Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Thoughts on Embracing the Social Internet Over Social Media

calnewport.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 68 posts

Re: Thoughts on Embracing the Social Internet Over Social Media

#41

Post by togetherasone »

bogomipz wrote: post #13

I thought this was a well-written piece. I would love to see a "return to the internet" movement in 2018. The author suggests everyone "acquire your own damn digital land." And I think this is the way forward. In 2005 or the pre-FB era being a "techie" was a personal distinction. I feel that now most people have become "techies" in varying degrees, either out of necessity or general interest. I mention this because I…

Would you say that social media is alienating, in the sense that it has routinized man's acquisition of information and knowledge? That the internet should serve as a tool for our own purposes, and not vice versa?

Re: Thoughts on Embracing the Social Internet Over Social Media

#42

Post by togetherasone »

acomjean wrote: post #27

I think its a good take. The problem its hard when not social media to get visibility. Its easy to start a blog (wordpress/blogger/tumblr etc.. ), its harder to get people to go to it and periodically check it out. RSS aggregators/ google reader was a good way to do this, but they've fallen out of favor. There is a ghost town of abandoned blogs on the internet presumably because they didn't get the reads/ interaction…

"The problem its hard when not social media to get visibility."

So the matter we must take up is that of equal opportunity for those wishing to increase their readership, (whether for influence or monetary reasons)?

That's my interpretation. In this sense, are Google and many other "given" sites on the web a barrier to having a conversation about such measures, because of their power?

Re: Thoughts on Embracing the Social Internet Over Social Media

#43

Post by togetherasone »

eitland wrote: post #39
cilefen wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://indieweb.org/ lays out techniques for getting the word out when you publish a blog.

Or one could just wrote because on wants to write, want to share knowledge and not to "build and audience" or anything.

I agree with this sentiment. Yet, it seems instinctive to suggest that the internet wasn't made to be exploited by those wishing to monetize it. I just think we've let the presence of large tech companies pervert this concept.

Absent such groups, it would seem to be desirable to let individuals monetize work which makes them happy. In such a web, it would be more akin to a street marketplace, as opposed to, say, a curated set of goods.

Re: Thoughts on Embracing the Social Internet Over Social Media

#44

Post by striking »

packet_nerd wrote: post #32
mwcampbell wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My grandparent's aren't going to host and configure their own blog. My grandparents didn't set up their own Facebook account either. We (mainly my mom, I think) did it for them. You could help your grandparents set up a blog, then show them how to post to it (think something like WordPress or Ghost, not a static site using Markdown and Git). After all, they had to learn the Facebook interface too.

> You could help your grandparents set up a blog I had some extra server space after a side project a few years ago and offered to set up Wordpress blogs for my mom and a few friends. Most of them were basically never used. My mom kept up near weekly posts for a year and a half or so, but it's been several years since her last post. I bet I could delete them all right now and it would be next Thanksgiving before they…

Because there's no social confirmation for their posts. They have no idea if people read them or liked them.

Re: Thoughts on Embracing the Social Internet Over Social Media

#45

Post by stickfigure »

bogomipz wrote: post #13

I thought this was a well-written piece. I would love to see a "return to the internet" movement in 2018. The author suggests everyone "acquire your own damn digital land." And I think this is the way forward. In 2005 or the pre-FB era being a "techie" was a personal distinction. I feel that now most people have become "techies" in varying degrees, either out of necessity or general interest. I mention this because I…

The problem with the idea of going back to a distributed internet is that it directly contradicts the primary thing people in the #DeleteFacebook rant about: Privacy.

The only way to ensure that your content doesn't get reshared without your permission is to create a tightly locked-down walled garden. If you're really worried, you need some sort of DRM too. And if you're really really worried, you need global laws that ban software that breaks DRM.

You can't have private, distributed data. You have to pick.

Re: Thoughts on Embracing the Social Internet Over Social Media

#46

Post by eitland »

FlyingSnake wrote: post #40

I second the author that we need to host our own website and data, however finding an audience is really hard in post-Facebook world. Just ask any blogger who saw the golden years of blogging (2008-2012). The Internet might be the same but the social media sites have changed the nature of the game. I feel our attention spans have decreased and the fallout of the Facebook privacy fiasco will definitely make it hard to…

> I second the author that we need to host our own website and data, however finding an audience is really hard in post-Facebook world.

I think many of us wants even further back than the golden years of blogging: we want back to before "blogger" was a profession, back to when we put things on Internet to share and get feedback.

IMO "Finding an audience" is something you need if you are going to milk advertisers.

Re: Thoughts on Embracing the Social Internet Over Social Media

#47

Post by eitland »

jancsika wrote: post #21

> For those who don’t crave recognition, it induces a digital life that’s more localized to closer friends and family — a state that’s more congruent with our fundamental human instincts. It's a noble goal. To achieve it, the author suggests that people buy a domain name, spend $4 a month on web hosting, and manually install Wordpress. The author leaves out ssl, so I assume either the person is going to pay some more…

> To achieve it, the author suggests that people buy a domain name, spend $4 a month on web hosting, and manually install Wordpress. The author leaves out ssl, so I assume either the person is going to pay some more for a cert or spend time learning about LetsEncrypt and installing CertBot.

> Add to that Wordpress maintenance time and time installing plugins.

For most of us it would be more efficient to just use html.

Then you don't have to maintain Wordpress at all.

Or, if updating links etc gets tedious: use static html generators.

Re: Thoughts on Embracing the Social Internet Over Social Media

#48

Post by bogomipz »

stickfigure wrote: post #45
bogomipz wrote: post #13

I thought this was a well-written piece. I would love to see a "return to the internet" movement in 2018. The author suggests everyone "acquire your own damn digital land." And I think this is the way forward. In 2005 or the pre-FB era being a "techie" was a personal distinction. I feel that now most people have become "techies" in varying degrees, either out of necessity or general interest. I mention this because I…

The problem with the idea of going back to a distributed internet is that it directly contradicts the primary thing people in the #DeleteFacebook rant about: Privacy. The only way to ensure that your content doesn't get reshared without your permission is to create a tightly locked-down walled garden. If you're really worried, you need some sort of DRM too. And if you're really really worried, you need global laws th…

>"The problem with the idea of going back to a distributed internet is that it directly contradicts the primary thing people in the #DeleteFacebook rant about: Privacy."

Can you elaborate on how exactly maintaining your own site/blog/domain/presence etc is at odds with privacy advocation?

Content control, copyright and DRM are orthogonal to the issue of privacy.

Also I don't really understand the use of the phrase "the distributed internet" to distinguish from "silos" and "walled gardens." The internet is by design distributed. FB while being a walled-garden is still very much "on" the internet.

Re: Thoughts on Embracing the Social Internet Over Social Media

#49

Post by acomjean »

togetherasone wrote: post #42
acomjean wrote: post #27

I think its a good take. The problem its hard when not social media to get visibility. Its easy to start a blog (wordpress/blogger/tumblr etc.. ), its harder to get people to go to it and periodically check it out. RSS aggregators/ google reader was a good way to do this, but they've fallen out of favor. There is a ghost town of abandoned blogs on the internet presumably because they didn't get the reads/ interaction…

"The problem its hard when not social media to get visibility." So the matter we must take up is that of equal opportunity for those wishing to increase their readership, (whether for influence or monetary reasons)? That's my interpretation. In this sense, are Google and many other "given" sites on the web a barrier to having a conversation about such measures, because of their power?

I think good visibility to quality content is the problem. Maybe why many of us are here on HN to get interesting content not on our social platform.

Google would seem to want this a more open web. I suspect they're starting to fear everyone using Facebook for everything, thus investing in Wordpress. Though they haven't been big supporters of their own blogging platform.

A lot of the social media Giants like you to keep your content on their own site, basically the longer your on Facebook/twitter the more ads they can show you. Google drops ads all over the web (except Facebook and twitter) so they don't care where you go.

Re: Thoughts on Embracing the Social Internet Over Social Media

#50

Post by intopieces »

bogomipz wrote: post #48
stickfigure wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with the idea of going back to a distributed internet is that it directly contradicts the primary thing people in the #DeleteFacebook rant about: Privacy. The only way to ensure that your content doesn't get reshared without your permission is to create a tightly locked-down walled garden. If you're really worried, you need some sort of DRM too. And if you're really really worried, you need global laws th…

>"The problem with the idea of going back to a distributed internet is that it directly contradicts the primary thing people in the #DeleteFacebook rant about: Privacy." Can you elaborate on how exactly maintaining your own site/blog/domain/presence etc is at odds with privacy advocation? Content control, copyright and DRM are orthogonal to the issue of privacy. Also I don't really understand the use of the phrase "t…

>Can you elaborate on how exactly maintaining your own site/blog/domain/presence etc is at odds with privacy advocation?

A website that any old person can access means it's a website that any number of bots can crawl over and aggregate. Now you're basically back where we started with Facebook.

Post reply on HN