Here's what I use instead of Facebook:<p><i>Google calendar for events</i> - Anyone with any email address can be invited to an event. Google calendar also emails out standard format .ics files with it's invites so participants are free to use whatever calendar app they choose and just import the ics files. (This also hooks up nicely with my android calendar). I'm looking forward to when everyone on Facebook gets an @facebook email address and then I'm going to start sending them all Google calendar invites ;-) Seriously, I think Google calendar is a seriously under recognised service.<p><i>Twitter for a news feed equivalent</i> - You don't need an account to read so it is open enough. (There is also status.net or identi.ca if you want even more openness). I embed a feed of the most recent posts in my webpage. If you want to subscribe, you can use RSS so you don't have to use twitter to follow me.<p><i>Photos</i> - I use a combination of FlickR and my own custom image gallery on my website. On FlickR you can set the photos to be public so viewers don't need to have an account.<p><i>Messages</i> - Obviously I just use email.<p>When I meet people I want to connect with, I ask for their email address rather than ask if they are on Facebook. I occasionally use Facebook to find people and then ask for their email address via Fb message.<p>I can't think of anything else I really miss out on from Fb.
I think that Berners-Lee and W3C get way too much credit for the web. And this is an incredibly arrogant statement by Mr. Berners-Lee.<p>Facebook has in-fact done some serious web innovation the last years and W3C has completely dropped the ball. Facebook and Twitter have been catalyzing internet adoption and the general spread of information.<p>Mr. Berners-Lee's obsession about content-silos shows that there is a serious disconnect between the current state of the web and W3C. The web was about content and documents fifteen years ago, now it's about the flow of data.<p>I know Berners-Lee is a big Linked Data advocate, but the approach that's being taken by the W3C is painfully slow and doesn't take into account the fluidity of information.<p>This is one of the reasons why developers (and even semantic web developers) have resorted to non-W3C technologies more and more: JSON, Javascript-wrappers, Webkit, client-side routing, non-REST HTTP requests, IOSockets/Coment, streaming apis, etc.<p>The web is emergent and out of control. Deal with it. Technologies and tools compete for attention and adoption. You snooze, you lose.<p>As for the 'content silos': Are you fucking kidding me? 'Content' being stuck in Facebook is not going to happen, in fact, the content is going to flow more and more. If you mark something as 'only my friends can see this', it will leak. Don't want to be tagged in a picture? Well, you have no choice. Face recognition will get you soon.<p>The internet, thanks to social web, is a giant copy machine. There's a huge shitstream of content and your attention and the activity around it is the thing that matters. Who cares about the damn content.<p>So maybe it's time for the 'Web Founder' and the W3 Web Museum to roll up their sleeves and do something, instead of bitch about the companies that actually advance the web.<p>So instead of bitching about the companies and people that actually advance the web and change the world, maybe it's time for the 'Web Founder' and the Web Museum to roll up their sleeves and do something...
The other day we went to an arts event/party. Most of the pictures are trapped inside Facebook. The artists couldn't comprehend why I didn't have "face" at all. This same crowd would've uploaded the pictures to Flickr only a couple of years ago.<p>Staying out of Facebook isn't enough.
I voted with my feet - I have long since stopped using Facebook for anything other than an occasional game playing platform. Unfortunately I haven't yet found a suitable replacement to use as a social network, but I live in hope...
I always have a feeling that facebook is limiting entrepreneurs. You can't launch a social product today without making it facebook compliant and this means abiding by facebook's rules, and working within their structural limitations. These limitations they've imposed ensure that they keep their market share and prevent anyone else from really growing in the same space as them. But I don't think they can stay at the top forever. Demand for an open alternative is too high, and I'm really hoping (along with many others) that Diaspora can make some headway with this.
Previous discussion from 2 days ago: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1929796" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1929796</a>
I think he's right in some ways. I for one don't want my internet to be branded. I'd like to know how it came about that everywhere you look you only see a few brands on the internet now. Facebook, Twitter, Google, eBay. Are we saying there's only one social networking site, only one whatever-Twitter-is site, only one search engine, only one place to sell your garage sale junk? How did that happen?<p>Companies like Disney control the movie industry by controlling the channel. You can make movies all you want, but try to get them into the theatres and rental stores. It's the same for the music industry. You can cut cd's all you want but try to get them on the radio or in the music stores. You can make a website and it can be the best website in the world, but if it doesn't appear in a search engine, it doesn't exist.<p>With all these big, rich companies doing business on the internet, do you think for a minute they are going to allow it to remain free?
In a world where people take out payday loans at 400% is it any a surprise that they would incur technical debt in managing their content? The typical user thinks about the interaction with other users, not the content.
I don't know how FB can be a threat to the web if it can only exist because of the web. In a sense, friend data is just another kind of data. The same thing can be said, for example, of Gmail or hotmail. They host the email and contact information for millions of people.
Is there much value in the content on FB to those outside the social circle it is intended for? Most of my friends on FB post interesting blurbs, but it is time-specific and usually requires some insider information to be useful/interpreted.
Nothing to worry about - people will realise in a few years or so that status updates are only feeding their stupid egos and they'll find themselves many other things to distract themselves with soon enough.
w3c should create open standards for social networks.<p>i don't think these companies are going to do it, and this seems exactly what w3c is meant to do. so why not? seems more productive.
So if Facebook is so bad, someone please come up with a compelling high level vision of what could replace it and why the replacement would be better?<p>Preferably something as compelling as Sir Tim's original vision for the Web...