Okay, this is a weird idea, but here it goes. What about jumping in blogger and using rss feeds? Blogger is pretty well networked and is searchable within itself. Just join in, post and comment.... Sort of a network of blogs where each one is like a profile. (Just a thought) : )
Blogger.com? That is, switching to another Google service? Yes, that's a weird idea. Blogging might be ok, but maybe take a look at dreamwidth.org as a non-Google platform.
ReplyDeleteA blog + RSS feeds is so old school ;-)
ReplyDeleteThere used to be "rings" of thematically similar blogs, where you could rebuilt jump to a different one. Don't remember which service that was. It's probably shut down by now.
Thomas Mueller Old school is good sometimes.
ReplyDeleteOK, that was actually called Webring, not Blogring.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webring
en.m.wikipedia.org - Webring - Wikipedia
webring.com is still alive.
ReplyDeleteAgreed about Blogger, although here on G+ with Blogger feeds, pornbots have infected that too.
ReplyDeletewordpress.com - WordPress.com: Create a Free Website or Blog as an alternative to Blogger.com ?
ReplyDeleteI put some effort into creating an RSS feed of my G+ posts and then using that to auto-post into my blog platform. So at least I have an archive without needing to use takeout.
After all these years, I still don't think we've got a good solution to blog comments.
I dunno what so bad about MySpace!
ReplyDeleteRolling your own solutions is always an option. The issue is "does it scale?"
ReplyDeleteJohn Lewis Good question, but at least it would be an interesting experiment until next August.
ReplyDeleteJulian, MySpace isn't open to just anybody, anymore. Right now it sucks bilgewater. If you're an entertainment professional, I'm sure it's the bees' knees--but for the hoi polloi, forget about it.
ReplyDeleteJohn Lewis For specific communities of interest, we've been doing that for quite some time with products like phpBB, vBulletin, Drupal.
ReplyDeleteAs you say, the catch is scale. And doing the second and subsequent communities of interest.
In a previous life, I built quite a substantial social network on top of Drupal V3 with a load of custom code. No longer with us, sadly. And I wouldn't want to do that again.
Julian Bond I'm also a Drupal vet. And I've created large scale communities using phpBB with heavy modifications. The scale of this is beyond what I can imagine leading, which is why I was heartened by the idea of things like diaspora where it's distributed or other distributed social media.
ReplyDeleteI am concerned about the impact of services which are profit driven because they will do and say anything but the corporate nature is to turn, eventually, to profits as the motivation.
In any case, scale. Tough cookie to crack.
Not really able to create a closed/private community via blogs. Not in a scalable manner, that is.
ReplyDeleteHow about carrier pigeon
ReplyDeleteCan you run a hubzilla/daispora/friendica instance (eg) on your desktop machine, with yourself as the only user, and have it still federate with other instances? Diaspora requires a domain name exposed to the internet to communicate, but perhaps this could be fudgec.
ReplyDeleteKent Crispin Probably easier for Linux users, then Mac users, and finally Windows users. But not for the masses.
ReplyDeleteJohn Lewis However, a complete turnkey package could probably be produced for all major platforms -- it's open source, after all :-) I'm not so sure about the requirement for a domain name, though -- I suspect that hubzilla may be better, with its movable identities.
ReplyDeleteI'm interested in the idea of a completely non-centralized social network, where each individual in the network keeps the data supporting their human network local in an application on their own machine...
Blogging + syndication, visibility, and interaction through a social tier is my basic personal plan, though specific tools are open to assessment.
ReplyDeleteNote that "Blogger" is a specific Google product, "blogging" is an online publishing dynamic of virtually infinite variety and flexibility.
Much of the highest quality content online remains in blogs, and yet the format has remained stubbornly non-visible. I'd like to see that changed.
The #PlexodusWiki has pages of platform types and specific platforms and types:
https://social.antefriguserat.de/index.php/Platform_Types
https://social.antefriguserat.de/index.php/Platforms_and_Sites
social.antefriguserat.de - Platform Types - PlexodusWiki
This reminded me that Google once had a Blog-Specific search engine.
ReplyDeleteen.wikipedia.org - Google Blog Search - Wikipedia
Long since discontinued.
Julian Bond Yeah, they ditched Reader, too. Fairly recently, I believe.
ReplyDeleteJulian Bond Blog search is a niche that's proved curiously resistant to success.
ReplyDeleteBlogging sites tend to self-serve more effectively, favouring larger ones, with richer archives.
My personal plan, presently. Some already in motion when Google announced;
ReplyDeletejoindiaspora.com - Morning Ramble: Personal media strategies and protocols
Considered it, but it doesn't have "sharing" in just the same way as a true social media platform. Too complex as well.
ReplyDeleteNishit Dave That takes some engineering.
ReplyDeleteYou can get the sharing through syndicated publishing.
And there are some options for providing comments and search on SSG websites. Lunr.js being among the search options, and ... a few comment options I can't specifically recall at the moment.
Given the quality and volume of online discussion (very low, and very high), I'm inclined toward Robert Wood Krutch's maxim that a bad road makes a good filter. Find the people who will make an effort to get to you and contribute, not those in search of an easy dopamine fix.
We could go back even further and run a network on Fidonet technology.
ReplyDelete(Not sure I'm kidding, there is even a point software for Android.)
Thomas Mueller I miss fidonet.
ReplyDeleteI miss Usenet. Or more generally: the decoupling between transport mechanism and reader software. I always had my own archive of interesting postings. Fora, blogs, "social" networks all make it hard not to loose contact to content, for various reasons.
ReplyDeleteJürgen Christoffel Transport != Reader really needs to come back.
ReplyDeleteWeb apps are so goddamned tightly wired.
The death of all ports other than :80 and :443 has been problematic, though possibly for the better. Meredith L. Patterson's "On Port 80" speaks a truth.
medium.com - On Port 80 – Meredith L. Patterson – Medium
Edward Morbius that article is a goodie. Besides moving everything to port 80 the most disturbing activity of the last ten(?) years has been skinning IMO: instead of actually improving the functionality, you offer it in dark versus light or even more configuration options for skins instead for functionality.
ReplyDeleteAnd apps on mobiles are the ultimate skinning tool. More often than not they are just a "fancy" web front-end with tracking builtin. It's all about control of the user's attention and tracking her moves. It's been my feeling (verified by traffic monitoring) that almost 9x% (for a not too small x) of all smartphone apps are simply web front-ends with tracking (and, of course, push notifications --> attention) builtin.