet emerged in that space.

Re: The real anti-Facebook is good old email

#164

Post by cben »

pjbrunet wrote: post #155
jaakl wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux vs Windows result was that the whole question become pointless, desktop computing was replaced by cloud and mobiles. This will be eventually also fate of FaceBook - we might see no direct FB killer, but something completely different which makes whole class of social networks pointless. Maybe telepathic technology - we could barely guess. Btw, same thing will happen with Google as search engine - generic web se…

Along the lines of what I was thinking, a new class. I wonder about Google shrinking too. It has been suggested that autocomplete was a way for Google to hide that the number of searches was flat (not growing) and they changed the definition of a unique search with autocomplete. Of course, people are doing voice searches and YouTube searches now. The game changed.

I've worked on the autocomplete team. It was always primarily a way to shave off some measurable time for users, making searches easier and faster — obviously a direct interest of Google. (There is also a serendipity aspiration — occasionally helping users formulate better searches — but we never knew how to define or measure success in this.)

It did change search statistics but not in way anybody welcomed: all statistical analyses (including the building of the completion corpus itself) became more complicated as you now want to separate the signal of "how many people wanted to search this" from the semi-noise of "how many people chose this from the 5 suggestions at the moment they glanced at the screen". Google "Instant" triggering automatic searches for some completions muddled stuff even more... Nobody would go through that just "to hide" something.

Re: The real anti-Facebook is good old email

#165

Post by pjbrunet »

icc97 wrote: post #161
pjbrunet wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another reason it failed, they used Ruby--which at the time was a pain in the ass to install. (Would not install on 99.9% of shared hosts and VPS was still a new thing.) I've said it before, I'm pretty sure it would work if it was built on top of WordPress. I'm sure this idea is in the back of Matt Mullenweg's mind somewhere. Gravatar has profiles now, but where is that going...? Well, I shouldn't say it failed. I do…

There is BuddyPress - it seems to be still reasonably actively developed

I'm oldschool, thinking Fidonet + bbPress = huge message network. Each node would need a list of usernames to prevent overlap.
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