my faith is that there will be a revival for this internet just like vinyl. I I dream it will be very based on physical location. Kind of a mix of mastodon with localwiki.
The Internet I Knew (2014)
41–50 of 122 posts
Re: The Internet I Knew (2014)
#42I recall being a bit confused about the terms, "social web," and "social network" when they were beginning to be bandied about to discuss Flickr and Facebook et al. The Internet was already a social network. You had irc, nntp, http, ftp, etc etc... communication protocols. For communicating with other humans. The only thing Facebook did, in my experience, was make the web anti-social . I distinctly recall when my gro…
It's absolutely hearbreaking to see the independence, critical thinking and self-determination that Western society has been building up since the Enlightenment, weakening under the forces of big data and targeted advertising. Communication should be open, profit should not be involved in discourse, and advertising should not corrode conversation. Viva la revolucion! www.hellolyra.com/introduction
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Re: The Internet I Knew (2014)
#43I recall being a bit confused about the terms, "social web," and "social network" when they were beginning to be bandied about to discuss Flickr and Facebook et al. The Internet was already a social network. You had irc, nntp, http, ftp, etc etc... communication protocols. For communicating with other humans. The only thing Facebook did, in my experience, was make the web anti-social . I distinctly recall when my gro…
> Most of these web services made quite a lot of interesting innovations and such but I can't help but wonder what the web would've been like if we'd stayed true to its roots and improved the protocols and infrastructure instead of centralizing everything behind walled gardens. In my view, we should let academia develop the protocols, and let companies deliver the basic tools (such as hardware). This makes sure that…
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Re: The Internet I Knew (2014)
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
But why does all the free and open stuff look so bad. I mean seriously, Lyra is in dire need for someone with a UX/UI background to join their team.
As a nonprofit, we operate on grants and revenue alone, not investment. We'd love to hear some specific feedback on what you think could be improved about our UI :) We also think we're not doing too badly compared to Reddit and Hacker News!
If you’re trying to be a new alternative to Big Social, you should aim to be better or at the very least more interesting than the competition. There’s no way your network can be THE network for all people but you’ve gotta get them in the door. Good design goes a long way, the bare minimum is MEH.
Re: The Internet I Knew (2014)
#45I think a more fair view of the term social media should be as a marketing term? When these tech giants were growing they needed a name to refer to them as a whole, but that name reflected what they wanted those services to be viewed as, not the effects they came to have. We see this everywhere in how labelling of things appeal to some of our inner desires -- in this case the need of social interactions -- and not necessarily accurately describing their effects.
I think the main reason these services exist at all is not to create social mediums but to tap into the flows of human communication for profit. And, since their version of communication is, in the true social aspect, an incredibly crippling one compared to the rich, immersive experience of more old ways of interacting -- no wonder we can be left with a deeply dissatisfying feeling when use social media services.
Re: The Internet I Knew (2014)
#46One of the biggest differences in my mind between the Internet described in the article and the social networks of today (at least for me) is the forums and IRC channels I frequented were filled with people who genuinely enjoyed talking to one another and even cared for one another. I still have friends 15 years later that I’ve never met and so many great memories. I can’t say the same for FB or Twitter.
And the “heart of a sysadmin” statement hit so close to home.
Re: The Internet I Knew (2014)
#47call me nostalgic, but i refuse to let go of that internet. There are plenty of alternatives that dont get a multi billion dollar TV ad blitz, and theyre worth checking out https://freenode.net for a classic IRC experience, free of charge. https://mastodon.social/about for a distributed open source twitter-like experience https://diasporafoundation.org/ for an alternative to facebook that respects your privacy.
I maintain to this day a personal IRC network. Many of us have been “together” for over a decade. In fact I just tried to advocate self-hosted communities at CCC. So I’m also stuck in the past and refuse to let the internet go. But I have two points I’d like to mention. 1) Forums are dead for almost all but the biggest communities that surround a product of some kind. Social forums are simply dead. 2) As an IRC-user…
> 1) Forums are dead for almost all but the biggest communities that surround a product of some kind. Social forums are simply dead.
The Something Awful forums are still pretty lively. The community may not 'click' for everyone, but some of the smaller subforums especially are very welcoming and fun places (like Automotive Insanity, the subforum where people post about their car projects and project cars)
Re: The Internet I Knew (2014)
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
With regards to mastodon, there's at least one hosting service specifically for it already ( https://masto.host ), and people who don't know that much about the Linux command line/etc have set up their own instances using it.
I know it's hard to see it this way when one is into tech, but many of my non-tech friends (artists, philosophers, retail...) would balk at this. We believe using a communication tool needs to be as easy as entering a URL and logging in - friendly, familiar, no new terminology.
Sorry, but that doesn't fly in a technocracy. Oh well, just bow before the Google/Amazon/Facebook/Apple overlords
Re: The Internet I Knew (2014)
#49Our team (mostly cognitive scientists and engineers) is nostalgic about the past of online communication and concerned about its future. Our platform, Lyra, provides support for effective conversations rather than social networking and advertising. You can read our history of online convesation - and more about our approach - here: www.hellolyra.com/introduction
But why does all the free and open stuff look so bad. I mean seriously, Lyra is in dire need for someone with a UX/UI background to join their team.
Money presumably. It's a lot easier to get a good design for your site or app if you have a decent amount of money to pay professional designers. Which most open source foundations and charitable organisations don't have.
Edit: Though I guess it could also be because a lot of alternative software and services are created by people with a 'hacker' or 'programmer' mindset, where very little attention is paid to the UX and everything is focused on the features/tech stack. They're the same people who seem to think IRC, email lists and newsgroups have decent UI.
Re: The Internet I Knew (2014)
#50I recall being a bit confused about the terms, "social web," and "social network" when they were beginning to be bandied about to discuss Flickr and Facebook et al. The Internet was already a social network. You had irc, nntp, http, ftp, etc etc... communication protocols. For communicating with other humans. The only thing Facebook did, in my experience, was make the web anti-social . I distinctly recall when my gro…
I only recently cut the cord myself, my thoughts on it https://gaiustech.wordpress.com/2017/12/29/less-facebook-mor...