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Facebook going opensource?

David Mulder [PersonRank 10]

Tuesday, May 27, 2008
16 years ago3,387 views

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/26/facebook-to-open-source-facebook-platform/

Seems interesting... hope its true, although I couldn't do anything with it personally, I still prefer facebook over most other networks, because of the available applications. Still I am not sure how this would help facebook.

Justin Pfister [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

As far as I'm concerned, the internet is and always has been an opensource Facebook. The only thing different is that Facebook is trying to centrally plan or control it on their domain.

I haven't used Facebook in months. I had thought these huge blanketing Social Apps were going to bring so much benefit to my life. I thought of Facebook as a 'social utility' which I would use more than anything else but I really don't think it's progressing my day to day life as much as I hoped. I sincerely believe my enthusiasm and expectations for Facebook and Social Networking in general peaked at one time well above where is currently is today.

My guess is that most people will find these apps networks pretty worthless in time as well. They just aren't natural. This blog Philipp made as been way more useful for me than Facebook has ever been. Anyone disagree? Has social networking really made a positive impact in your life other than helping you realize how many people you don't regularly talk to, inactive groups you belong too, or what a pain it is to setup up a profile?

jilm [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

I disagree. I found many friends at Facebook who I did not see for years. Now I at least know a little bit about haw they are doing.

"the internet is and always has been an opensource Facebook" – that´s not true, at least not now. You cannot do the same things with "the internet" as with Facebook. What is missing? Social email, notifications, better than primitive newsfeed, invitations, single-login. I know about OpenID, microformats and that stuff. But it simply do not work, not yet.

Justin Pfister [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Here's my Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/people/Justin_Pfister/14900115

I've been apart of every social network I've ever heard of and it's just my experience that not a single social network seems to be able to be as socially stimulating as the wide open waters of the WWW.

Ramibotros [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

I rather agree with Justin.
[put at-character here]jilm: Facebook made you find your friends, because your friends only utilized Facebook for social matters. If they had had a blog, a flickr account or whatever else then it would'nt have been Facebook's miracle that you found them. In fact, a lot of people that I know can be "tracked" through other services more than they can be through Facebook. As for syndication about "how my friends are doing", i think blogs can do that much better – but again, IF the friends are willing to use them.
Also, a lot of things don't work on Facebook yet either. Up until recently it didn't have chat, but now I can simply argue: "Chat rooms are missing!" etc..
So in the end, it's like Justin expressed it: Facebook is one of many utilities for social networking. It might be the right one for the majority of users, but it should not be the general house of social networking. A *utility* succeeds much more than a website that's "trying to centrally plan or control it on their domain" does. (See Google vs. Yahoo in 1990s) It's just about repecting the users' freedom, because you'll never be able to completely please them.
And this is exactly why I think FriendFeed is gonna beat them all..

Justin Pfister [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

I'll check out FriendFeed Ramibotros. I've often thought that up to this point, the Windows OS is the ultimate social platform. It's easy enough to use so a majority of the population can connect online and when not online, it still works. It gives you virtually limitless creative ability (photo editing, writing, recording, business documents). It empower every generation to save ideas, share and grow. Your OS might be working when your neighbors might not. If your favorite website is down, you can goto another. So it's got the strength of independently working units. All in all, it seems eventually, these big social services strive to being what Windows has been for the past 10+ years. This is probably why Alex (http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/) is so fasinated with the Google OS. I believe a solid OS is the glue of the social networks.

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