I try to avoid blowing the buddycloud trumpet (we're building an open federated/distributed social network) on hn each time there is a future-of-twitter post. Sorry - I can't hold back this time. Here's my context for reading this app.net post:
Twitter works in the same way the old AOL client did: you accessed some message boards and stock prices and film websites using AOL keywords. Marketers flocked to AOL to put up the latest movie premier website.
At the same time there was the small techno-elite downloading Mosaic 0.98 over their SLIP connection and starting to experiment with the "world wide web". In comparison with the closed systems like Compuserve and AOL, the open web took much longer to evolve becasue everybody was working on different parts without any central coordination. It was this lack of central coordination that brougt us a more robust system and I don't think that any of us will argue for a world where AOL is the gold standard of finding, hosting and accessing content.
Twitter is pushing hard to be the gold standard of messaging in the same way that AOL did. And are marketers flocking to work with Twitter along with newscasters giving out hashtags and @twitter-names.
But, in the backrooms and basements and hackerspaces of the internet, today's equivalent of Mosaic downloaders are experimenting with open, distributed social networks like buddycloud.
The buddycloud team and everyone who attends our hackathons that are working to build the post-Twitter future just like Netscape helped launch the open web.
The future will not be build around one company, but a couple of companies like buddycloud can help nudge it forward. The future will be protocol based rather than homesteading on another company's API for fear of API key revocation.
So to app.net,
I see them fitting into the twitter ecosystem like a paid email provider that doesn't let you send email outside of their domain: You are still tied to one company. Still tied into hoping your API key doesn't get revoked. To move away from Twitter, we must think bigger: a giant network like email where everyone can run their own servers and they all interconnect.
We're trying to solve some of these problems with buddycloud. And props to the buddycloud team, I think they are doing a great job. I'll go back to biting my toungue on each new future-of-twitter post.
Excellent idea about the screenshot. I've added it to my todo list.
I'd love someone to test this https://buddycloud.org/wiki/Buddycloud_nginx_setup and provide feedback about what else is needed to get bc running on nginx. And also about the best way to manage presenting of the CA certs in Nginx.
I try to avoid blowing the buddycloud trumpet (we're building an open federated/distributed social network) on hn each time there is a future-of-twitter post. Sorry - I can't hold back this time. Here's my context for reading this app.net post:
Twitter works in the same way the old AOL client did: you accessed some message boards and stock prices and film websites using AOL keywords. Marketers flocked to AOL to put up the latest movie premier website.
At the same time there was the small techno-elite downloading Mosaic 0.98 over their SLIP connection and starting to experiment with the "world wide web". In comparison with the closed systems like Compuserve and AOL, the open web took much longer to evolve becasue everybody was working on different parts without any central coordination. It was this lack of central coordination that brougt us a more robust system and I don't think that any of us will argue for a world where AOL is the gold standard of finding, hosting and accessing content.
Twitter is pushing hard to be the gold standard of messaging in the same way that AOL did. And are marketers flocking to work with Twitter along with newscasters giving out hashtags and @twitter-names.
But, in the backrooms and basements and hackerspaces of the internet, today's equivalent of Mosaic downloaders are experimenting with open, distributed social networks like buddycloud.
The buddycloud team and everyone who attends our hackathons that are working to build the post-Twitter future just like Netscape helped launch the open web.
The future will not be build around one company, but a couple of companies like buddycloud can help nudge it forward. The future will be protocol based rather than homesteading on another company's API for fear of API key revocation.
So to app.net,
I see them fitting into the twitter ecosystem like a paid email provider that doesn't let you send email outside of their domain: You are still tied to one company. Still tied into hoping your API key doesn't get revoked. To move away from Twitter, we must think bigger: a giant network like email where everyone can run their own servers and they all interconnect.
We're trying to solve some of these problems with buddycloud. And props to the buddycloud team, I think they are doing a great job. I'll go back to biting my toungue on each new future-of-twitter post.