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Your Words are Wasted

hanselman.com

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Re: Your Words are Wasted

#11

Post by jessedhillon »

shanselman wrote: post #6
jessedhillon wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems that you are disregarding the vast majority of Facebook/Google+/whatever users -- who still don't know how to, or don't want to setup their own domain and manage blogging software. Yet, they also want to have a place to put their voice out there. A system like the one that GP proposes, while it could be pretty awesome, would be limited to a very small, extremely homogenous population. It's not hard to see wh…

I would argue that it could be made possible to allow folks to get domains, hosting and software that they control as easily as buying a toy on Amazon. Domains, DNS and hosting setup doesn't need to be hard - it's hard because no one has tried to change it.

I have to disagree. Dreamhost makes it very simple to register a domain and have WP installed. Wordpress.com makes it simpler still. How much simpler does it need to be?

Everyone knows what WordPress is, I think people who entertain the idea of publishing are aware of their options now. The draw of social networks is that there is a low friction process -- facilitated by an interested party -- which makes it very easy to go from ideation to publication. Until very recent versions of WP, it was a pain in the ass (from a regular user's perspective) to simply post a set of pictures along with some thoughts.

If we look at your set of questions, something like e.g. Facebook provides answers to all of them which are, yes unsatisfying, but the trade off is a low-effort process.

EDIT: Also, out of curiosity what do you use to host your site, and how/why did you choose it?

Re: Your Words are Wasted

#12

Post by shanselman »

zacharyvoase wrote: post #9

One obstacle, in my eyes, is that some of the best blogging software out there is provided in a Software-as-a-Service model. This is, of course, less of a headache for the original developers—they have a guaranteed long-term income (rather than one-off license fees), and they don’t have to worry about portability or varying server specs. The result is that now, if a person wants to run his/her own blog and have total…

But one could go to Amazon or Azure or Herok and install Wordpress in 20 minutes from start to finish and OWN it...if this process could include domain names and take just 2 minutes...

Re: Your Words are Wasted

#13

Post by shanselman »

jessedhillon wrote: post #11
shanselman wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that it could be made possible to allow folks to get domains, hosting and software that they control as easily as buying a toy on Amazon. Domains, DNS and hosting setup doesn't need to be hard - it's hard because no one has tried to change it.

I have to disagree. Dreamhost makes it very simple to register a domain and have WP installed. Wordpress.com makes it simpler still. How much simpler does it need to be? Everyone knows what WordPress is, I think people who entertain the idea of publishing are aware of their options now. The draw of social networks is that there is a low friction process -- facilitated by an interested party -- which makes it very eas…

Well, arguably it has to be as easy (and hip and fun and attractive) as signing up for Twitter.

Re: Your Words are Wasted

#14

Post by mgunes »

jessedhillon wrote: post #5
shanselman wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love this. Exactly. There's no reason we can't do this other than the will to do it. The social web could be open and distributed and web-like while still looking centralized like twitter.

It seems that you are disregarding the vast majority of Facebook/Google+/whatever users -- who still don't know how to, or don't want to setup their own domain and manage blogging software. Yet, they also want to have a place to put their voice out there. A system like the one that GP proposes, while it could be pretty awesome, would be limited to a very small, extremely homogenous population. It's not hard to see wh…

Here's a proposal/mockup from last year that illustrates how the setup part of the process could be made more understandable and convenient for the broader public: http://markmhendrickson.com/homesteading-on-the-indie-web

Re: Your Words are Wasted

#15

Post by grovulent »

shanselman wrote: post #7
grovulent wrote: post #4

I really don't get the all or nothing attitude of this article. I have a blog - and a facebook account and a g+ account. The blog gets my best content. But it's not easy to integrate a standalone blog into an existing social graph (social buttons notwithstanding). G+ gets my less well thought out rants - short stuff. It allows me to cheaply signal to like minded people and hopefully establish new readers/relationship…

I think we agree with "the blog gets my best content." I'm active (and it works) on all major networks. The tone of the article is intense only because I'll never put my best work on G+ for example, and I was surprised when Yegge did a 6 Yegge long article on G+ rather than his own site, even if he works for Google+.

well the title of the article is 'your words are wasted' - which is a bit hyperbolic if you agree with the diversification view. That title - along with the content that follows - seems to imply that it's a waste of time if it isn't going onto your own blog.

Don't get me wrong - I would love for there to be a decentralised social graph that allowed us to eat our cake and have it too. But that aint going to happen any time soon.

Re: Your Words are Wasted

#16

Post by mtkd »

shanselman wrote: post #3
thinkingisfun wrote: post #2

I think this bit from an older article sums it up nicely: http://www.the-haystack.com/2010/12/17/death-to-web-services... What if we flipped this all on its head? What if we hosted our own data, and provided APIs for all these webapps so that they can use our data? I can imagine that to be a substantially cool use of RDFa/Microformats and whatever metadata/semantic web technologies you prefer. Isn’t one of the points…

I love this. Exactly. There's no reason we can't do this other than the will to do it. The social web could be open and distributed and web-like while still looking centralized like twitter.

Isn't the issue that the 'walled gardens' would need to pull the data in? - what is the benefit for them to this?

Maybe app.net will be part of the solution, but I've not seen any promise from app.net to not be acquired.

The borg eventually acquire anything good with a user base, the result is mediocrity (see DejaNews).

Re: Your Words are Wasted

#17

Post by thinkingisfun »

jessedhillon wrote: post #5
shanselman wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love this. Exactly. There's no reason we can't do this other than the will to do it. The social web could be open and distributed and web-like while still looking centralized like twitter.

It seems that you are disregarding the vast majority of Facebook/Google+/whatever users -- who still don't know how to, or don't want to setup their own domain and manage blogging software. Yet, they also want to have a place to put their voice out there. A system like the one that GP proposes, while it could be pretty awesome, would be limited to a very small, extremely homogenous population. It's not hard to see wh…

A system like the one that GP proposes, while it could be pretty awesome, would be limited to a very small, extremely homogenous population

How so?

What makes "people who don't want to set up their own domain" homogenous compared to people who want to be first-class citizens of the internet?

Especially once the desire for that is there, it won't be hard to throw money together and run small nodes. Perfect strangers share apartments with each other, we figured that out, so once we realized we really do need webspace, and that it costs money and is complicated, respective services and culture will be established within months. Actually these services already exist for the most part, they just need to get with the OStatus program, and need to be used. Then you order your webspace, 1-click-install your "web presence", done.

And why "extremely small"? We don't even KNOW how many people are running diaspora/ostatus/etc. servers, and how many in total are signed up to them. There is no way, and no need, to count it. You just do what you always do, hold on to interesting people and projects as you run into them.

I don't know about you, but the internet was pretty cool even 10 years ago. I wouldn't mind a little small brother of the "renters social net", with the DIY peeps. Those are not homogenous by any means. They already outnumber Google+ users, I'm sure :P Also, you say "whatever" users - I take it "whatever" means "anything that isn't interoperable via open standards"?

You see, those people can do whatever they want, as far as I'm concerned. Do I listen to Gangsta Rap because X people do? NO.

Same goes for facebook etc. You want to be my cyberfriend, get your sh*t together. You want to read my stuff, or want me to read yours - don't be lazy, or it probably never really mattered in the first place. I don't mind staying in touch with RL friends who are lame when it comes to computers via facebook -- but that's not at all where my attention is, when it comes to the web. I have links on my profile, Every few months I get bored and respond or comment on random things; that's it.

Re: Your Words are Wasted

#18

Post by thinkingisfun »

grovulent wrote: post #4

I really don't get the all or nothing attitude of this article. I have a blog - and a facebook account and a g+ account. The blog gets my best content. But it's not easy to integrate a standalone blog into an existing social graph (social buttons notwithstanding). G+ gets my less well thought out rants - short stuff. It allows me to cheaply signal to like minded people and hopefully establish new readers/relationship…

But who is talking about "you shouldn't use [whatever]"? The crucial bit is owning and controlling your content - some people aren't thinking much about that. As you said, "The blog gets my best content.", so you're obviously aware of the pitfalls already.

Re: Your Words are Wasted

#19

Post by brandnewlow »

PStamatiou wrote: post #10

I could not agree more with Scott. I still have the hardest time trying to convince people to start a blog. "I don't have time to blog" "I don't know what I'd write about".. yet they end up posting lots of content casually on various social networks/forums. Perhaps blogging tools need to adapt to more short form uses and have posting interfaces that seem more accommodating rather than a massive empty textarea with to…

I think both of those objections only partially convey their real meaning.

"I don't have time to blog" = "The time it would take me to blog is worth more to me than the ROI I'd get from writing a blog."

and "I don't know what I'd write about" = "I don't know who'd be reading my blog so as to make it easy to know what to write about."

Facebook and Twitter address both objections by giving users a well-defined, sometimes really big audience.

The idea of writing stuff they think no one's going to read isn't very appetizing to most people.

Re: Your Words are Wasted

#20

Post by revorad »

shanselman wrote: post #6
jessedhillon wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems that you are disregarding the vast majority of Facebook/Google+/whatever users -- who still don't know how to, or don't want to setup their own domain and manage blogging software. Yet, they also want to have a place to put their voice out there. A system like the one that GP proposes, while it could be pretty awesome, would be limited to a very small, extremely homogenous population. It's not hard to see wh…

I would argue that it could be made possible to allow folks to get domains, hosting and software that they control as easily as buying a toy on Amazon. Domains, DNS and hosting setup doesn't need to be hard - it's hard because no one has tried to change it.

Weebly has actually done this already, but their main selling point is a website. The blog is just one of the components.
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