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Hello: A new social network founded by Orkut's creator

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Re: Hello: A new social network founded by Orkut's creator

#161
post #130
post #108

The social network I'd like to try is this: * Funded by subscriptions. * Free from ads. * Since it is not ad dependent, yes, it can also provide a chronological timeline. * Two post types supported: Text and Photo. Because sometimes a photo does tell a thousand words. * Links to websites not supported in posts. Avoids viral proliferation of dumbed down politics, fake news, or stupid memes. If you want to get to the w…

> Funded by subscriptions This sounds like it might be a good idea because it seems like it would remove the incentive to monetize personal information, but in practice it creates a barrier to adoption and makes the social network kinda useless. I joined a subscription-based social network that was designed for expats [1]. It was by all-accounts well-designed, well-managed and had everything going for it. But no one…

I wonder if a 60 or 90 day free period would help [0]. This would allow you to invite people, who could then themselves try it out. After the free period if enough of your circle decided to stay, you could too.

[0] I feel 30 would be to short to round everyone up and get them to actually try it.

Re: Hello: A new social network founded by Orkut's creator

#162
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am still trying to figure out why Orkut was more popular in India.

It was really popular in Brazil, too. It would be cool if they just open sourced it, or launched Orkut the 2005 edition with security patches today. I would use it if it was web only.

The 2005 version is pretty trivial: each profile has friends, a scrapbook (known on FB as wall), and up to 12 pictures; Communities (forums) have topics and topics have posts. That's it. Any junior dev can build it on Rails/Django.

The tricky part is scaling it. The original version as a .NET app and it couldn't handle the number of simultaneous users.

Re: Hello: A new social network founded by Orkut's creator

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd add to that: - Decentralized - Designed with strong privacy and anonymity of its users in mind

Anonymity? Why be on a social network at all in that case? You might as well just maintain a blog.

Most of my friends appear to strongly want to have multiple personas on social networks: one per major hobby, one for family, one professional, etc.

Re: Hello: A new social network founded by Orkut's creator

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anonymity? Why be on a social network at all in that case? You might as well just maintain a blog.

People could still use nicks. That's basically what the old internet and old BBS systems were like, before anyone cared to track and spy on their users.

Sure, you go ahead and make the internet great again.

Maybe also kick these kids off you lawn while you're at it old man ;)

Re: Hello: A new social network founded by Orkut's creator

#165
post #108

The social network I'd like to try is this: * Funded by subscriptions. * Free from ads. * Since it is not ad dependent, yes, it can also provide a chronological timeline. * Two post types supported: Text and Photo. Because sometimes a photo does tell a thousand words. * Links to websites not supported in posts. Avoids viral proliferation of dumbed down politics, fake news, or stupid memes. If you want to get to the w…

That seems like a very peculiar choice, and meant people won't like such a social network. This may reduce the most important factor of social networks, People.

Re: Hello: A new social network founded by Orkut's creator

#166
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Funded by subscriptions This sounds like it might be a good idea because it seems like it would remove the incentive to monetize personal information, but in practice it creates a barrier to adoption and makes the social network kinda useless. I joined a subscription-based social network that was designed for expats [1]. It was by all-accounts well-designed, well-managed and had everything going for it. But no one…

A subscription doesn't necessarily have to be a barrier to new users. You could offer basic functionality for free with a subscription to unlock extra features. This sort of model has been very successful in other areas.

The freemium model is exactly what Internations uses. It's free to join but you have to pay to unlock certain features [1]. Unfortunately the market already has free alternatives (e.g. Meetup.com, Eventbrite, Slack.com etc.) that are more mainstream, have a larger inventory of events and people (network effect again), and that work better so it's pretty hard to provide a sufficiently differentiated product worth paying for.

[1] https://www.internations.org/support/faq/membership

Re: Hello: A new social network founded by Orkut's creator

#167
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A subscription doesn't necessarily have to be a barrier to new users. You could offer basic functionality for free with a subscription to unlock extra features. This sort of model has been very successful in other areas.

The freemium model is exactly what Internations uses. It's free to join but you have to pay to unlock certain features [1]. Unfortunately the market already has free alternatives (e.g. Meetup.com, Eventbrite, Slack.com etc.) that are more mainstream, have a larger inventory of events and people (network effect again), and that work better so it's pretty hard to provide a sufficiently differentiated product worth payi…

I'm not super familiar with Meetup or Eventbrite, but Slack is freemium too.

Re: Hello: A new social network founded by Orkut's creator

#168
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A subscription doesn't necessarily have to be a barrier to new users. You could offer basic functionality for free with a subscription to unlock extra features. This sort of model has been very successful in other areas.

The freemium model is exactly what Internations uses. It's free to join but you have to pay to unlock certain features [1]. Unfortunately the market already has free alternatives (e.g. Meetup.com, Eventbrite, Slack.com etc.) that are more mainstream, have a larger inventory of events and people (network effect again), and that work better so it's pretty hard to provide a sufficiently differentiated product worth payi…

It looks like Internations locks up basic functionality rather than bonus features. You can't have much of a social network if you can't "join groups and attend their activities"

Re: Hello: A new social network founded by Orkut's creator

#169
post #108

The social network I'd like to try is this: * Funded by subscriptions. * Free from ads. * Since it is not ad dependent, yes, it can also provide a chronological timeline. * Two post types supported: Text and Photo. Because sometimes a photo does tell a thousand words. * Links to websites not supported in posts. Avoids viral proliferation of dumbed down politics, fake news, or stupid memes. If you want to get to the w…

You could set up a Mastodon instance to do exactly this. Why not try and see if there are others who like the model?

Re: Hello: A new social network founded by Orkut's creator

#170
post #130
post #108

The social network I'd like to try is this: * Funded by subscriptions. * Free from ads. * Since it is not ad dependent, yes, it can also provide a chronological timeline. * Two post types supported: Text and Photo. Because sometimes a photo does tell a thousand words. * Links to websites not supported in posts. Avoids viral proliferation of dumbed down politics, fake news, or stupid memes. If you want to get to the w…

> Funded by subscriptions This sounds like it might be a good idea because it seems like it would remove the incentive to monetize personal information, but in practice it creates a barrier to adoption and makes the social network kinda useless. I joined a subscription-based social network that was designed for expats [1]. It was by all-accounts well-designed, well-managed and had everything going for it. But no one…

Amazon could probably make this happen as part of the prime membership. Seems like a natural next step given they've already got the photo portion covered
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