Re:A protocol that can change the future of Social Networks
by awef on Friday January 04, 2013 @05:06PM
(#5010248)
I don't agree, to me he makes a lot of sense. I'd love for the social web to be more focused on the future and activities rather than that of an old photo album capturing the highlights of everyones oh so interesting lives.
I think your response to c) is somewhat over simplified, facebook is definitely not what I want but i still use it until what i actually want comes along and people start using that instead.
I have a LinkedIn and Twitter account, which are strictly used for professional purposes. No bitching, no moaning, very little swearing (if any). Separation of concerns. I think the fact that Facebook is a Social network would have given that away. I like the fact it is closed, I don't have followers and groups now allow me to target some of my posts. (The only thing FB is missing is Circles, that would allow me to truly separate out different groups of people).
a) it’s too easy to build: technologies or how easy something is to build plays no part in it's popularity, the end user really doesn't care and your average user doesn't know what that .php, .aspx or .js extension really actually means.
b) it has no (large scale) viable business model: It has a viable business model, possibly just not as large as the one the market has put on it, 2 different things in my opinion.
c) this is not what people want: clearly it is otherwise there wouldn't be a billion people using it. I want everything in one place, it's one of the reasons I visit HN, I don't want to go to several different specialist sites to keep up to date with my friends. It's also the same reason I don't use Google+, because I have 7 friends on there and even they hardly ever post anything. If I wanted somethinf very specialist then I would join a specialist forum. Only time I think this could be useful is when I am trying to meet new like minded people local to me - so I think your app nicely fills this gap.