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Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

zdnet.com

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Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#171

Post by jasondclinton »

jeena wrote: post #70
halbritt wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a fairly large network of friends that existed before FB really had wide adoption. The platform they were on eventually died in favor of facebook. At this point, I'd like to preserve that network of friends independent of facebook and most of those folks feel similarly. In that sense, there is at least some demand for a social network that isn't evil.

Why wouldn't you go to a open alternative like Mastodon instead to yet another silo?

I was on Mastodon for more than a year and loved it: great conversation that reminded me of the hope and promise of the Internet in the late 90's. Then my instance admin went AWOL, the site crashed, and all of my data and social graph were lost. I still can't get the admin to respond to emails. I could host my own server but who really has the technical know-how and time to do that kind of work? Mastodon has got to solve the reliability and/or portability problem. If I could have recovered my social graph on another instance, I would still be on the network.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#172

Post by djsumdog »

cumwolf wrote: post #50
lucideer wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The likes of TikTok would disprove this guess, but given the age profile, your theory may still hold true if age-range-bound.

TikTok is a great example of people being willing to join new social media but it's a niche social media app compared to fb/twitter... and in a lot of ways fills a void that Vine left, so i agree but think it's kind of an exception right now

A lot of people have been throwing up Mastodon/Pleroma/Fediverse on this thread and I think, like TikTok, you're going after a different segment: randos you don't know.

Mastodon/Fediverse instances feel like a nice big random AOL chat room, or Reddit threads in the Twitter format. It won't connect you to your current social groups (except the very few who are like 'Yea I'm on that. Here, follow me), but rather help you exchange ideas with a bunch of randos. Which is something that was pretty damn cool about the early Internet really.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#173

Post by sherr »

michaelmrose wrote: post #22

I would prefer a decentralized social network based on boxes you plug into your router with content shared in a way that fellow users bear the weight of shared content like torrents. You could rent the box or buy outright with money to develop paid for by a premium on the box or by the rent wherein even a modest rent would outstrip the cost of buying like a cable box.

There was some hype around something called "Freedom Box" [1] a while ago, but it seemed to have gone quiet. Things like this pop up every now and then, and then tend to disappear.

[1] https://freedombox.org/

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#174

Post by warent »

pmoriarty wrote: post #156

I always shake my head when Jimmy Wales is given so much credit for founding Wikipedia, while what he did was supply the money for it from the profit he made off his soft-core porn business, while Larry Sanger (who deserves most of the credit, including coming up with the name Wikipedia, with Wikipedia's most distinctive feature -- the so-called Neutral Point of View, and with managing the site itself) is virtually f…

There's a reason why Wikipedia is one of the largest and most useful websites on the internet meanwhile Citizendium barely lasted, and that reason had little to do with ideas being stolen or porn profits being redirected. Jimmy is just a good businessman and made something people want / need with the proper marketing and leadership. It's as simple as that.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#175

Post by djsumdog »

KoftaBob wrote: post #56
danans wrote: post #31

Just my guess, but I bet that from this point on, few people (in the developed world) will race to sign up for a new social network. Why? Given the societal and personal costs (and benefits) that we've seen with previous social networks, a lot of lay people are re-evaluating the utility that such services provide them. In many cases, the answer is to keep your current social network, but increasingly disengage from i…

The way other social media platforms have solved this problem is by targeting younger demographics first, those that are making social media accounts for the first time. For these "greenfield" users, there is no need to convince their friends to leave their existing social media platform, because there is none. Every day, middle schoolers get smartphones for the first time, and the majority of them probably aren't go…

I can see the future:

"Are you on Facebook?"

"My mom setup an account for me when I was 5, but I never use it. I don't even think I installed it on this phone..."

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#176

Post by the_duke »

soapboxrocket wrote: post #166
pmoriarty wrote: post #156

I always shake my head when Jimmy Wales is given so much credit for founding Wikipedia, while what he did was supply the money for it from the profit he made off his soft-core porn business, while Larry Sanger (who deserves most of the credit, including coming up with the name Wikipedia, with Wikipedia's most distinctive feature -- the so-called Neutral Point of View, and with managing the site itself) is virtually f…

This isn't really any different than most cases. Think Elon Musk started Tesla or SpaceX? Nope, he bought in just like Jimmy.

Musk didn't found Tesla and is (somewhat inappropriately) labeled as a cofounder, but joined in Series A as an investor.

But he very much did build SpaceX from nothing (well, his Paypal money), and his unconventional approach is responsible for their success.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#177

Post by cdata »

I usually donate to Wikimedia every year, and I was a donator for WikiTribune and followed it closely as it rolled out. I personally think that Wikipedia is one of the most valuable resources on the internet.

Watching WikiTribune flounder in its early days left me feeling disillusioned. It quickly began to seem like a project lacking clear product vision (or else a team that could execute on such a vision). I eventually gave up waiting for the service to become useful as a daily news source and wrote it off.

Glancing at WikiTribune now, it seems like wt.social is a pivot for the service (https://www.wikitribune.com/wt/news/article/101868/). I hope it turns out well, because I strongly believe that the service Jimmy Wales initially described as WikiTribune is a good idea and something the internet needs. But, I think I'll wait on the sidelines this time around before getting too invested in the idea.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#179

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

I don't understand why authors frequently use the term "quietly" in article titles. ZDNet is a fairly significant site, there is nothing 'quiet' about this at all. And if you wanted to actually compete with Facebook, you'd want to get this message everywhere possible. Network effects are real for a platform like Facebook.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#180

Post by njarboe »

soapboxrocket wrote: post #166
pmoriarty wrote: post #156

I always shake my head when Jimmy Wales is given so much credit for founding Wikipedia, while what he did was supply the money for it from the profit he made off his soft-core porn business, while Larry Sanger (who deserves most of the credit, including coming up with the name Wikipedia, with Wikipedia's most distinctive feature -- the so-called Neutral Point of View, and with managing the site itself) is virtually f…

This isn't really any different than most cases. Think Elon Musk started Tesla or SpaceX? Nope, he bought in just like Jimmy.

Tesla, sure, but SpaceX was all Elon Musk, unless I am living in an alternative universe. His friends all tried to convince him he was crazy to start a rocket company. One even put together a montage of rocket explosions to try to keep him from doing it.
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