We should replace Facebook with personal websites • Hacker News Board

Re: We should replace Facebook with personal websites

#241

Post by Randypea » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 9:13 PM UTC

ticmasta wrote: post #96

ip26 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The magic usually missing from RSS is really good recommendation/discovery. I've got a list of feeds I follow, and that's all I'll ever get.

The nefarious problem with FB is the illusion of recommendation/discovery. They're not trying to find new and interesting things for you the way say, the cultural aspects of HN performs this feat; they're trying to define your profile and then serve up more of the same to increase engagement or capture your entire sphere of awareness so they can manipulate and shape your perception.'

so they can manipulate and shape your perception.'..... then group you together with people like you and sell those groups to advertisers, claiming they have some exclusive access to groups like "yoga-loving cat owners"

Re: We should replace Facebook with personal websites

#242

Post by ChuckMcM » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 9:15 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #223

ChuckMcM wrote: post #210

The alternative, now that network bandwidth isn't in the 56Kbps range and sometimes on and sometimes off, is doable. If you look at the "end" game, imagine that everyone has a machine at their house that they can access locally in their web browser. It has easy tools for posting updates and pictures. When you create a "profile" on it, you can choose to upload that profile to a well known repository of profiles. There…

That machine will need to be an appliance, something like a Google Home or Amazon Echo style device, and your local router should transparently proxy www.facebook.com to it. I'm only sorta kidding. HN is really good at creating solutions that seem totally reasonable to other HN readers but would fall on their face in the wider market of Uncle Bob, Aunt Lois, and Grandma Pearl. You know, the real customer base.

So my history includes a period of time at NetApp, which at the time was doing a pretty good job of creating appliances out of otherwise Intel motherboards with a lot of I/O slots.

Appliances with a way to customize them appropriately to the customer by either trained service personnel or technically astute relatives (so documentation has to be available).

Re: We should replace Facebook with personal websites

#243

Post by lapnitnelav » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 9:21 PM UTC

iosonofuturista wrote: post #46

jeletonskelly wrote: post #10

Alright folks, it's time to bring back Geocities and Angelfire. Pull out your antique rotating skull and "under construction" gifs.

http://textfiles.com/underconstruction/ For all your gif needs.

Epilepsy warning required here.

Re: We should replace Facebook with personal websites

#244

Post by quickthrower2 » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 9:24 PM UTC

chx wrote: post #185

Everytime people say "you should quit Facebook", I have two primary use cases: 1. Our high school class. Yes we used to use a mailing list but it's so much better with Facebook, with people freely sharing what interesting shit happens. We are a very closely knit class, at the 25th graduation anniversary like 25 of the 34 was there. 2. I have a group of friends doing all sorts of awesome shit (some of the more memorab…

That's the funny thing. Email is perfectly good enough, but there is a psychology of not wanting to send too many messages or disturb people. But posting lots of pictures on Facebook doesn't feel like that. Otherwise email is a great social network for people you already know.

Re: We should replace Facebook with personal websites

#245

Post by quickthrower2 » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 9:25 PM UTC

jeletonskelly wrote: post #10

Alright folks, it's time to bring back Geocities and Angelfire. Pull out your antique rotating skull and "under construction" gifs.

I just read an old JS book that shows you an advanced IE only feature where you can insert elements in the middle of a page using eval('document.all.something something'). So nostalgic now

Re: We should replace Facebook with personal websites

#246

Post by z3t4 » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 9:26 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #210

The alternative, now that network bandwidth isn't in the 56Kbps range and sometimes on and sometimes off, is doable. If you look at the "end" game, imagine that everyone has a machine at their house that they can access locally in their web browser. It has easy tools for posting updates and pictures. When you create a "profile" on it, you can choose to upload that profile to a well known repository of profiles. There…

It already exist, called wifi-router. Which are mostly overpriced Linux servers on a flash drive.

Re: We should replace Facebook with personal websites

#247

Post by FranzFerdiNaN » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 9:31 PM UTC

ip26 wrote: post #60

saucoide wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When i try to think of what my ideal social media would look like, it always ends up sounding similar to an RSS feed, with the ability to lookup and requiring the other user's approval to get the actual content, you could use different clients, some could give you recommendations for events,etc based on your subscriptions if you so choose, or just run your own locally. life would be so simple

The magic usually missing from RSS is really good recommendation/discovery. I've got a list of feeds I follow, and that's all I'll ever get.

I use Feedly for my rss-feeds and they do recommend other sites to follow if you search for a feed.

Re: We should replace Facebook with personal websites

#248

Post by FranzFerdiNaN » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 9:33 PM UTC

naravara wrote: post #212

saucoide wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When i try to think of what my ideal social media would look like, it always ends up sounding similar to an RSS feed, with the ability to lookup and requiring the other user's approval to get the actual content, you could use different clients, some could give you recommendations for events,etc based on your subscriptions if you so choose, or just run your own locally. life would be so simple

>When i try to think of what my ideal social media would look like, it always ends up sounding similar to an RSS feed, with the ability to lookup and requiring the other user's approval to get the actual content, you could use different clients, some could give you recommendations for events,etc based on your subscriptions if you so choose, or just run your own locally. life would be so simple Up until you get to "di…

I still miss google reader. If was such a fine product that just worked so of course it had to go.

Re: We should replace Facebook with personal websites

#249

Post by Domark » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 9:34 PM UTC

Nice blog post at vice.com! That’s all this is.

Facebook posts my content using a template. Wordpress could do the same thing, but it’s missing Friends.

So we need a personal site with Friends. Looks like Facebook works for that.

Discord is the only other app I have with Friends list.

Re: We should replace Facebook with personal websites

#250

Post by Nasrudith » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 9:34 PM UTC

mxuribe wrote: post #45

bwb wrote: post #36

This is so crazy, I love the idea but the world isn't going back to how it was in the late 1990s / early 2000s. I've been in web hosting for a long time and I love the idea of everyone creating their own little website. The truth is people don't have the skills or care enough to do something like that, FB, Quora, Twitter, all these services that are walled gardens work because they make it EASY to share/create and CO…

I agree with your comments except for (respectfully) the part about: "We need to just accept the new world..." I firmly think this all represents opportunity. Opportunity for technologists to develop open platforms that are NOT cumbersome to setup nor to host by the layperson, and that - at least over some time - are extremely inexpensive. Maybe i'm an optimist, but i firmly believe there will be an open platform - o…

Really my standing is that what we need to accept is different - that it is okay to be a technically sophisticated niche but that it will certainly have lesser traffic. That sort of experience is much of what people bemoan about with the 'old internet' anyway.

The internet is built for that sort of specialization anyway - it isn't a pure broadcast medium in the first place so accept that it isn't all conglomerates - if you don't want it for profit in the first place you don't need the crowds.

I can see potentially setting up a good 'seed kit' to distribute but generally they've had the trap of being too technically sophisticated for the lowest level and too simple for those with more expertise.

It is probably more hard on a social level than a technical level given things like UX consistency. Not to mention the infamous 'classic angelfire 90s website' tackiness that nobody tends to want to visit anyway.