

A protocol that can change the future of Social Networks - jdubray
http://www.b-mc2.com/2012/12/29/the-future-of-social-networks/
I designed a simple protocol, which can help develop a world of interest-centric activity based social networks.<p>2013, might well be the end of the "Social Utility" model.<p>Disclosure: This is a rewrite of a post that generated some interest last week-end, but addressed some of the concerns people had about it.
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sammyo
Just like feature films, the overriding consensus about success or failure is
"nobody know anything". Clearly protocols have changed the world, the Gopher
protocol was pretty good but HTTP just wiped it out. X.25 was an expensive,
molasses slow, networking technology but until quite recently the only
asynchronous network that could be found literally anywhere in the world.
(Likely you've never heard of it but there were/(are?) mission critical
applications run over it).

Probably a good bet that something will come along that wipes up Facebook and
parts of Google within the next 20 years, but just like betting it all on one
horse, doesn't matter how good your insider knowledge if she breaks a leg in
that one big race.

A non- proprietary distributed fault tolerant, respectful of each users sense
of privacy, easy to implement, robust, fast, easily searched, resistant to
corporate and governmental abuse, social protocol... seems like a good idea to
me.

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erick23
I just think it's cool in Google+ are the communities it there and then if
that is your concern with your protocol for Google+ is joining closer friends
in the real world now knows that the Chinese social network called WeChat with
over 200 million users has a revolutionary feature that lets you connect to
your closest friends in reality or in the real world takes this link and read
what functionality does: <http://www.wechatapp.com/pt/#features.htmlaround>

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csmatt
I think he's correct in some of his predictions. I don't care to interact
virtually with acquaintances and would rather make new real-world friends. I
started building SociaLocale for this exact reason. It's an interest and
location based social tool. It's in super-duper alpha at the moment, but can
be found at <http://socialocale.appspot.com> . Will eventually do a Show HN
once I'm confident it'll handle the load :)

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kamjam
I think he makes very little sense to be honest. I have a Google+ account
which I never use or post anything to because the majority of my friends are
on Facebook. All the people I have added on Facebook I have met in real life
and are real world friends either present or past (people I used to go to
school with) and certainly all people I would like to meet up for a beer with
again. I have maybe 150 people on my friends list, just don't be a douche and
add every single person you ever meet in the street and you should be ok!

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.

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awef
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.

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gbog
This post seem convoluted but heading in the right direction. Social
interaction should be like emails: a client you choose and a protocol to
communicate with other clients.

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erick23
I think the owner of this post was given money with Google to make it this
post, he is praising Google+ and debunking facebook, everything he posted does
not make sense to me

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jdubray
Actually, not a penny. I am big Apple fan boy and don't like Android that much
... That being said, I have tried to analyze the space as objectively as I
could.

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bitdiddle
I haven't really thought this out, but superficially I read things like this
and wonder how any investor can hold Facebook stock.

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lmm
I was close to the Google+ launch. Nothing has made me more confident in
Facebook's future.

