“public” social networking (an observation)

Before clicking on the links below, be sure to log out of both Diaspora and Facebook.

A “Public” post through joindiaspora.com

A “Public” post through facebook.com

will Diaspora “succeed”?

Diaspora still lacks punch because proper implementation (i.e. as a personal web server, not joindiaspora.com et al.) is still for the wizards. But the beauty is, that when (if? (vaporware?)) it is properly implemented, it will differentiate itself from GooglePlus and Facebook in a way that offers value to mass market consumers in the form of privacy and data portability. If consumers could buy an easy-to-install, pre-configured wall-wart running FreedomBox/Diaspora with the option of gratis/paid services for specialized configuration or feature development, some would be willing and able to buy such a device.

Unfortunately, the issues around privacy and data portability/access are not issues that typically capture the mass market’s attention. Will enough users care to expend the energy to create an instance of their social life on Diaspora and learn its interface? I’m skeptical, but if Diaspora keeps developing like it is, I see no reason to leave. For me personally, Diaspora has been like Twitter on steroids. My “use” of Twitter has pretty much been reduced to my Diaspora posts being pushed out to Twitter automatically.

Putting aside social pull and the goal of market power, I think the success of Diaspora should be measured similarly to the goals of the GNU Project. While advocates of software like the GNU/Linux operating system enjoy hearing news of market success, they see the existence of free software itself as the most important success, rather than growing popularity. Maybe there will only ever be enough capital behind Diaspora to sustain a niche market or perhaps, it will come to the mass market. Regardless of that, even if a small network of users exist who can run their own privacy-aware, free personal web server, that’s a success too.

Facebook educational extremes: banning versus promotion

Jeff Utecht sings the praises for Facebook as an educational tool. While Jeff typically shines at promoting useful tools for educators, I think he goes over the top here. He begins by listing “facts” about Facebook and a couple of them sound more like a sales-pitch than sound educational advice.

1. Everyone, including parents and teachers are already using it. Not only is that false by exaggeration, but an attempt to pass off a bandwagon fallacy (argumentum ad populum for the Latin-minded).

2. Facebook has replaced e-mail for many people. While I know many who use Facebook to message others, I don’t actually know anyone who has completely stopped sending messages via e-mail and relies exclusively on Facebook. Perhaps these people exist, but many? Like microblogging or IM, these technologies have certainly added to our arsenal, but many?

3. Facebook has more privacy settings then (sic) most Internet sites. I think it would be useful (imperative?) to point to sites that serve a similar purpose, then describe how Facebook is superior in this regard. And, given the ugly history of Facebook privacy and the CEO’s contempt toward these issues, this isn’t a strong selling point. Remember who’s in control here…Zuckerberg’s the CEO, b**ch. Yes, the cards have changed, but there’s no indication the man has.

4. Not using Facebook to communicate with your school/class community is like not using Google to search. Apples and oranges. I don’t use Facebook to search nor do I use Google’s search engine to do social networking. Further, I don’t have to sign into Google and tell them who I am in order to use their search engine. I’m not sure what Jeff is getting at here but at best, it’s another bandwagon fallacy.

5. It is the future. While I have no doubt that Facebook will continue to be popular for some time, this “fact” was a real eye-roller.

6. It is the now. See #5.

7. For every negative reason to block Facebook there is a positive reason as well. I actually ended the list with this one because it ties into the title of this post…

First, I want to make clear that I agree with Jeff that schools that actively block Facebook are not doing students any favors. I abhor schools that block sites that simply act as tools. I think Jeff and I agree on this. What I question is the idea of using Facebook with elementary students (as young as Grade 1 in Jeff’s post) or even older ones for that matter. The Facebook privacy policy clearly states that children under the age of 13 are not to create accounts or use the site to post personal information. Carefully note the or. The school Jeff speaks about has cleverly circumvented the account creation aspect – by having a centralized account controlled by the teacher. However, they have failed to live up to the policy as personal information from the children is still being posted. While I think this is a concern, it isn’t even my central criticism…

Why hook a school into Facebook instead of developing a private, on-site solution? What does Facebook offer (besides popularity) that a site built on Free/Open Source software like Elgg or a combination of tools like Moodle and StatusNet doesn’t? Sure, going with Facebook sounds easy, but it also sounds like the easy way out – especially for an educational institution that could turn this into a learning opportunity for some technically-inclined pupils and a technical director and/or teacher. I get why banning Facebook in schools is an unwarranted extreme, but I fail to see any value in promoting it as an educational tool for little children. Isn’t this just going from one extreme to another?

product?

Matthew Papakipos:

Facebook! Love the product and team.

Facebook isn’t a product. Facebook is tool used to obtain the actual product. That being user information. I wonder what Matthew thinks of efforts like Diaspora. Or for that matter, what his former coworkers at Google think.

stupid nerd turf wars

xkcd original source

Dear Faceborg,

if you ever sue another for writing software that “dynamically provides a news feed”, you’re going to piss a lot of people off, including me. Oh, and don’t think for a second that the extortion of cross-licensing with other fish will go unnoticed.

Caroline McCarthy has more details here.

WTF-acebook?

So the CEO who pooh-poohs privacy now wants to add an email service? Great, what’s next? A Facebook version of Paypal?