51–60 of 65 posts
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Look back at Hacker News in twenty years. You'll see whole threads full of comments that are so specifically wrong it looks like a parody :)
That implies that Hacker News will be around in 20 years. Newsweek will be (in some format or another).
A little context on the author is in order. His name is Clifford Stoll and he was a physicist and early Internet user. He wrote the book "The Cuckoo's Egg" which should be required reading for all sys-admins. In the mid-90s, he saw the Internet as something akin to Fahrenheit 451 and began preaching how it would tear us apart as a society. To that end, he wrote Silicon Snake Oil and articles like this one, which comb…
Although most of what he said has been easily addressed in the last 20 years, one thing lingers. And it’s not because we can’t solve it, but the VC model has prioritized ads instead, and for whatever reason, social networking hasn’t had any good OPEN SOURCE platforms. My guess is because they would have to work across websites, and very few standards too off. What's missing from this electronic wonderland? Human cont…
Your site has some auto-playing video below the fold and a spinning GIF of a globe from 1995. It's cluttered, noisy, and unclear. There is no point of focus. I can't get as far as figuring out what sets it apart or makes it better because I had to close the page. Compare this to Mastodon--which you dismissed with all other open source social networks--where the project lead thinks hard and openly about the accessibil…
Where is Mastodon today? What are its stats?
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Your site has some auto-playing video below the fold and a spinning GIF of a globe from 1995. It's cluttered, noisy, and unclear. There is no point of focus. I can't get as far as figuring out what sets it apart or makes it better because I had to close the page. Compare this to Mastodon--which you dismissed with all other open source social networks--where the project lead thinks hard and openly about the accessibil…
Thank you for your feedback. What operating system and browser do you use that the video autoplays? It’s not supposed to. And the globe - if you click it - is a visualization of 5 million people actually using our product. Where is Mastodon today? What are its stats?
Latest Firefox and Windows 10.
>> "Where is Mastodon today? What are its stats?"
This is the wrong question before you ask about the goals of the platform and its users. Stats only let you compare it against something it might have no interest in being.
Your dismissal of it and other open source efforts is likely due to a goal mismatch. The fact that you spent so much money on it tells me you're probably aiming at a Twitter competitor.
I don't care about Twitter and its goals. I care about what Mastodon is and what I already do with it. It's self-funding and community supported. There are plenty of people on it, and it's still growing. It seems like someone's making a new thing with ActivityPub every month that I can interact with from my Mastodon account. That's all that matters to me, and seems to be enough for most of the people on it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you for your feedback. What operating system and browser do you use that the video autoplays? It’s not supposed to. And the globe - if you click it - is a visualization of 5 million people actually using our product. Where is Mastodon today? What are its stats?
>> "What operating system and browser do you use that the video autoplays?" Latest Firefox and Windows 10. >> "Where is Mastodon today? What are its stats?" This is the wrong question before you ask about the goals of the platform and its users. Stats only let you compare it against something it might have no interest in being. Your dismissal of it and other open source efforts is likely due to a goal mismatch. The f…
What we built is a GENERAL PURPOSE OPEN SOURCE SOCIAL APP PLATFORM.
Like Wordpress but for collaboration.
The goal is total reusability. You release an app for your community and install some plugins for various functionality. Then you throw some “tools” on “pages”. Apply styles. And you’re done. Your app works on the web on every device, can be released in app stores, integrates with notifications, contacts, etc. out of the box.
What sort of “tools” can you have in your apps? Well here is just a sample:
Chatroom
Chess game
Collaborative documents
Blogging
Group rides
Events and checkins
Role based access control integrated with contacts
Invites
Realtime updates
Offline notifications
Relations and indexing
And more. We provide a standard interface for people to basically collaborate with one another, and do it across domains too. Meanwhile developers can add new types of “streams” and “tools” for app developers and also startups can package and sell various apps to communities. Everyone can re-use code. Did you see the video?
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> Liquid and online democracy has failed, we are in an age of autocrats that have weaponized online propaganda and misinformation to directly reach their voters. Give society a little time to react, this has only been a talking point for one election so far.
I would argue three elections (Obama x 2). No campaign mobilized like Obama's before him. And it was widely hailed in part to staffers who were able to leverage the web and tap the base, and new eyes, using social media. Love him or hate him - his campaign was full of misinformation, and one can point to his platform on, and comments about, the intelligence agencies of this country as a prime example.
Out of the last few presidents one especially comes to mind when thinking about profiteers of misinformation.
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>> "What operating system and browser do you use that the video autoplays?" Latest Firefox and Windows 10. >> "Where is Mastodon today? What are its stats?" This is the wrong question before you ask about the goals of the platform and its users. Stats only let you compare it against something it might have no interest in being. Your dismissal of it and other open source efforts is likely due to a goal mismatch. The f…
Not aiming at a Twitter competitor at all. If we wanted that, we’d be done in like 3-6 months. What we built is a GENERAL PURPOSE OPEN SOURCE SOCIAL APP PLATFORM. Like Wordpress but for collaboration. The goal is total reusability. You release an app for your community and install some plugins for various functionality. Then you throw some “tools” on “pages”. Apply styles. And you’re done. Your app works on the web o…
No one's investing or expecting a return on a million dollars in investment with it. It's already a W3C standard. One popular piece of software (which you dismissed) supports it. Other promising attempts like Plume (blogging), Pixelfed (image sharing), and Aardwolf (Facebook-like) are in development. They're already revenue neutral (or better) from the Patreons and Liberapays that provide their funding.
From that perspective, your thing is just another closed-off ecosystem that doesn't talk to any other. Open source is not sufficient when we're talking about social media software. My new social graph is growing, and it's not dependent on someone expecting an ROI.
I understand you started this project before ActivityPub was a thing, and before anyone took federated social media seriously. But that's the hazard with starting early: sometimes something comes along and forces you to change how you think.
You missed the boat, and you don't realize it because you're busy building a yacht that holds smaller yachts. It's a nice yacht, but I like the growing network of party barges I'm on.
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Not aiming at a Twitter competitor at all. If we wanted that, we’d be done in like 3-6 months. What we built is a GENERAL PURPOSE OPEN SOURCE SOCIAL APP PLATFORM. Like Wordpress but for collaboration. The goal is total reusability. You release an app for your community and install some plugins for various functionality. Then you throw some “tools” on “pages”. Apply styles. And you’re done. Your app works on the web o…
While I have no specific affinity for ActivityPub as a protocol, I do like a lot of the software being built on it and enjoy being able to follow people on them from my Mastodon account. No one's investing or expecting a return on a million dollars in investment with it. It's already a W3C standard. One popular piece of software (which you dismissed) supports it. Other promising attempts like Plume (blogging), Pixelf…
oAuth was pioneered by Twitter and took off BECAUSE they had clout. I have seen FOAF, Personas and tons of other things fall by the wayside without adoption.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I have no specific affinity for ActivityPub as a protocol, I do like a lot of the software being built on it and enjoy being able to follow people on them from my Mastodon account. No one's investing or expecting a return on a million dollars in investment with it. It's already a W3C standard. One popular piece of software (which you dismissed) supports it. Other promising attempts like Plume (blogging), Pixelf…
You can like it, but I know that protocols are driven by large commercial projects, not the other way around. oAuth was pioneered by Twitter and took off BECAUSE they had clout. I have seen FOAF, Personas and tons of other things fall by the wayside without adoption.
No matter how popular your protocol gets, it's still your protocol. I have no interest in it. I can go back to Twitter if I want to have my social connections locked into someone else's platform.
I have been burned by enough companies that play up open source and development ecosystems, then close up when it's no longer convenient. Your own example of Twitter was built on developers making tools for it. Who makes apps for Twitter now but marketing companies? Virtually no one.