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We should be able to take our friends with us
krishworld.com — The future of social networking is an open standards based decentralized networks in the People Agrregator mould, with something like OpenID being the single point of entry. Dave Winer says a centralized system like Facebook or Linked-In will result in explosive unbundling of (decentralized) services.
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- wideawakewesley, on 10/11/2007, -1/+13Totally agree, with one click you should be able to load up all of your stored user information onto any social networking site, instead of having to type all that crap in everytime the next fad comes along.
- str3ama, on 10/11/2007, -0/+10the problem lies in the social giants not wanting to share the nitty gritty with anyone, they don't want you to be able to pack up and leave so easily with all your friends. Imagine a giant exodus of Facebook users taking all their friends, relatives, acquaintances, and whomever else they are connected with to some X social site of the week. It would be great to see some sort of Open/SocialD system but the monolith Social Networks aren't going to be the start this or let alone co-operate.
- z33Tec, on 10/11/2007, -0/+9If only you could bring them with you into real life
- lordtyros, on 10/11/2007, -6/+7That would be great? It would be even better if the government took care of storing all this information for us! Maybe in a centralized database of some sort! That way, if you ever go online, they know who you are and where you've been! It would save so much trouble! Maybe we could elect someone to implement this... I dunno, maybe a mayor of some sort? He'd have to have experience dealing with a crisis... hmmm.... where to find such a man?
/sarcasm - monospaced, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1scary, but now that you brought it to their attention it'll probably happen. thanks
- Waskonator, on 10/11/2007, -5/+3Who cares... FTW!
- Pixelante, on 10/11/2007, -2/+7I'm planning to take all my friends with me.
When I die.
It's going to be COOL.- MrSunshine, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2This isn't a joke, right? Are you planning a shooting? I'm going to report you to the police and stuff etc.
- Pixelante, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0Shootings are terribly inefficient.
Mass poisonings, on the other way
- Pixelante, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0Shootings are terribly inefficient.
- nattybohman, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2Actually, when I clicked this article, I thought it was about offing your friends when you die. Like the Pharoahs did with their slaves. Terrible practice, but good incentive for the slaves to keep the Pharoah as healthy as possible.
They got my click under false pretenses.- Pixelante, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0I think it's a nice idea. But you have to act fast, you can't wait until you're dead. Write down a list of your friend, where they live, where they work, this kind of stuff. Keep it updated.
That way, when you know you have six months to live, you don't have to spend them tracking them down. Just pack what you need, and pay a visit.
- Pixelante, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0I think it's a nice idea. But you have to act fast, you can't wait until you're dead. Write down a list of your friend, where they live, where they work, this kind of stuff. Keep it updated.
- MrSunshine, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2This isn't a joke, right? Are you planning a shooting? I'm going to report you to the police and stuff etc.
- CrimsonBlur, on 10/11/2007, -2/+2This concept fundamentally conflicts with the way a social networking site expands and retains users. How would a site like MySpace avoid dying a horrible death if there was a simple, intuitive way for all of their users to transition to Facebook, a clearly superior platform? If this decentralized system was in place a year ago when Facebook opened up beyond college networks, MySpace would be dead.
Once companies saw this, what would be their incentive to enter the market and make a gamble of millions of dollars, knowing full well that even if they did generate a huge buzz, in the end it would be trivial for the users to simply stop using their service altogether? This is a perfect example of an idea that in theory would be great for the consumer because it is convenient, but would eventually kill the market and stifle innovation because no one would be willing to compete.- Flashman, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1Why do people still go to McDonalds? Because the food they sell is good enough for lots of people - and it's the same with MySpace. Regardless of ID portability, there is a certain amount of inertia that will keep users where they are; I believe it's only the hardcore geek crowd that flits between the newest web services.
- dinostabOMG, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6I disagree. I imagine that someone will have to "run" this decentralization, and that it would turn into a kind of decentralization central. And THAT would be our new Microsoft. I want to be able to manage my presence in each sphere separately, without all of them communicating about me behind my back. It might start off as a convenience but it would be a slippery slope to monopoly, antitrust, disconnect between management and users, and exploitation and mismanagement of personal information.
- CrimsonBlur, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3This is an excellent point as well, and I meant to bring it up but the edit time is too short, so I'm glad you brought it up. This type of unified user information structure would be far too monolithic, in my opinion. It would be too easy for the shady companies to take advantage of users who are coming from social networking companies that have stricter guidelines about what they share with other companies and how secure their systems are. I think initiatives like this forget to take into account just how naive the general public is, and how complacent they become when vulnerable information like this is so easily exchanged.
- maninalift, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1On a similar but less ambitious level, I have been considering writing a Firefox application that syncs social network details. Multiple users, a single password to log you in to all of the accounts. It's not a quantum leap, but would deliver quite a lot for the sake of very little code, I'm surprised no one has done it yet.
- abandonedhero, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Basically a Firefox social networking Meebo. Not bad.
- mokele, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0A friend of mine and I have been toying with this idea for a while and have been making some headway with the concept and technical issues. This is something we're very passionate about at the moment, so will hopefully have something to show for it soon given our busy schedule.
- szembek, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1Or you could all just stop wasting your time with these stupid social networking sites.
- roamzero, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1This is basically what peopletab does.
http://peopletab.com
The 0.1 release should be ready in a week or two, right now it is in the middle of a backend upgrade, trying to fix bugs here and there (just fixed an openID one today) - deusdiabolus, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1You can't ever take ALL your friends with you ANYWHERE...drama, drama, drama.
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