The Web We Lost • Hacker News Board

Re: The Web We Lost

#21

Post by derefr » Thu, Dec 13, 2012, 9:48 PM UTC

roc wrote: post #15

smacktoward wrote: post #4

I agree with Anil 110% that the Web he's talking about was, in many, many ways, a Better Web than the one we have today. The problem is that it's worse than the one we have today in the only way that most people care about: it's harder. To participate, it expected you to know how to do a bunch of things that seem trivial to tech folks but frighteningly complicated to everybody else. You had to buy a domain. You had t…

What about Wordpress? (snark about technical messes aside) It's as easy as it can possibly be to get a hosted blog up and running -- even with your own domain -- via their forms. But, unlike Facebook, if you don't like their service, or need more, or don't like some ToS change or version 'update', you can wrap it up with a bow and take it elsewhere. And businesses exist that will even make that as easy as filling out…

Also, Blogger, the service that the link in the paragraph "... publishing tools that epitomized all of these traits..." was referring to. Or, more modernly, Tumblr. These are all sites that give you your own [sub]domain, where you make the rules and you control (almost) all the data, and where, even if there are other mechanisms for connecting things together, you can still just pull an RSS feed of all the relevant content and mash up whatever you like.

Re: The Web We Lost

#22

Post by jamesmcn » Thu, Dec 13, 2012, 9:48 PM UTC

anildash wrote: post #11

untog wrote: post #6

Funny that he says all this then has a Facebook comments box at the bottom of the page. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with that IMO- people are far more likely to have their real names on Facebook, and thus leave sensible comments rather than total drivel. But it makes a point that he doesn't include in the article- sometimes these centralised information stores can be useful.

I think I did mention that in the piece, but I deliberately keep the Facebook comments even on articles where I'm critical of Facebook to show that I'm not some extremist zealot. I'm just a normal person who happens to love the web.

I'd like to meet someone who thinks you are an extremist zealot.

Wait, no I don't. I really don't.

Re: The Web We Lost

#23

Post by graue » Thu, Dec 13, 2012, 9:49 PM UTC

10098 wrote: post #9

Maybe I have changed, or maybe the Internet has changed, but I used to meet people on the internet. I used to make friends online, and some of these friendships gradually mutated into "offline" friendships. There used to be message boards, IRC and web chats where people would talk, form groups, become friends or enemies. People used to have blogs on livejournal or other services, some were trying to create content, w…

That might be more you who's changed. I've made friends via Hacker News, and I believe it's fairly common for heavy Twitter or Tumblr users to meet people that way, too. This article[1] (long) discusses how the same phenomenon happened on Google Reader until its social features were removed a year ago.

1. http://www.buzzfeed.com/robf4/googles-lost-social-network

Re: The Web We Lost

#24

Post by theorique » Thu, Dec 13, 2012, 9:49 PM UTC

10098 wrote: post #9

Maybe I have changed, or maybe the Internet has changed, but I used to meet people on the internet. I used to make friends online, and some of these friendships gradually mutated into "offline" friendships. There used to be message boards, IRC and web chats where people would talk, form groups, become friends or enemies. People used to have blogs on livejournal or other services, some were trying to create content, w…

I still do this on facebook and other social sites. Talking with people online based on groups of common interest, I've made geographically dispersed friends.

Granted, it is probably different from the way it was done in the past, but it is still possible.

Re: The Web We Lost

#25

Post by smacktoward » Thu, Dec 13, 2012, 9:49 PM UTC

elsurudo wrote: post #14

smacktoward wrote: post #4

I agree with Anil 110% that the Web he's talking about was, in many, many ways, a Better Web than the one we have today. The problem is that it's worse than the one we have today in the only way that most people care about: it's harder. To participate, it expected you to know how to do a bunch of things that seem trivial to tech folks but frighteningly complicated to everybody else. You had to buy a domain. You had t…

I agree with your broader point, so I don't mean to nitpick but: the majority (maybe all? I'm not sure nowadays) of iTunes track are DRM-free.

I knew someone was going to pick this nit :-D I just feared overloading an already-herniated comment with additional verbiage. Sorry about that.

For the record: yes, if you buy a track from the iTunes Music Store today, it is most likely DRM-free. However, people who have been active ITMS customers over the years are likely to have purchased at least some DRM-encumbered tracks before Apple moved away from DRM.

Re: The Web We Lost

#26

Post by dfxm12 » Thu, Dec 13, 2012, 9:50 PM UTC

10098 wrote: post #9

Maybe I have changed, or maybe the Internet has changed, but I used to meet people on the internet. I used to make friends online, and some of these friendships gradually mutated into "offline" friendships. There used to be message boards, IRC and web chats where people would talk, form groups, become friends or enemies. People used to have blogs on livejournal or other services, some were trying to create content, w…

We didn't lose that part of the web, the signal to noise ratio just gets weaker and weaker as time goes on (for various reasons).

Re: The Web We Lost

#27

Post by smacktoward » Thu, Dec 13, 2012, 9:52 PM UTC

roc wrote: post #15

smacktoward wrote: post #4

I agree with Anil 110% that the Web he's talking about was, in many, many ways, a Better Web than the one we have today. The problem is that it's worse than the one we have today in the only way that most people care about: it's harder. To participate, it expected you to know how to do a bunch of things that seem trivial to tech folks but frighteningly complicated to everybody else. You had to buy a domain. You had t…

What about Wordpress? (snark about technical messes aside) It's as easy as it can possibly be to get a hosted blog up and running -- even with your own domain -- via their forms. But, unlike Facebook, if you don't like their service, or need more, or don't like some ToS change or version 'update', you can wrap it up with a bow and take it elsewhere. And businesses exist that will even make that as easy as filling out…

WordPress is actually a good example. There's the self-hosted software distributed at WordPress.org, which works in the Web 2000 fashion (here's some software, figure the rest out yourself). And there's the hosted service at WordPress.com, which works in the walled-garden fashion (though with liberal allowances for things like getting at your data, which is nice).

Lots of people run their own WordPress installations, but very, very few of them manage to do it well -- properly locking the software down, keeping the core and plugins up to date with security patches, putting the admin area behind SSL, etc. Which is why there's so many hacked WordPress sites out there.

Re: The Web We Lost

#28

Post by kjackson2012 » Thu, Dec 13, 2012, 9:54 PM UTC

agentultra wrote: post #16

I think it's rather funny when people talk about the, "social web." Before the social graph, technorati, and flickr there were newsgroups, email lists, HTTP, IRC, etc. The Internet itself is a social tool. Perhaps the term refers to some epoch of which I am not aware but it seems to me from a big-picture perspective that we've only narrowly improved the experience since Eternal September. The "walled garden" networks…

I think it's different now than before because almost everyone is comfortable with the idea of communicating over the Internet. I used to IRC and MUD and the types of people that engaged in those activities were, for lack of a better term, more nerdy, like me. Back in the 1990s, people still weren't used to sitting in front of their computers all day long, because there largely wasn't anything to do with a non-networked computer. You could play games, or you could be writing an essay or a report, but there wasn't much else that could keep you engaged for hours upon hours, unlike today.

People used to spend more of their time talking on the phone or watching TV, or socializing. But having computers online all the time has turned it truly into a "social web".

Re: The Web We Lost

#29

Post by IheartApplesDix » Thu, Dec 13, 2012, 9:54 PM UTC

shiftpgdn wrote: post #17

majormajor wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly prefer the web of today to the web of ten years ago because those barriers to entry prevented most people from doing all the cool stuff Anil talks about. So it was possible to have all those better connections, but it didn't happen much. One way or another, services would've arised that would've tied it all together for the non-technical. I don't think we lost anything more than a potential to have a "bett…

I miss the barrier to entry that we used to have. I know this might be a narrowminded view but that barrier to entry prevented a lot of the drivel that we see on the internet today. In the 90s and early 2000s if you wanted to put something online you had to have at least a moderate level of technical aptitude. Compare that to today's nonstop garbage fountain of ignorance on sites like tumblr, twitter and facebook.

That's all part of bringing the rest humanity up to speed. At least now we don't have to do it face to face with people we'd rather not see (or rather, smell). Every time you see something stupid on the web, you should realize that is a place where education and other social institutions failed.

Re: The Web We Lost

#30

Post by graue » Thu, Dec 13, 2012, 9:56 PM UTC

derefr wrote: post #21

roc wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about Wordpress? (snark about technical messes aside) It's as easy as it can possibly be to get a hosted blog up and running -- even with your own domain -- via their forms. But, unlike Facebook, if you don't like their service, or need more, or don't like some ToS change or version 'update', you can wrap it up with a bow and take it elsewhere. And businesses exist that will even make that as easy as filling out…

Also, Blogger, the service that the link in the paragraph "... publishing tools that epitomized all of these traits..." was referring to. Or, more modernly, Tumblr. These are all sites that give you your own [sub]domain, where you make the rules and you control (almost) all the data, and where, even if there are other mechanisms for connecting things together, you can still just pull an RSS feed of all the relevant c…

I wasn't aware that Tumblr had an export function, and it looks like, officially, it doesn't[1]. There is a third-party migration tool to WordPress[2], but that's about all I can find. So unfortunately, not all is roses.

It would be nice if there were a standard format for storing blog posts and their metadata and attachments, so you could move from anything to anything. Perhaps the nascent Tent protocol[3] could do that when it's mature.

1. http://smarterware.org/8026/why-not-tumblr

2. http://tumblr2wordpress.benapps.net/

3. https://tent.io