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We Need More Alternatives to Facebook

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Re: We Need More Alternatives to Facebook

#151

Post by mattbgates »

hdhzy wrote: post #4
mattbgates wrote: post #2

Google tried and failed. There are alternatives in other countries.. V Kontakte and odnoklassniki for Russia, WeChat and Qzone for China, though other countries other than those two are using what Americans use. There are a few other things like Snapchat and Kik that teenagers are using. Basically, if you think about the time you were a teenager: your parents are old. If they are using Facebook, than Facebook must no…

> As a web app developer, I keep an eye on those failed or lesser known products from Facebook and Google Could you provide an example or two? I wonder if you mean something like Buzz and Reader or something completely different.

I have seen some Google Reader alternatives. Plenty of people were upset when they got rid of it. Google also got rid of a text messaging feature in one of their apps, and people were upset about that, so taking some of these things into consideration, and rebuilding them into your own apps would certainly have that appeal.

Re: We Need More Alternatives to Facebook

#152

Post by skewart »

Sir_Substance wrote: post #140
skewart wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, supporting both uses would be critical. I think you're right that making sure it could interop with existing email clients in as painless a way as possible would be critical. I'm not sure how much of a chance it would have of succeeding (I'd like it, but would anyone else?). One thing that gives me a bit of hope is the rising popularity recently of email newsletters on specific topics or from specific writers/t…

>I'm not sure how much of a chance it would have of succeeding (I'd like it, but would anyone else?) It may, because it doesn't have to build it's own network effect, it can piggyback on emails existing userbase, which is basically everyone. I was talking with my housemate, we came up with the idea of a combination push and pull following mechanism. I can offer you the option to follow me by sending you a mail with t…

I like the header idea, and letting it market itself by way of invitation emails.

Man, now I want to build this thing.

Re: We Need More Alternatives to Facebook

#153

Post by ReverseCold »

ue_ wrote: post #127
jancsika wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be specific-- the current choice is between well-understood, scalable, battle-tested centralized designs and half-baked, work-in-progress, decentralized designs that don't work very well. Example-- building a centralized Facebook replacement is doable. Some idealistic developer can sit down one summer, break the problem into little pieces and iterate on it. If enough other developers and investors get interested,…

Mastodon, which is decentralised, looks like it's gaining traction, and I find it very easy to use.

I don't like it too much, as most people will just sign up for a public server and be be stuck there.

Re: We Need More Alternatives to Facebook

#154

Post by Grue3 »

anigbrowl wrote: post #84
ams6110 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The name Mastodon is bad. Doesn't say anything about what the site does. Compare Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat....

Yes, it's just a twitter clone where people 'toot' instead of 'tweet'. It's fine work but they don't seem to have any idea how to make it desirable for people to use.

I can't look at the word "toot" without being reminded of a terrible, terrible Alvin and the Chipmunks song where it's an euphemism for farts.

Re: We Need More Alternatives to Facebook

#155

Post by tracker1 »

djsumdog wrote: post #25
cJ0th wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There obviously are bad news that no one should consume (i.e. "fake news") but I'd argue there is no such thing as good news in the sense that every one should read them to become informed. To enable the public to make informed decisions every individual should come to face with a random selection of sources on a daily basis so that echo chambers get reduced and a problem-solving mentality can come into being. The pr…

I liked the old term for "fake news." Before 2016 we just called it "news." What seems like a free press in the US and the world is heavily controlled by less than a dozen conglomerates. They often game the system, mixing propaganda with news to create a narrative. Just look at all the pro-Monsanto comments on Hackernews and the recent court revelations that Monsanto had a big marketing program to post pro-company co…

There's a big difference between not being anti-gmo, and being pro-monstanto... I'm pretty biased against larger corporations and want a serious reversion of IP legislation and practice (though feel some of it has a place, we've just gone too far).

It really depends on the specifics. There's plenty of things in nature than can kill you. Most people are allergic to something. That said, it really depends, and most of what's done to GMO products aren't that different than the selective breeding that has gone on for millennia, and the stuff that actually occurs in nature.

Just because there's always been some manipulation of news/media, doesn't mean we should or have to accept that moving forward. I wish I had the time and could cover the expense of coming up with something better, at least a place to start.

Re: We Need More Alternatives to Facebook

#157

Post by shakna »

ReverseCold wrote: post #153
ue_ wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mastodon, which is decentralised, looks like it's gaining traction, and I find it very easy to use.

I don't like it too much, as most people will just sign up for a public server and be be stuck there.

But, even if stuck there, they can subscribe to any user on any other GNUSocial compatible server.

Re: We Need More Alternatives to Facebook

#158

Post by jstanley »

zeta0134 wrote: post #99
jstanley wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it's not just an alternative to Facebook we need, it's a distributed paradigm, with a distributed network, with distributed services. > The tension/problem as I see it is this: we need distributed networks, where people run their own services, and are servers as well as clients, but at the same time a large proportion of people do not or cannot run their own services. Solving that problem seems key to me--h…

I've been working with IPFS a lot more recently thanks to their efforts to snapshot Wikipedia to get around censorship in Turkey. This immediately made me realize the advantages of learning the system, and once you wrap your head around content-based addressing, everything makes sense after that. https://ipfs.io/blog/24-uncensorable-wikipedia/ I think the biggest thing they're going to struggle with for adoption is t…

There is already DNS integration.

Here is an IPFS path to my blog: /ipns/jes.xxx/

No longer than the corresponding HTTP version: http://jes.xxx/

Of course, DNS isn't distributed or trustless, but if it can work with DNS it can work with the likes of Namecoin or ENS (https://ens.domains/).

Currently you need to prepend an IPFS gateway URL to the IPFS path in order for it to be backwards-comaptible with existing browsers (e.g. https://ipfs.io/ipns/jes.xxx/), but I don't think it will take too many years to get native IPFS support in browsers.

I'm really really excited by what's going possible already, and what's going to become possible soon, with IPFS.

Re: We Need More Alternatives to Facebook

#159

Post by [deleted] »

anigbrowl wrote: post #107
Eerie wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook is not about keeping in touch with friends, it is about selling your views to advertisers by maximizing the time you spend on the site. To keep in touch with friends you should use a fucking mail list.

So anyone who doesn't do things your way is wrong, OK. Thanks for clearing that up.

[deleted]

Re: We Need More Alternatives to Facebook

#160

Post by jancsika »

wcummings wrote: post #132
jancsika wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be specific-- the current choice is between well-understood, scalable, battle-tested centralized designs and half-baked, work-in-progress, decentralized designs that don't work very well. Example-- building a centralized Facebook replacement is doable. Some idealistic developer can sit down one summer, break the problem into little pieces and iterate on it. If enough other developers and investors get interested,…

Youre setting the bar too high. RSS support in "microblogging" apps (including Facebook, ideally) gets you a simple federated social network. Discoverability could be handled by any number of third party aggregators, like Google. Publish your email to receive "DMs". Something can be decentralized without bleeding edge p2p crypto tech.

The article criticizes Facebook because it "vacuums up information about our tastes, our shopping habits, our political beliefs, and just about anything else you might think of—is too powerful in the first place."

So what good does it do to push discoverability to the company that is currently vacuuming up all your searches and browsing history?

edit: typo

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