Re:Show HN: A decentralized social network with end-to-end e...
by eellpp on Saturday January 09, 2016 @04:16AM
(#10870613)
Its a big leap to jump from a centralised social network to a truly distributed self hosted network. The missing link seems to be the semi-central ones, like having few central hosts which allow users to flow between them. Get the protocol to evolve and user adoption to happen on this and subsequently allow anyone to plugin their self hosted server, if they want to and still allow full network discovery across the hosts all over world.
Re:Show HN: A decentralized social network with end-to-end e...
by jaywink on Saturday January 09, 2016 @02:31PM
(#10872487)
diaspora* and Friendica have a combined 80K active users, at least: http://the-federation.info
To launch something like this, you need to figure out some way to get a user base, a user base that people will want to connect with. Something like
- Ivy League students (hey, it worked for Facebook.)
- VC, angels, investors, and startup CEOs. (They might like something with more security, especially since they might be planning to take a bite out of Facebook or Google.)
- Political groups, where there are communities of fund-raisers and lobbyists, people trying to get things done together and concerned with others not listening in.
Consider targeting groups that involve people working together to do something. They need to-do lists, spreadsheets, scheduling tools, and other collaboration support. Basically Box.net's feature set, but without Box, Inc.