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2010 5 14 | 11:27

Diaspora Fever

via joindiaspora.com

These guys are hitting big in the geek world right now. They're attempting to build a new kind of social network that [allegedly] more accurately mimics real social behavior. They plan to provide a system that allows the sharing of content while maintaining privacy through the permission of the user. This feature will be inherent in the network, not a feature; an anti-Facebook, if you will.

They have a point. We don't toss up random tidbits of information and "status updates" onto the interwebs for our "friends" to see and call it a community. Although we've accepted Facebook's take on how social networks should operate, it certainly doesn't reflect reality. Outside of Facebook, we share [trade] information [experiences] on a more personal level in varying degrees of intimacy, slowly accumulating what was once known as "friends" - valuable people in our social lives in whom we can trust for various things.

And Diaspora couldn't have come at a more opportune time. The four-man underdog team of self-proclaimed nerds from New York have well-surpassed their $10,000 [they're on the north side of 100K last time I checked] goal for seed funding at Kickstarter and are spending the summer in "programmer mode". The announcement comes while Facebook is under fire for its confusing privacy settings and some statements made by its young CEO when Facebook was in its infancy. Amidst the media smoke and the labyrinth of the new Facebook privacy settings, Diaspora is an attractive alternative for weary photo-sharers and friend-connectors.

I'm not holding my breath, but if these guys have the chops, I do think they have a viable social networking model. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they were bought out sometime in the near future. Facebook isn't going anywhere anytime soon, but if these guys can execute, I'd be highly interested in their work.

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Filed under  //  diaspora   Facebook   social media  

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2010 5 5 | 10:54

Broken Social Media Feedback

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This post is for mah nerds.

Twitter wants me to Tweet It. Google wants me to Buzz It. Facebook wants me to Like It. I have my own blog [welcome] and I enjoy comments on it. I used to have Google Reader, but Buzz and Reader don't sync very well so I Dropped It. I can comment on anything. I can provide feedback for anyone. I can Like, Tweet, and Buzz all day, not to mention comment on any article on any website I frequent.

I can write something here and it'll post to a number of sites I enjoy [thanks Posterous]. What's great is that I can get feedback on it from multiple sources at any time. And feedback is important. It's commonly held that discussion, sharing opinions, and constructive criticism contribute to a better community by improving the qualities of the individual.

But social media feedback is broken. Each unique social ecosystem has its own feedback method that never returns to the source - it stays in its own system. For instance, this blog post will appear to people [who care] in a number of ways:
  • This will pop up in someone's Twitter feed.
  • This will show up in Facebook [I think]. Or, at least people can "Like It".
  • People following this RSS will see it in Google Reader or in any number of RSS compilers.
  • Those subscribed to this Posterous may see it in their subscriptions.
  • This should show up in Buzz, too.
Each one of the mentioned social networks has its own feedback system. You can respond to a tweet. You can like and comment on a post in Facebook. You can comment and share it in Reader and Buzz [they don't sync too well so I count them as unique]. And, you can just comment on the post itself in Posterous. I can think of two ways to view all the feedback.
  • Go through each system uniquely and check for updates [this is just stupid].
  • Apply an email notification system [most systems offer this feature] to alert you of any feedback.
I'm not a fan. I get enough email as it is. And even if the email alert notifications were efficient and quick, they wouldn't address the issue: each feedback loop is housed in its own system, eliminating discussion and all the other good things we established as benefits of social networks, in general.

Is there a way to do the following?
  1. Provide original content.
  2. Open it for feedback to multiple social media networks.
  3. Standardize the commenting so that a response on Twitter and a comment on Facebook can show up in my Posterous.
  4. Then, when I comment on their feedback [enter discussion] in Posterous, it reflects back to the respective social networks, including people from other systems in the discussion.

Probably not.

By the way, my solution in the meantime is to force* the audience into my ecosystem, which will be this Posterous. *By force, I intend to comment only on this post.

Silly, I know.
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Filed under  //  Facebook   improve   joku   Posterous   social media   Twitter  

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