

Jeff Jarvis: I want the opposite of what Facebook just did  - dreambird
http://thefastertimes.com/mediaandtech/2010/04/22/my-facebook-problem-and-yours/

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stcredzero
Some good insights here.

 _Rishad Tobaccowala tweeted: “you are right. What we want closed (our data)
they want open. What we want open (create and transfer) they want closed.”_

There's room for someone to give us what we want. What if there was a P2P open
source app about communication / status / notification?

A web browser would be a good platform for this to reside in. There would have
to be a daemon/service component as well. Perhaps a cloud component, but with
distributed control and controlled encrypted access, so only immediately
linked nodes could ever be compromised.

~~~
nfnaaron
[something like] tor + [something like] rss + some kind of permission/auth
mechanism

your browser client gets permission to subscribe to a "friend" and keeps up to
date via [something like] rss over [something like] tor.

~~~
roc
Or, just use Wave.

Even though Google is fumbling this service, it really could launch
decentralized social networking services.

They just need a 'phase 1' client that draws better imaginary walls between
the 'parts' of the service, to fit most users' current conception of how the
internet works.

People aren't 'getting' the idea that an email, a chat and a picture archive
are the same thing under the hood. Google, meanwhile, is so proud of the
technical possibilities that they won't shut up about that part. And it's
confusing the crap out of the users they should be enticing.

Google needs to build that more-traditional-looking client and pitch it as a
decentralized Facebook competitor.

~~~
nfnaaron
My first thought was Wave. My second thought was Wave sucks (in my limited
experience). I also like the idea of minimising the use of proprietary
protocols. Can you imagine if email were invented today; lots of non-connected
email islands.

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dpcan
There is an enormous opportunity here for a simple social networking startup
to pull the rug out from under Facebook.

Just look at history. MySpace went from hero to zero in the blink of an eye.

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fizx
Yeah, but Myspace was incompetent.

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david927
And Facebook is becoming evil.

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stcredzero
A social network billing itself as the "anti-Facebook" with regards to privacy
issues could succeed. The only thing such a network would retain control of
would be related to ads. Everything else would be encrypted and controlled by
users.

Such a startup would have to operate like Craigslist. It would have traction
because it's there to provide functionality for users, not to maximize
profits.

Reddit-style ads would pay for cloud resources, with the ability to opt-out by
paying for services directly. By reddit-style, I mean that the ads can be
shared with your friend network and voted up or down.

Smartphones and the iPad could be used to implement such a network.

~~~
DrSprout
Well, I think what we really need a standard, bare bones open source platform
that implements something rational, and several providers (they would have to
be fairly large ones) so that there's competition. Social networking needs to
be a utility, not a walled garden.

Now, one of these providers might be ad-supported, but I would gladly pay
$10/month for ad-free Facebook if it was just like a hosting provider - no
data crawling, no new features, basically it's the job of the people I'm
paying to make sure I can back up my data and that others can access it
subject to my privacy controls.

~~~
eru
> Well, I think what we really need a standard, bare bones open source
> platform that implements something rational, and several providers (they
> would have to be fairly large ones) so that there's competition.

Email anyone?

~~~
DrSprout
If your definition of rational includes no authentication or security.

~~~
eru
PGP?

~~~
stcredzero
Needs better support for social functionality. There's too much manual work
for the user and it's too easy to use in counter-productive ways.

~~~
eru
Indeed, and that's why I prefer the way the Off-the-record handles user
interaction and its security guarantees.

I just wanted to point out that authentication and security for emails is
possible.

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alexandros
This is a very insightful post. At the end of the day, having some company
(especially one run by a volatile 25-year old) be the intermediary between me
and my online identity just doesn't work. My identity should play by my rules,
not theirs.

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mcantelon
Google has been pushing OpenSocial, a truly open (multiple provider) and
deeper version of what Facebook is now offering, for over a year. It's a
chicken or egg problem, however. FaceBook can deliver more traffic now, but
the tradeoff it you end up helping promote FaceBook's ownership of the social
graph.

~~~
anshul
No, the chicken and egg problem is not what is wrong with this one. I was one
of those excited about open social pre-release but it's release was riddled
with all kinds of problems[1]. If google had gotten it right at the start, it
could have really taken off. If google can still get it right and demonstrate
cleanly how one can make a secure open social based site, it still has a very
good chance of taking off. It's a good idea but I am not so sure about this
particular implementation and it's details. Google or somebody probably should
do an OpenSocial 2.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenSocial#Criticism>

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fhars
The german (alledged facebook ripoff) MeinVZ/SchülerVZ/etcVZ seems to do
something in this direction with its OpenSocial interface. Instead of exposing
your real account, you can generate additional pseudonymous personas that look
just like OpenSocial accounts for external apps, but can only access those
data from your profile that you actually authorized for this persona. This dos
not address the data export problem, but helps keeping the things a user want
to keep private private.

I think this is a beneficial effect of the rather strict data protection laws
in Europe. Especially since one of the *VZ properties explicitly targets
minors, they had to come up with a novel solution that actually takes user
data protection into account.

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izendejas
Clearly, the inability to exert full control of your profile on Facebook is
very problematic esp. since your average Joe doesn't realize this, but this is
a ticking time bomb and it will explode with a far more destructive force than
Beacon/gBuzz. When that happens, I truly, truly hope people wake up and demand
more controls (and demand opt-out by default!!!).

Their opt-out-by-default (that is, they opt you in) policy as well as Google's
--anybody's--drives me _nuts_! It is EVIL! They argue that they provide you
with value but who are Google and Facebook to decide what value means to you
and when you should have it shoved down your throat? We own our data, and we
get to decide who to share it with and when as we go, not by default.

I agree with J. Jarvis, Facebook is clearly thinking about themselves and the
opportunity to finally bootstrap and rule the ever-so-elusive semantic web--
that's really what they're building if one thinks about it w/ their Open Graph
protocol. They want to rule this upcoming decade, they want to cut into
Google's ad revenue with machine readable content, explicit interests, real
identities, "personalization", etc.

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strebler
Facebook, it's the new ICQ. Only a matter of time...

~~~
greyman
Hmm...could ICQ inject itself into other websites?

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necrecious
The best part of the post was the "Jersey Shore" become a fan on Facebook ad.

I am not quite sure what it is mocking, but I like it.

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sunchild
Jeff Jarvis is right, except he shouldn't be so confused about why he's right.

There have been proposals for intermediated privacy settings controlled by
users since the early 2000's (at least). The problem is that commercial
websites never wanted to put that control in the user's hands.

Now Facebook "releases" what is essentially a siphon on your online activity,
and the tech press lauds it as some kind of innovation.

Some days it seems like everywhere I turn, I see people doing the exact
opposite of what is good for them. It's really bizarre.

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grrrr
We so need an open & portable way of managing our social information online. I
use OpenID to manage online authentication across different sites, and am
pleased with this. I have a choice of providers, or I can manage it myself.
But, it is limited to managing basic authentication, and is a long way from a
repository for all the other types of social data that are needed for a full
online identify.

Surely there is a market opportunity here? And whatever happened to
opensocial?

~~~
Glide
Apparently open social went 1.0 very recently.

<http://blog.opensocial.org/>

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spazmaster
That was a good read. I haven't heard many positive things about Facebooks new
plans but I like the new features (ie. instant personalization). If this can
make my experience of websites more interesting and relevant I'm all for it.

But like Jeff Jarvis says: Facebook should give us the control of which sites
get instant personalization etc. It's like walking through a mall and every
time you enter a shop you're not sure if you're wearing clothes or not.

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hugothefrog
Sounds like this guy wants exactly what the Mine Project is trying to deliver:
<http://themineproject.org/>

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pasbesoin
There is a technological aspect that the user can or should be able to
control, although it by no means addresses all the concerns. Simply firewall
your Facebook access away from your other online access. It's annoying that
browsers let so much information bleed between connections and provide either
poor controls of same or poor promotion of such controls where they exist.

Currently, I have my Facebook access running through one browser that is doing
nothing else. I use other browsers for other access. I would disallow Flash
"super cookies" except that that borks a few other sites I access, so I wipe
them at each shut down. (I'm also not entirely trustful of Adobe's online
control panel and "black box" implementation.) I'm now considering controlling
them yet more aggressively, as I see them as a means of cross-browser
communication during the course of access that takes place between wipes.

All that aside, I too am becoming quite uneasy with Facebook. Opera's Unite
continues to intrigue me, and if I can shake some time and energy free, I'd
like to look at that more, not just or primarily for myself but also for
friends who may want something "simple" to implement that places their data
under their own control.

Most, however, won't want to leave the convenience -- and the "games" -- of
Facebook. At least their browser should keep Facebook locked up in its own
little pen, segregated if and as they wish from the rest of their online
access.

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piguy314
If I'm not mistaken, and I may very well be, this new facebook paradigm shift
is just friend feed on steroids, and since facebook didn't create friend feed,
they bought it, can't somebody come a long and just make a new version of
friend feed that embraces authentic openness instead of this command and
control, top down, DRM vendor lock in dystopian reality that corporations seem
to love so much.

