

A Year After Diaspora Another “Facebook Alternative” Emerges - tilt
http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/26/altly/

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SwellJoe
This seems to be nothing like Diaspora. Diaspora sought to free users from a
single entity owning and controlling their personal data. Altly seems to seek
to simply be another single entity with control of your personal data. I don't
see how that's a good thing for users.

I also doubt it'll be much of a threat to facebook...if your only argument is
that Coke has a Pepsi and Chevy has a Ford, you've got a pretty weak grasp of
how markets work. New colas pretty much never succeed; Pepsi and Coke were
strong regional brands that went national, and there has pretty much never
been a credible threat to that market from a new company. New car
manufacturers are practically impossible to build in the US (Tesla is the only
new car manufacturer of note in decades, and it remains to be seen how well it
will fare; Saturn doesn't count, as it's just a subsidiary of GM; AMC went
under after a long struggle). Markets, in general, don't care if there's
competition. Markets just insure that when a dominant player shows weaknesses,
someone steps into the gap. That's happened with facebook; there are many
social apps that tackle small bits of the problem (like Twitter). In order to
succeed, a direct competitor to facebook needs to find a chink in facebooks
armor and exploit it...not just assume that everyone will flock to an
"alternative to facebook" because it is an "alternative to facebook".

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esoteriq
Agreed 100% and I would just add this one point. Social networks are a winner-
take-all game. You're either dominant or nothing. Nobody wants to use a social
network with only 400 other people on it. That would defeat the whole purpose.
Of course, there are specific niches such as Twitter, but Twitter dominates
its niche.

In a way, social communication and network sites are anti-competitive.

~~~
dman
I think its rather early days to reach this conclusion. A social network is
just a network of people. In the real world small networks of like minded
people have often had a disproportionately large amount of utility. The one
thing for large social networks right now is that they provide a global
namespace of people which helps discoverability. But perhaps in the coming
years we shall see social networks emerge for vertical talents where
likeminded people can work productively (Mendeley etc come to mind). You could
arguably make the point that within each of these verticals a single player
will dominate.

~~~
esoteriq
Yes, I see where you're coming from. Let me refine my point. Niches will
probably get smaller and smaller. Facebook may lose market-power to smaller,
more focused networks. I'm just not sure if that will weaken Facebook to the
point that Facebook stops being "the" social network. Facebook is still the
ultimate place for global connectivity. Perhaps Facebook will remain Facebook,
but people will stop using it as their main social outlet.

Like you said, this could result in dominant players within a vertical space.
But, how large will these vertical spaces be? I don't know. If i knew, I'd be
a millionaire. (I'm not.)

Thanks for the mind candy though.

~~~
beza1e1
I wonder if Facebook could actually become too big. If everything i write into
Facebook will be read by friends, bosses, grandma, and father-in-law, i will
probably write nothing or only simple jokes. So there might be a point, where
everybody has a Facebook account, but nobody uses it anymore. This might be
counter by introducing more controls, but that complicates the interface.

~~~
Fuzzwah
There are privacy options on each post you make.

I do see that the point is that on facebook currently its not an intuitive and
simple process.

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zephjc
I hope they pick a new name before launch.

Not just because 1) it is a cliché -ly suffixed name, but because 2) "Alt"
doesn't tell the user what it does and 3) automatically puts its existence in
opposition to something (facebook in this case) instead of being bold and
claiming it is/will be the de facto social networking site.

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wmf
The founder's blog post says the name will be changed. I agree that it's
unwise to define yourself relative to a competitor.

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ziadbc
Facebook is an alternative social network to email. Real competition to
Facebook won't be 'the Pepsi to Facebook's coke.' Instead, it will probably be
something totally different that makes Facebook irrelevant, or at least
different enough that comparisons to Facebook are not relevant.

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privachi123
While we are at fb alternatives, here is one more that attempts at protecting
user privacy: Privachi. Privachi is a privacy-centric social network which
attempts at putting users back in control of their social data with a
combination of scattering user's data online so no one service provider knows
everything about the user, and "locking" user data in such a way that only the
user and her friends can "unlock" the data. Even Privachi will not be able to
"unlock" the data.

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yid
Not sure why you were downvoted. Your site is a little light on the details of
your encryption scheme, would you care to elaborate?

~~~
privachi123
Sure. Public/private keys for all users. Private key encrypted with a user's
pin that is not known to us, and encrypted private key stored on servers. All
of this happens at the user's browser. We don't don't have access to your
private keys, so, can't decrypt posts on the server.

~~~
michaelchisari
Until a user provides their pin, and you decrypt their private key. Then you
have the private key, although you may choose not to remember it.

This doesn't solve the privacy issues such as with Facebook and other
centralized servers, where you distrust the host as much as hackers or other
users.

 _EDIT_ : You may want to read this:

[http://wiki.appleseedproject.org/doku.php?id=future:encrypti...](http://wiki.appleseedproject.org/doku.php?id=future:encryption:client-
side_encryption)

~~~
privachi123
The decryption of private key happens in the user's browser, not on the
server. We still don't know user's decrypted private key on the server.

Thanks for the link.

~~~
privachi123
Nope. No plugin involved. Encryption/decryption carried out in JS. Storing it
on a particular browser will limit user's access to the service from any other
browser :)

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michaelchisari
Hmmm, again, that assumes trust of the host serving up the Javascript. I know
it may seem nit-picky, but it's not a concern that can be easily dismissed.

~~~
yid
At some point, you're going to have to trust software that someone else has
written. I understand that you see Appleseed as the solution, but it really
doesn't solve the problem of 99% of users downloading a binary that they
blindly run. When you're at that level, a Javascript file is as transparent
(if not more) than an Appleseed binary.

~~~
michaelchisari
I think you're missing the point, though. When you have a centralized site,
one of the problems that we've seen with Facebook is the issue of being "host-
safe". There's too much financial incentive to do something with that data,
and no other viable business model has been proposed. A site which promises to
solve Facebook's privacy issues can't make those promises while serving up
Javascript decryption code. It's too easy for the host to inject a simple line
of code which pulls the pin number and sends it back to the host, which can
then decrypt everything. They could do this with a single page load, and then
never do it again, so that you would have to catch the malfeasance that one
time. It's a case of misplaced trust, simply because things are "encrypted".

They could get around this via an open source browser plugin so that it can be
peer-reviewed, or (more desirably) the functionality can be integrated into
browsers via the HTML5 spec.

There's no such thing as an Appleseed binary, btw, it's written in a scripted
language.

~~~
yid
Your issue applies to any system that can pull executable code from the web
and dynamically execute it, including almost every scripting language. You
could pull the password before it hits the browser plugin. There is no remedy
to this under the circumstances -- not open source, not peer review, not SSL,
not distributed systems. You'd have to use a signed binary whose source you
had examined yourself, at the least. So even the distributed FOSS argument is
snake oil.

BTW, I'm not trying to imply that these guys have solved the problem -- there
are numerous problems, as you pointed out.

~~~
michaelchisari
You could pull the password, but you couldn't pull the private key from the
browser (or plugin). Encryption/decryption is done in the browser, and the
host server acts purely as a data store, incapable of doing anything with that
(encrypted) data. The trust question then gets moved from the host to the
browser.

Have you read the link I posted about how you could approach encryption at the
browser level?

Far from not solving the situation, I think they fall into the category of
"half-way encryption is worse than no encryption at all", and they don't seem
to understand the social concept of trust. As Jon Callas says, _"Encryption is
not magic pixie dust that makes everything okay."_

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troymc
In the USA, Facebook does indeed have the largest number of active users.

Outside the USA, there are serious competitors to Facebook, with larger user
numbers than Facebook. Examples: Vkontakte.ru in Russia and Renren in China.

Therefore it's possible, because it has been done already.

~~~
fastfinner
I think Facebook is highly used 1) in countries with the latin alphabet and 2)
by people who have friends/contacts in countries with latin alphabets.

That's the market Alty seems to be after and that's a lot more difficult to
conquer than making a facebook alternative for China or Russia.

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leftnode
I'm building an alternative to Facebook called Kwolla. You can install it on
your own machine or use our API. I'm bootstrapping the entire thing. You can
download my 1.x version of software for free or pay for a 2.0 pre-sale.

I wish I could get coverage like this. :)

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ColinWright
And yet you don't have a link to it in your profile, or link to it from your
comment. This doesn't inspire confidence.

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leftnode
Need to update my profile, didn't want to totally take over the thread with my
warez.

~~~
puredemo
Your warez? What is this network, some sort of pirated software from 1997?

~~~
leftnode
warez is pronounced "wares" and means your product or merchandise -
<http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/wares>

But no, I assure you I wrote every line of it :)

~~~
decode
You misspelled your word in the link. Using a z instead of s indicates the
software is cracked or pirated. <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/warez>

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dpcan
Altly? I hope that's not the final name.

For those who's native language is not English, this would be a REALLY hard
name to say.

P.S. The Altly.com home page has a Facebook Like Us button. Eh?

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vnorby
I worked with Dmitry while he was at Myspace, he definitely is very passionate
about competing with Facebook -- he was many times at odds with Myspace
leadership on the issue of whether to compete with them or carve our own niche
and embrace their platform (you can see who won that debate). I'm glad he's
finally fulfilling his vision.

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webjprgm
I wouldn't use an alternative simply because all my "friends" are on Facebook.
I don't want to run two social network accounts.

What you need in order to allow "competition" is to have some form of
interoperability. E.g. Twitter API allows lots of companies to write Twitter
apps. (Of course, now Twitter is trying to take control of all that.) E.g. how
in Apple's iChat you can use AOL Instant Messanger, Jabber, etc. and talk to
users of iChat or those other services. (I use Adium to put all my IMing in
one place, and that includes Facebook connectivity.)

So, if Altly can scrape Facebook so that by being an Altly user I can have
both Altly and Facebook friends in one interface, then I might consider using
it. (Still has to have a better interface and execution.)

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uast23
The world does not seem to be getting over the "Facebook alternative" syndrome
soon. Or in other words I should say that Facebook is being seriously
underestimated.

While it's absolutely right to try and build a better social network; calling
it a Facebook alternative is wrong. It's like calling Greplin and DuckDuckGo
an alternative to Google. Facebook has done way more than any other social
network till date. Don't we know about the Warner Bros. deal and didn't we
read the article about spotify+facebook on HN yesterday!! And what an amazing
achievement it has called as Facebook comments. No one has been able to find a
spot in as many major blogs and websites as Facebook comments has (and
Disqus). Not to deride anyone's effort, but it takes time to build a Facebook,
and replacing it ain't easy. I believe Internet is big enough to accommodate
more than one Facebook and its types.

EDIT: A little story. I live in India and it's known to everyone that most of
the marriages here are still arranged. One of my friends was getting arranged
recently and her mother wanted to see the picture of groom; and out of nowhere
she said "why don't we check it on Facebook". I am pretty sure she has never
used Internet before and probably never going to use it, but she knows what
purpose Facebook can solve. I say that is a huge impact for any website.

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ChuckFrank
After reading about Altly this morning, I thought carefully about Mr.
Shaprio's argument for a competing social / network site. And while I am
inclined to give Mr. Shapiro the benefit of my doubts, believing that he
likely has several cards secretly tucked up his sleeves, the argument that
every great brand needs an alternative brand has never really been a great way
to grow a product or service. In fact I often use the Coke/Pepsi argument as
exactly the opposite argument. Relying only on brand differentiation as Pepsi
has tried, will always result in massive marketing / advertising costs, and
little product or service differentiation. Instead of being a Pepsi to Coke, I
believe that new products or services need to create a new consumer
opportunity instead of simply a new package. So instead of thinking about Coke
v. Pepsi, Mr. Shapiro would do well to aspire to be either Red Bull, or
Snapple, or Odwalla, or any number of successful market changing adventures.
Either way, even persistent incremental improvements over a competitor is
better than simply ceding the space. Here's wishing him good luck.

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windsurfer
I love how the comments are powered by Facebook.

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roelbondoc
Anyone can build a Facebook alternative. There is no magic list of ingredients
that you'll be able to throw into a Facebook alternative that will compete
with Facebook. Just becuase you are focusing on what Facebook does not do well
won't give you something to be competitive with. From a high level
perspective, IMO, Facebook had very similar features as Friendster, MySpace
and a whole other slew of social networks.

You can't just build something for the sake of competition. It has to be grown
organically. People won't flock to your social network because it's better.
People are like sheep, and they need to be herded like so.

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puredemo
That has to be the dumbest name I've ever heard. Is this even supposed to be
serious?

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ansy
What about frid.ge? It seems to solve all the problems Altly has with
Facebook. And the execution seems fine aside from leaning heavily on the
refrigerator theme.

<http://frid.ge>

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jarin
Might as well reserve your username in case this takes off. Hilarious that the
first thing you get after reserving your username is a Facebook like button.

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michaelchisari
It doesn't seem to be open source, so I'm not sure about the point of the
comparison.

