Re: Federation protocols

On 31 May 2013 17:32, Simon Tennant <simon@buddycloud.com> wrote:

> On 31 May 2013 17:09, Darrell Prince` <prince.darrell@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I also hear a lot of pushback on Facebook. Zuckerbergs recent involvement
>> in some hare brained conservative PAC doesn't help. People want to get to
>> something better. but there needs to be something out there noticeably
>> better, 3 steps ahead, and provide more advantages than, better friend
>> requesting.
>>
>
> Betamax was technically better than VHS.
>

It's a myth that betamax was technically better.  VHS tapes were 3 hours
and betamax only 1 hour which was not long enough to record a movie.

The either / or paradigm is essentially about silos and walled gardens.
The AND principle is what will allow networks to federate and grow.


>
> I know I'm the downer here - but I'm trying to be realistic: people will
> not go through the friction of switching for a small feature change. A new
> product has to be an order of magnitude better to have users switch.
>
> Here's how I see the future of federated social networks playing out:
>
> I start with the following assumptions:
>
>    1. unique features drive user adoption (Instagram)
>    2. that federation and open are just features that some developers see
>    as useful / we don't sell a solution by pounding these down someone's throat
>    3. the majority of developers care about quickly building a solution
>    that works and gives them existing libraries and tools / any solution will
>    need to make their life easier than using the Twitter of Facebook API and
>    SDKs.
>    4. developers do care about building on APIs and protocols that don't
>    get removed from underneath them (Twitter API example from Michał).
>
> With that in mind here's how I see us getting open and distributed social
> networks adopted:
>
>    1. we build great easy to use tools, libraries and provide fantastic
>    documentation using existing established standards (eg Activity streams,
>    XMPP)
>    2. define the additional protocols for each of the functions of social
>    networking (follower management, post management, following management,
>    media sharing, inbox to client synchronisation) and work them through XSF
>    and W3C committees.
>    3. build great reference implementations (we're not build a clone of
>    facebook) of specific features - eg meda sharing between domains.
>    4. blog extensively about building on these tools.
>    5. Other developers that are less concerned about federation and
>    openness start building on these tools and creating their own apps.
>    6. now we start to see an ecosystem around the apps and users are
>    using their one identity to sign into existing social federated apps.
>    7. at this poing perhaps someone comes along and writes an app that
>    looks like a facebook wall - and it has more of a chance of
>    working because users can reuse their existing social login from all the
>    single use apps already written.
>
> At no point have we started out to create a facebook-like wall and copy
> what facebook does. Instead we provide a great framework for developers who
> have a problem building on the existing social APIs.
>
> S.
>
> --
> Simon Tennant | buddycloud.com | +49 17 8545 0880 | office hours:
> goo.gl/tQgxP
>