
The Secret to Better Social Media? Fewer Friends - jkuria
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-secret-to-better-social-media-fewer-friends-1523376444
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illustrioussuit
This is one thing I think Google+ got right. I can have different types of
“friends”, each in their own categories, such as “sharaholic” or “meme poster”
and only visit those circles occasionally.

The only problem is the unpopularity of G+.

~~~
gaius
_such as “sharaholic” or “meme poster” and only visit those circles
occasionally._

But people don’t fit neatly into those categories. You’ll miss an important
life event from “meme boy” or “share girl” if you’ve filed them neatly away
like that. G+ is unpopular because their solution to organising your friends
is _worse_ than the competition.

~~~
KozmoNau7
People can be in multiple circles, it's like a Venn diagram of sorts.

~~~
gaius
_People can be in multiple circles_

Sure, but how would you classify Meme Boy in circles so that you don't see his
memes but you do see his important life events? Or Share Girl so you don't see
what she had for lunch but do see important things?

~~~
BeetleB
I think the way it would naturally work on G+ is that Meme Boy will use
circles this way. So if you get tired of his memes, you message him and ask
him to make a Meme Circle and not include you in it.

But really, if Meme Boy enjoys posting memes, he likely already will have a
Meme Circle. So you just ask him to remove you from the Meme Circle.

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fluxsauce
I've found that casual chatrooms with a small group of friends is pretty
effective at keeping in touch without the noise.

There are many common options like Slack, IRC, Keybase, and others. The
hardest choice is finding a technology folks can agree upon; convenience and
inertia go a long way towards maintaining a successful chatroom.

~~~
clusmore
Why can't email do this? Serious question, I've never understood why people
refuse to use email for chat. Everybody has email, we don't need to convince
people to adopt it or agree on a provider. It should be perfect, and yet for
some reason we don't use it for this. Does anybody have any thoughts on this?

~~~
bradbatt
Because so many other things come into email – marketing emails,
notifications, work-related emails, etc. that people don't check it as often.

Texting and other chat applications are instant.

Email used to be a more instantaneous thing, but it has evolved into something
that many people want to take a break from, so sending an email might mean
that the recipient doesn't see it for hours or days.

~~~
tonyarkles
Texting and chat applications being instant is a downside sometimes, in that
people have questions that they want an answer to, but won’t send an email
because of the reasons you listed. Instead they send you an instant message,
and the expectation is generally an instant response.

I’m trying really hard to get people to use email again for questions that
they need answered but not _immediately_. But I seem to be losing that battle.

~~~
stjohnswarts
This is why I treat IM at work the same as email. I show up as unavailable and
check a few times a day. If someone really needs me instantly they can come to
my cube.

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presidentender
Originally, I used facebook in some weird, dystopian and usually ineffective
courtship ritual. Then I used it to keep in touch with distant friends, which
is the stated use case, but actually isn't that interesting, but would have
been well-served by curating my friends list.

Lately, I moved to San Francisco and started doing stand-up comedy. Facebook
is the single best tool for self-promotion and for finding out where good open
mics and shows are. Both goals are served by adding randomly every single
person I meet, not by curating my list.

~~~
joncrane
How's your stand-up career going?

~~~
presidentender
It's in its infancy. I've done one showcase, but mostly just open mics.

I realize the above comment may have implied that comedy is my job - it's not,
but it's the primary appeal Facebook has for me now.

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neonate
[http://archive.is/Z7uIq](http://archive.is/Z7uIq)

~~~
NetOpWibby
Blessed be

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simonsarris
Private slacks, private google groups, private and close knit email lists will
always make for better sharing and discussion. I suppose by their nature
they're much smaller too.

The one thing social media _could_ do very well that these cannot, but still
consistently fails at, for some reason, is discovery. How do I find the other
literati nearby? How do I know who the next great addition to the secret slack
might be?

~~~
u801e
> Private slacks, private google groups, private and close knit email lists
> will always make for better sharing and discussion.

I found the same thing on usenet years ago, and it was much more discoverable
compared to the private options you mention. But I did need to use some degree
of client side filtering to handle the junk that would be posted.

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IIAOPSW
Its true. I have no friends on hn and hn is my best "social media"

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goatherders
There have been apps in the past that limit friends. I've thought a bout a 2
person network for you and your partner as well as one with maybe 20 friends.
As well as one where you only see updates from friends who include you in
their 20 as well. But it breaks the financial model of running targeted ads so
it wont work.

~~~
firasd
I've thought a WhatsApp equivalent for just families or even for specific
events (like a wedding) would be cool. In addition to the regular chat window,
there would be shared photos and so on.

But I think the challenge is not the financial model, the problem is
product/market fit. Path (founded by a former FB exec) tried for a few years
to create an intimate social network but couldn't retain enough users to make
the biz work.

~~~
dindumuffin
Path, Peach, Vero, Ello, I don't think we need another one to remind everybody
that "intimate social networks" are a failed experiment. If someone wants to
communicate within a small group, they are inclined to use group chat. Forget
monetizing, first it's difficult to get users to stay on these platforms
because:

1\. Even if you get amazing press and hype, the churn rate can exceed your
growth rate due to how limited the network effect is e.g. Peach and Vero.

2\. People can already choose to unfollow celebrities and limit their friend
groups on any existing social platform. It's simply a matter of willpower or
creating an alternate account ala how "Finstagrams".

3\. Celebrities and influencers are what drives growth to a platform. Donald
brought Twitter tens of millions of new users. Hundreds of millions of guys
use Instagram just to follow bikini models etc

~~~
qznc
There is no need to start as a social app. You could start as a to-do app. For
example, if Todoist would add a persistent group chat to shared lists, it
might replace the WhatsApp conversations with my wife.

There are apps that are used in intimate settings. They can be made "social".

~~~
fwn
I think it's very dangerous to add social to a non-social service.

Evernote tried adding a chat functionality they, for some reason, named "work
chat".

No other Evernote user I know wasn't hostile towards this feature.

~~~
qznc
It is not intuitive to me why that would be bad. Care to elaborate?

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remarkEon
Ehh I’m not convinced. I deleted my Facebook a long time ago (hard delete, not
just a deactivation) and I’ve managed to replicate the same value I got from
Facebook in Slacks and Discords - except it’s just stuff I want, and people I
want to hear from. When some congressmen asked Zuckerberg about monopoly, I
thought this: I actually think there are plenty of alternatives. I derive _a
lot_ more value from the Slack channels I’m on with friends who are now
lawyers or tech gurus or thinking about doing a startup...and none of it is
interrupted by ads or annoying posts from my parents and their friends. If the
point here is “delete most of your ‘friends’” then why keep Facebook at all?

~~~
sdrothrock
> except it’s just stuff I want, and people I want to hear from.

Part of the value of Facebook for me is the opposite of this -- stuff I don't
want, sometimes from people I don't want to hear from. It pops the bubble
(which I'm VERY much covered by as an expat in Japan) and keeps my mind
flexible while reminding me that other people think/believe different things,
usually for reasons that make a lot of sense to them.

Yes, I think a concentrated community like a Slack channel is a great way to
stay in touch with people, but it's usually so ultra-focused that when I focus
on communities like that, I can really see/feel my worldview and perspective
narrowing to the one I use every day for communicating with them.

~~~
remarkEon
I agree with you, that concentrating your worldview can become a problem. But
at least now I’m doing it intentionally, and I don’t have Facebook’s algorithm
doing it for me. Or, in the opposite, exposing me to things I don’t like just
to get me to engage with it.

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IshKebab
It would also help if Facebook let you hide shit content - shared posts, tags,
memories etc. But noooo you can only "see less of this" which doesn't really
do anything.

I just ruthlessly unfollow people now. And ignore Facebook - WhatsApp has
effectively replaced it.

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jph
Many tech people want a better social network plan.

I'm asking for opinions and advice here:

[https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/social_network_plan](https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/social_network_plan)

The repo looks at issues of purpose, funding, audience, identity, topology,
implementation, a MVP, and more.

~~~
remir
As alternative to Fb, there's MeWe and Vero. Both of them will not display ads
and mine user info.

~~~
fwn
Unless they gain traction. Which is the time they will start monetizing their
users.

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petercooper
I've unfollowed most real people on Facebook as it's all about the interest or
location-oriented groups for me rather than pictures of people's kids or
vacations. It's so much better this way.

~~~
collyw
So the accounts most likely to target you with ads? Sounds great!

~~~
petercooper
No. Facebook groups are different to "pages" which do target you. They're
relatively open, free for all discussion areas, a little akin to newsgroups
back in the day if you're on the right ones.

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BeetleB
I'm way ahead of everyone. I'm on Diaspora, and I have 0 friends.

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swayvil
We might stretch that to

The secret to better politics : fewer citizens.

Which is a little bleak.

~~~
sp527
Fewer ignorant citizens*

If you keep the ignorance distribution stable, then nothing changes.

~~~
swayvil
My point is, a smaller system is a more easily managed system for everybody
involved.

You don't even need to "educate" them. It might be enough to judge a
prospective leader's character.

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mter
The secret isn't fewer friends, it's only having actual friends on social
media and not following/friending random people.

My facebook feed is usually things I care about as a result. Except for 1 guy,
who is a great guy but I don't need to see another sad dog who needs a home or
missing child article.

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riantogo
How many are few? Because messaging apps work that way (chat groups) and most
groups with over ~10 people is a tsunami of terrible jokes and fake news. What
works though is creating temporary groups around events (trips, concerts etc.)

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GSimon
Create a new Facebook and just add the people you've talked to recently and
get message notifications from your old account sent to your e-mail. It's like
getting a new phone number and only informing recent contacts.

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naskwo
I think that ephemeral WhatsApp groups add a lot of value here. <plug> And if
you'd like persistent, private photo/video sharing, a site like
www.famipix.com fits the bill.</end plug)

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textmode
"Social _network_ " vs "Social _media_ "

It is arguable that the primary purpose of Facebook originally was to allow
two friends to communicate over a third person's website. There was no "news
feed".

Is this a "social network" or is it "social media"?

Later the website became a means to broadcast "news".

Is it a "social network" or is it "social media"?

Later the website became a means for third parties other than Facebook to
broadcast advertisements to specific users of the "network".

Is it a "social network" or is it "social media"?

Why might this distinction matter?

This is a quote from Van Jacobsen's 30 August 2006 tech talk entitled "A new
way to think about networking":

"The raison d'etre of today's networking, both circuit switched and TCP/IP, is
to allow two machines to have a conversation.

The overwhelming use (>99% by most measurements) of today's networks is for a
machine to acquire named chunks of data (like webpages or email messages).

Acquiring named chunks of data is not a conversation, it's a _dissemination_
(the computer equivalent of "Does anybody have the time?")"

What is Facebook?

Is it particular communications between two friends? Is it a "network"?

Is it _dissemination_? Is it "media"?

Is it both?

Does Facebook _communication between friends_ upset the traditional media?
Does it "threaten democracy"?

Does Facebook _dissemination_ upset the traditional media? Does it "threaten
democracy"?

The tech talk cited above discusses why in the case of dissemination the
_data_ matters, not the supplier.

In the case of dissemination it is desirable that data being disseminated must
be trustworthy. Once this is achieved it should not matter the source from
which the reader obtains it (whether via a Facebook page being surveilled by
Facebook, or via some random address elsewhere on the internet).

The talk describes how this might be accomplished.

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ghostcluster
aka private group chats

