I am sure we all remember when Google released their new social network, Google+, this summer. They revolutionised the web with their unique ‘circles’, ‘sparks’ and share model… or actually, a majority of those features they silently copied from Diaspora.
Now, a few months later, history is repeating itself. Facebook has just announced on their blog that they will be rolling out a ‘lists’ rework this week. It will become easier to add people to lists, you can filter your stream based on a selection of lists and you can share posts with your lists. It is all just too familiar.
Okay, what about your boss or the few other people you like but just don’t want to share with on Facebook? You can add these folks to your Restricted list and they will only see your Public posts. You’ll still be friends on Facebook so you can send them messages or tag them in a post if you want to connect to them from time to time. It’s totally up to you.
You can now avoid your boss receiving posts. Not sure where I heard this example before though…
Managing lists is boring. That’s why smart lists do the work for you. To start, we’ll offer you smart lists. For instance, if you list Boston College as a school you’ve attended and your friends John and Sarah do too, then you would instantly have a smart list called “Boston College” with John and Sarah on it. This means that if you’re having a grad party or a college reunion, you can easily share photos with just your college friends, without bothering other people you know.
The basic design they got for free. However, the worse part is that Facebook, being the second biggest data mining company, can utilise their database to provide a better experience than Diaspora possibly could. Diaspora’s aspects may soon be snowed under by the better aspects Facebook offers to its users.
What annoys me most is that none of those Facebook users will realise that the blueprints for this update were all made by four awesome guys who work around the clock to build an awesome social network for us. Soon, people will accuse them of being copycats begging for funding. Aspects, once being a very exclusive feature on Diaspora, will become “just another rip-off from better social networks”. Don’t get me wrong; it is a great compliment that Facebook and Google+ copy Diaspora but it may not be in favour of the federated social web. With aspects becoming part of the mainstream social networks it will take a whole lot more candy to turn people in favour of Diaspora.
In other news: today I read a story about a man having been arrested 5 minutes after logging in to Facebook. He owe his wife $ 5.000,- alimony…
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Chris |
This is one of many reasons D* is needed. Not as a Facebook killer, but as a way to drive G+ and FB to create a better social experience.
Kevin Kleinman |
People may get a better experience from those social networks but at the end of the day the social black holes are still as powerful as they were before, if not more powerful. See the last sentence of my blog.
Strange Realms |
FB and Google don’t care about making a better social experience, they care about gathering, using and selling our informations.
I find that sad that so many people are ignorant of Diaspora existence, and even when I tell them about it, they’re so passive about it and don’t care not having any privacy and being nothing but a product on Facebook and Google+.
Wake up!
shackra |
yes, you are right!! +10
Paks |
Facebook are filthy thieves. Open source coding is for everyone, but it’s polite not to act as though you invented it.
The good part about this, though, is the changes it will make to these corporation networks. They will have to step up their game in order to keep customers from becoming outraged at their heinous tactics. I generally think this is a good thing.
Kevin Kleinman |
The question is, do they do this because it’s better for the users or because it’s better for themselves?
They only care about their users when they need to; a lot of updates only seem to happen because people like them on other social networks. That is not something you would expect from a company making that much money.
Toby Reme |
Journalists, including writers in womens’ magazines, are beginning to come to understand the Facebook model and it’s potential impact on privacy. Articles are beginning to dribble out. They will in time become a flood. But what is scary to me is the extent to which agencies of the state, radio/tv stations and social organizations ( clubs, associations, charities) are FLOCKING to Facebook. I’m concerned that all my details on any of their membership lists will be sucked in to Facebook, and without my permission too.
jon |
I’m not a huge fan of Facebook, but I don’t think it’s accurate to say they’re copying Diaspora’s Aspects. Facebook has had “friends lists” for quite a while, and this is just their latest try at making them usable.
Kevin Kleinman |
Of course they already had those lists but the new implementation shows a lot of similarities with the way Diaspora and Google+ use them (e.g. the share button and left filters).
jon |
Weren’t the left filters there all along? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to discount Diaspora’s influence here: G+ sure looks a lot like D*, and there’s no question that it was G+ that caused Facebook to react by giving friends lists another whirl. But I just don’t see this as copying.
Mo |
The implementation of lists in fb is, just like most recent changes over there, quite stupid. The list functionality has been there before and if you’ve been using it like it was supposed to be you are now “rewarded” with almost the same functions again, making the menu yet more packed and unclear. facebook has become so annoyingly complicated that with each new feature they’re making it worse.
Well i’m not exactly too stupid to understand all the changes they’ve made, i just think they (beginning with at least the new chat, if not earlier) were all unnecessary and uncalled for and i like my stuff neat, tidy and time-saving.
Btw. i think the implementation of portlets – for example in the right sidebar – would be a great advantage that facebook can’t exactly follow up, because they’ll always have to care about whether their stupid ads are displayed properly.
Kevin Kleinman |
What exactly do you mean by portlets?
Anyway, once you have a lot of users to satisfy there will always be people who hate what you are doing. It is also a fact that those who hate an update are more vocal about it than those who like an update. The more haters, the easier it becomes to unite. Through all the negativity people will only hate the update more. However, if those people would first play around with the new functionality instead of screaming beforehand, you will see that it is not that bad most of the time. I have experienced that with lots of products.
I think the main reason for the discontent is the fact that the users have never been really happy about Facebook. Now just when they got used to it, Facebook starts throwing its features around again, leaving its users clueless.
At some point the same will probably happen with Diaspora. Although the development of Diaspora is not driven by profit goals and although the community is quite democratic, there will always be people who preferred the old appearance or functionality. Luckily Diaspora pods will be able to differentiate with their appearance.
On the other hand you cannot just call people haters. You need to find out why they dislike an update and try to address their problems. That especially applies when people have moral issues with an update. Don’t let the discontent turn into a Company vs User situation because both parties will lose.
Just to let you know; I often had disagreements with internet companies about the way they changed their product because it was not in the best interest of their customers (think: ads, unreasonable VIP-systems, anti-privacy measures, unique in-game items, excessive bonus xp weekends, etc).
In short: you cannot avoid that people dislike the updates you make to your project but make sure to respect the opposition and try to explain to them why it was a good move. Also, Diaspora will be better off than other social networks because you are not as dependant on someone’s preferences as you are on a centralised social network.
Loren |
Well, to be fair, Livejournal did this over a decade ago with its friend groups. But it is a shame that Facebook will get the credit for this feature when other social networks have already had it implemented for quite some time already.
eyeore |
I see fb as doing this in a last-ditch effort to make their interface something that works and is interesting for the average user. The early fb was fun. Now the wall is swamped by ads from all the things people “liked” and the odd status update from Aunt Josie is lost. So Aunt Josie posts a lot less. So the wall is less and less interesting so I read less…etc. The average user used to be able to join fb and have fun. That’s gone. So fb copies Diaspora, hoping that early magic will return, but I think it’s gone forever.
A user-owned network like Diaspora gives me hope that we can create the magic that the early fb had & not “improve” ourselves into oblivion like fb did…ultimately their interest in data-mining and making it a platform optimized for tailoring advertising to users made it a platform useless to users. I have hope that Diaspora won’t do that!
Glad I’m here!
Paul |
Facebook and Google dosent care of social experience
because that site’s and the author of the site’s only care of the rating’s and how poppular their site was.
Deus Figendi |
Oh I’m pretty late to comment but…
…good software is always copied. All the time and all history. Windows got a lot of ideas from MacOS or even the early Macintosh. MS-Office, StarOffice and so Open- and LibreOffice are alwas looking for the best features of the other to adopt it, in both directions.
Well working game-genres are copied all the time (think about towerdefence, rogue-like or just doodleJump).
And so Google does, used to use XMPP for gTalk and gWave and copied a lot of stuff from d*aspora to g+…
Yea it might be a pitty that it becomes even harder to get people joining d*aspora but… good software-ideas spread. That’s the way it goes and I think it’s good in general for customers, ’cause the BEST featured are copied, and the crap is left behind. So if Microsoft invents new features I might profit from it using libreOffice