

Tim Berners-Lee says Facebook is a trap - greenlblue
http://news.bioscholar.com/2010/11/web-founder-says-facebook-is-a-trap.html

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SimonPStevens
Here's what I use instead of Facebook:

 _Google calendar for events_ \- Anyone with any email address can be invited
to an event. Google calendar also emails out standard format .ics files with
it's invites so participants are free to use whatever calendar app they choose
and just import the ics files. (This also hooks up nicely with my android
calendar). I'm looking forward to when everyone on Facebook gets an @facebook
email address and then I'm going to start sending them all Google calendar
invites ;-) Seriously, I think Google calendar is a seriously under recognised
service.

 _Twitter for a news feed equivalent_ \- You don't need an account to read so
it is open enough. (There is also status.net or identi.ca if you want even
more openness). I embed a feed of the most recent posts in my webpage. If you
want to subscribe, you can use RSS so you don't have to use twitter to follow
me.

 _Photos_ \- I use a combination of FlickR and my own custom image gallery on
my website. On FlickR you can set the photos to be public so viewers don't
need to have an account.

 _Messages_ \- Obviously I just use email.

When I meet people I want to connect with, I ask for their email address
rather than ask if they are on Facebook. I occasionally use Facebook to find
people and then ask for their email address via Fb message.

I can't think of anything else I really miss out on from Fb.

~~~
shykes
You're not missing out on the quality of the tools. You're missing out on
connectivity. Some people can't be accessed without Facebook. The quantity of
those people is growing.

~~~
DrJokepu
Everyone has an e-mail address (it's a requirement to be able to create a
Facebook account) and pretty much everyone is on one of the IM networks.

~~~
arethuza
My teenage son regards email and IM as something old people use. Of course,
this was until Facebook added email features and suddenly it's OK to be seen
using it.

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dominiek
I think that Berners-Lee and W3C get way too much credit for the web. And this
is an incredibly arrogant statement by Mr. Berners-Lee.

Facebook has in-fact done some serious web innovation the last years and W3C
has completely dropped the ball. Facebook and Twitter have been catalyzing
internet adoption and the general spread of information.

Mr. Berners-Lee's obsession about content-silos shows that there is a serious
disconnect between the current state of the web and W3C. The web was about
content and documents fifteen years ago, now it's about the flow of data.

I know Berners-Lee is a big Linked Data advocate, but the approach that's
being taken by the W3C is painfully slow and doesn't take into account the
fluidity of information.

This is one of the reasons why developers (and even semantic web developers)
have resorted to non-W3C technologies more and more: JSON, Javascript-
wrappers, Webkit, client-side routing, non-REST HTTP requests,
IOSockets/Coment, streaming apis, etc.

The web is emergent and out of control. Deal with it. Technologies and tools
compete for attention and adoption. You snooze, you lose.

As for the 'content silos': Are you fucking kidding me? 'Content' being stuck
in Facebook is not going to happen, in fact, the content is going to flow more
and more. If you mark something as 'only my friends can see this', it will
leak. Don't want to be tagged in a picture? Well, you have no choice. Face
recognition will get you soon.

The internet, thanks to social web, is a giant copy machine. There's a huge
shitstream of content and your attention and the activity around it is the
thing that matters. Who cares about the damn content.

So maybe it's time for the 'Web Founder' and the W3 Web Museum to roll up
their sleeves and do something, instead of bitch about the companies that
actually advance the web.

So instead of bitching about the companies and people that actually advance
the web and change the world, maybe it's time for the 'Web Founder' and the
Web Museum to roll up their sleeves and do something...

~~~
Tichy
Facebook dominating the web is a horror scenario.What good could you see about
it? Do you want to pay a Facebook tax for every online innovation you can come
up with? Do you want to be at their mercy for the survival of your business?

My only hope is that in the long run freedom of innovation will always be
stronger than a walled garden like Facebook.

I thought Berners-Lee invented the web - how can he get too much credit for
that? Hypertext as an idea existed before that, I think, but he did it.

~~~
mattmanser
Most business now have to pay a Google tax in one way or the other, whether it
be adwords, content building, link building or paying for SEO.

That's just the cost of entering a particular marketplace.

Think of it as rent.

~~~
pyre
Paying for SEO isn't a 'Google tax.' It's marketing. That's like saying that
when you start a business you have to pay the 'Yellowpages tax.'

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alecco
The other day we went to an arts event/party. Most of the pictures are trapped
inside Facebook. The artists couldn't comprehend why I didn't have "face" at
all. This same crowd would've uploaded the pictures to Flickr only a couple of
years ago.

Staying out of Facebook isn't enough.

~~~
Tichy
I loved the blog article the other day about the guy who had to create a
Facebook account for his granny to see his pictures, then delete it again
after a while. I think the same person mentioned going through their privacy
settings in Facebook once per day. What pain point is FB solving that people
willingly go through so much pain?

Are there no other photo sharing services out there?

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SeanDav
I voted with my feet - I have long since stopped using Facebook for anything
other than an occasional game playing platform. Unfortunately I haven't yet
found a suitable replacement to use as a social network, but I live in hope...

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paulnelligan
I always have a feeling that facebook is limiting entrepreneurs. You can't
launch a social product today without making it facebook compliant and this
means abiding by facebook's rules, and working within their structural
limitations. These limitations they've imposed ensure that they keep their
market share and prevent anyone else from really growing in the same space as
them. But I don't think they can stay at the top forever. Demand for an open
alternative is too high, and I'm really hoping (along with many others) that
Diaspora can make some headway with this.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
I know a guy who recently tried to build a social application, starting
outside of Facebook. It was actually a very good idea and well implemented;
unfortunately, the complete lack of connectivity to groups of people sealed
its fate. By the time he got to integrating into Facebook Connect, he was
almost out of money.

I think entrepreneurs wanting to build a social product are in better shape
today because of Facebook and its built-in social network. But you are, of
course, correct that building on somebody else's platform is always dangerous.

Lastly, "Open" is not really a feature to end-users. Diaspora will win if they
can build compelling features that Facebook, as a result of its closed
network, can't. Otherwise, I doubt highly it will be successful.

~~~
paulnelligan
I agree ... but openness and transparency alone may be a good enough draw for
many people, so long as diaspora can compete with facebook feature-wise.

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brown9-2
Previous discussion from 2 days ago:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1929796>

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oldpond
I think he's right in some ways. I for one don't want my internet to be
branded. I'd like to know how it came about that everywhere you look you only
see a few brands on the internet now. Facebook, Twitter, Google, eBay. Are we
saying there's only one social networking site, only one whatever-Twitter-is
site, only one search engine, only one place to sell your garage sale junk?
How did that happen?

Companies like Disney control the movie industry by controlling the channel.
You can make movies all you want, but try to get them into the theatres and
rental stores. It's the same for the music industry. You can cut cd's all you
want but try to get them on the radio or in the music stores. You can make a
website and it can be the best website in the world, but if it doesn't appear
in a search engine, it doesn't exist.

With all these big, rich companies doing business on the internet, do you
think for a minute they are going to allow it to remain free?

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T_S_
In a world where people take out payday loans at 400% is it any a surprise
that they would incur technical debt in managing their content? The typical
user thinks about the interaction with other users, not the content.

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coliveira
I don't know how FB can be a threat to the web if it can only exist because of
the web. In a sense, friend data is just another kind of data. The same thing
can be said, for example, of Gmail or hotmail. They host the email and contact
information for millions of people.

~~~
tl
That's like saying cancer can't be a threat to people because it can only
exist because of people.

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squidsoup
I have successfully solved the Facebook dilemma by not having any friends.

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melipone
Facebook is the AOL of today. It just make it easy for non-computer literate
people to communicate without learning how to send and receive email.

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earnubs
Aren't closed silos a big part of the web already, Facebook or no? The W3C is
mostly a closed silo, isn't it?

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brianobush
Is there much value in the content on FB to those outside the social circle it
is intended for? Most of my friends on FB post interesting blurbs, but it is
time-specific and usually requires some insider information to be
useful/interpreted.

~~~
zipdog
One huge value: Targeted advertising. The FB scripts can tell your sexual
orientation from your post content. I imagine they know a lot more than that
too.

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khookie
Nothing to worry about - people will realise in a few years or so that status
updates are only feeding their stupid egos and they'll find themselves many
other things to distract themselves with soon enough.

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contextfree
I think this headline puts a somewhat sensational slant on what TimBL actually
wrote.

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dododo
w3c should create open standards for social networks.

i don't think these companies are going to do it, and this seems exactly what
w3c is meant to do. so why not? seems more productive.

~~~
arethuza
I don't exactly rejoice at the idea of reading another W3C standard document.

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known
Was TBL refused a job in FB?

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giantsquid
As does Admiral Ackbar!

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arethuza
So if Facebook is so bad, someone please come up with a compelling high level
vision of what could replace it and why the replacement would be better?

Preferably something as compelling as Sir Tim's original vision for the Web...

~~~
EliRivers
I've got an idea. How about if you want a presence on the web, you have this
website that you control with whatever data and pictures you want on it?
Coders can develop things we'll call content management systems to make it a
bit easier for you to put your data on there if you don't want to do it all
yourself, and since you'll control it, you can add whatever tools and
automation and widgets and the like.

~~~
swombat
I'll one up you on this. Maybe one particular group of coders can build a
giant CMS that also has social networking features and allows everyone to have
their page on the web, and keep up with what their friends are doing, without
having to own, set up and administer their own servers (a prowess which most
are incapable of). The hardest thing would be getting critical mass, but if
someone could do it, wow, that would be awesome, right?

~~~
jamesbritt
Sweet. We can call it Everyone On-line, or EOL.

We'll start first in the States, and call it AOL.

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pointillistic
I agree with the sentiment completely but doesn't Tim-Berners-Lee work for
Google, the main competitor?

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netcan
I don't think so (wikipedia doesn't mention it). Maybe you're thinking of Vint
Cerf? He works at google.

    
    
       Serf - TCP/IP 
       Berners-Lee - World Wide Web, HTML, HTTP (I think)

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pointillistic
Yes, you are correct, I was thinking of Vint Cerf.

