Reading Scoble’s post on Facebook & Microsoft, and I have to say, it sounds like something Microsoft would do. It sounds like an offer FB would be crazy to refuse.
My first thought is that we need an alternative to Facebook that is not only open architecture, but open source. Ideally, it would be distributed.
I’m thinking of Wordpress as an example; I host my Wordpress blog on my own server, but because I have an Wordpress.com account, I get some benefits of being automatically connected to Wordpress.com: stats, akismet, the rest of the Wordpress network, etc.
What if we had a distributed social network? That is, a social network a la Facebook or MySpace where you could be connected to everyone you know who is using the system (or a compatible system)… but you could, if you wanted, host your personal profile on your own server. If you were to have ads on your profile page, you would make the money, not Facebook or MySpace. It would be just as connected, just as networked, using API’s, maybe OpenSocial to play nice with others… whatever. An… Openbook, if you will. Though it could be called anything.
I’m not building something like this yet, but I’d be happy to talk and work with others who’d want to. I think it’s technically feasible, and given the possibilities of a closed Micro-face-soft-book, sounds to me like a really good idea.
Sounds really interesting – kind of like a webring, but with some sort of API to hold everything together.
Sort of; but I'm thinking it could operate much like blogger/wordpress/typepad do.
- You CAN let them host it for you, if you want.
- you could have your own domain name, or a subdomain, of your choosing, point to your page.
- If you want, you could host it on your own server (a al Wordpress).
- Otherwise it acts just like a “normal” social network… only more open, more flexible, no walls.
I think it could work. I had originally thought that this is what Google's OpenSocial aimed to do… and maybe it could be a part of something like this.
I like the idea. But I think there are three ways, not two for doing this:
1. Standard SN that you would host.
2. An application that people could download and install on their own web host, like WP, that would hook into the main network.
But the extra one (and I think this would be the most exciting, but maybe that's just because I'm geeky like that) is to expose an API to allow people to create their own interface and “add-ons” to the network. Not entirely unlike facebook's applications, except without the ninjas :P
Oh, definitely. If the idea of something like this (and of course, right now an idea is all it is) is that it could be a Facebook replacer, you would need open APIs so that people could build plugins, apps, add-ons, or what have you. Even ninja ones, if they really wanted to.
No. No ninjas. That's the first rule of OpenBook.
I thought the first rule of OpenBook was that no-one talks about OpenBook?
No, you're confusing it with Fight Club.
Open as in minded, not as in wallet? Wait, I think I'm getting confused with something else.
I guess this is point where someone also says, I deplore their ninjas, but I will defend to the death their right to hurl them at one another…. maybe? I dunno. We must pick our battles after all, and Ninjas, I'm told, have real ultimate power.
While it may be premature to ban ninjas from a nonexistent platform, we don't need to encourage the ninjas either. As someone said of the plaque on the Statue of Liberty… “Did we have to specifically request the wretched?”