If you’re a regular reader of this blog you know I’ve been pretty critical of Facebook. In fact, I started my Posterous blog in order to have a place to publish the types of links I used to share on my Facebook feed after I quit Facebook.
I quit Facebook on May 1st, 2010 and that week I wrote a post explaining my reasons. The basic point was that being on Facebook is a business. They provide a service in exchange for a fee and the service and fee changed significantly from when I started on it. I reviewed what I was getting from them (connections to people I know) and what they were getting from me (free content and troves of data on me and my friends and family). I decided it was a really bum deal, so I quit.
Around that time I also thought a lot about what good social networking would be. My main point was that real communication between people – or even between a ‘brand’ and a consumer – depends on what I called “tethering”. If you’re talking to someone you don’t care about, the things you talk about float away and you don’t bond. Friends bond when they spend time together, even when they talk about nothing. And people who identify with a product or service bond when they honestly interact with it.
The question is whether and to what extent Facebook allows that. Imagine a person’s social networking self as comprised of three rings radiating outward:
What a good social network service would do would be to allow you to grow and cultivate these three rings without forcing you to merge them, and without forcing you to go crazy balancing
them.
I was originally attracted to Facebook by the opportunity for core-building. It was better than Myspace just because you could establish and solidify your core, and simultaneously connect to and have some distance from your extended network. MySpace was too open, exposing your core to the world of strangers, with a very low payoff.
But Facebook’s business model has turned out to be getting a person’s core ring and their extended network of rings mushed together in the name of aggregating data to eventually sell.
Inspite of Facebook’s growth over the past year, I remain convinced that the wheels have already come off this business model.
Which brings me to my real point of this post – “anti Facebooks”.
The core ideas behind ‘anti Facebooks’ are that
1) You should be able to create a social media self or presence that works in the way the real life you works – sharing different aspects of yourself with different people, without fear of “killing independent George”.
2) You, not the platform, should own your content
I am 100% behind these goals and will sing the praises of anyone who can deliver them.
Over the last year, there’s been some hype about one such possible service, Diaspora*. They have gotten serious seed money, discussion in the New York Times and throughout the blogosphere, and a lengthy profile in New York magazine. I’m all for them and I hope they launch with success.
I quit Facebook on May 1st, 2010 and that week I wrote a post explaining my reasons. The basic point was that being on Facebook is a business. They provide a service in exchange for a fee and the service and fee changed significantly from when I started on it. I reviewed what I was getting from them (connections to people I know) and what they were getting from me (free content and troves of data on me and my friends and family). I decided it was a really bum deal, so I quit.
Around that time I also thought a lot about what good social networking would be. My main point was that real communication between people – or even between a ‘brand’ and a consumer – depends on what I called “tethering”. If you’re talking to someone you don’t care about, the things you talk about float away and you don’t bond. Friends bond when they spend time together, even when they talk about nothing. And people who identify with a product or service bond when they honestly interact with it.
The question is whether and to what extent Facebook allows that. Imagine a person’s social networking self as comprised of three rings radiating outward:
1) Their core: close friends, family and the activities and brands they identify themselves with and are strongly tethered to,
2) extended networks of acquaintances and their interests, such as exist almost exclusively on Facebook or LinkedIn, which provide on occasion some interesting new item or experience,
3) strangers, brands and activities that exist on the periphery; things they may have seen or heard of in passing but paid no attention to.
What a good social network service would do would be to allow you to grow and cultivate these three rings without forcing you to merge them, and without forcing you to go crazy balancing
them.
I was originally attracted to Facebook by the opportunity for core-building. It was better than Myspace just because you could establish and solidify your core, and simultaneously connect to and have some distance from your extended network. MySpace was too open, exposing your core to the world of strangers, with a very low payoff.
But Facebook’s business model has turned out to be getting a person’s core ring and their extended network of rings mushed together in the name of aggregating data to eventually sell.
Inspite of Facebook’s growth over the past year, I remain convinced that the wheels have already come off this business model.
Which brings me to my real point of this post – “anti Facebooks”.
The core ideas behind ‘anti Facebooks’ are that
1) You should be able to create a social media self or presence that works in the way the real life you works – sharing different aspects of yourself with different people, without fear of “killing independent George”.
2) You, not the platform, should own your content
I am 100% behind these goals and will sing the praises of anyone who can deliver them.
Over the last year, there’s been some hype about one such possible service, Diaspora*. They have gotten serious seed money, discussion in the New York Times and throughout the blogosphere, and a lengthy profile in New York magazine. I’m all for them and I hope they launch with success.
But I’m going to take the time over the next week to write about four other possible contenders that I find very interesting and promising.
I’ll begin with the first two tomorrow.
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