This is a follow-up of my previous post. Since the facebook is apparently dying, the question is what will replace it? This is a very tricky question indeed because it has two parts.
1. Does facebook need to be replaced (will people get by without the functionality after being used to it for so long)?
2. What features must the replacement have that will allow it to take the torch?
I just found out about diaspora today (Google Buzz is good for something). It is apparently an open source idea to replace social networking tools (like the facebook). I haven't read everything there is to read on it, but here is what I get from it.
1. It is sort of a P2P system where rather than plopping stuff on the facebook it would be hosted locally.
2. It uses PGP to encrypt user data, so that privacy is central to the design.
3. Modularity is key, so that offering new features do not mess with other users who just want a simple private web.
4. Current facebook apps that are useful (are there any?) can use diaspora API to reach those leaving facebook.
This doesn't explain a whole lot, and there will need to be some impetus to get people to switch from facebook to diaspora, but privacy is the main reason they would want to. I just have several comments on the viability of this model, which I view as the best to replace the facebooks.
1. Open Source is key, because there are major trust issues with this type of thing if someone central holds onto the source.
2. PGP is a tough call. It is a great way to do personal encryption so that the data is secure, but right now it is primarily used by technical people. Getting users to create a private key and know how to secure it and hold on to it is tough.
3. P2P is awesome, I love it for file transfer, things with little guarantee, etc. But using it for a service that is meant to be live is tricky. I might be understanding incorrectly, and you actually want professional hosting for all pages. Really though, you want absolutely revocable profile data as the primitive. I don't know how that is achievable, but there you have it.
So I'll be monitoring this space for a while, if this succeeds (which they now have the funding to get to step 2) I will create a seed and see what happens. Otherwise the other contenders will pop up and have to prove that they can succeed where the facebook failed. Ultimately, the winner will beat all others to the punch and be as desirable as facebook. Tough job.
May 12, 2010
May 07, 2010
Is the facebook dying?
I found this article interesting (confession, I haven't finished it). The link http://www.baekdal.com/opinion/facebook-is-dying-social-is-not/ from Tyler Cowen. I am over the facebook, so I should probably start to replace the functionality with other services (twitter has started) and phase it out. Now that my parents and everyone is on, I guess I can lead the way on getting out. A friend of mine can be applauded for leading the way and getting out ahead of the pack. Kudos.
April 30, 2010
Cloud FAIL
I am a big proponent of cloud computing. I bought a netbook a couple years back because I was expecting that shortly after buying it, it would be a cloudbook due to services popping up to do what I needed. To some extent I was correct (Google Everything, Dropbox, Remember the Milk). But do you know what this list should have that I now have to mark as a cloud fail? Lala.com.
When I came across lala.com I thought it had solved my problem of listening to music on my netbook, which obviously doesn't have room for all the music I listen to. This solution worked until Apple bought lala for the talent working there, as well as some patents they may hold. Today Apple has killed lala.com once and for all. As of May 31, all music in my lala library will disappear and all the money I put into buying songs for the cloud will be converted into iTunes bucks. They might as well just give me play tokens to Chuck E. Cheese, because I'd rather look like a pedophile than use the iTunes music store.
So here is my assessment of the situation. Apple saw that users started to use this site called lala.com and that there was some value to buying it. They then stay quiet for a few months, giving members hope that maybe they will keep the site alive. Lastly, they come to the conclusion that these users probably meant to use iTunes all along, so let's give them credit for the music store. What the hell?
Coming back to the cloud to finish up here. There is a lot of trust a user puts into a cloud provider. Time and money goes into using a service, and while it works the user is happy. This trust may well work for companies like Google, who is too big just to shut down. Though trusting something so monolithic presents other issues. So small cloud services have no chance going forward, as people will just say I can't invest my effort in you, you will fail like lala. Apple has no intention of providing an open cloud service, though shortly we will be hearing about how cool it is that you can listen to your iTunes library from any computer with iTunes. Won't that be awesome?
When I came across lala.com I thought it had solved my problem of listening to music on my netbook, which obviously doesn't have room for all the music I listen to. This solution worked until Apple bought lala for the talent working there, as well as some patents they may hold. Today Apple has killed lala.com once and for all. As of May 31, all music in my lala library will disappear and all the money I put into buying songs for the cloud will be converted into iTunes bucks. They might as well just give me play tokens to Chuck E. Cheese, because I'd rather look like a pedophile than use the iTunes music store.
So here is my assessment of the situation. Apple saw that users started to use this site called lala.com and that there was some value to buying it. They then stay quiet for a few months, giving members hope that maybe they will keep the site alive. Lastly, they come to the conclusion that these users probably meant to use iTunes all along, so let's give them credit for the music store. What the hell?
Coming back to the cloud to finish up here. There is a lot of trust a user puts into a cloud provider. Time and money goes into using a service, and while it works the user is happy. This trust may well work for companies like Google, who is too big just to shut down. Though trusting something so monolithic presents other issues. So small cloud services have no chance going forward, as people will just say I can't invest my effort in you, you will fail like lala. Apple has no intention of providing an open cloud service, though shortly we will be hearing about how cool it is that you can listen to your iTunes library from any computer with iTunes. Won't that be awesome?
March 01, 2010
Kachingle
I have posted on the merits of micropayments before, and my vision is somewhat different from that of Kachingle. But as for having something that will work in the mean time, Kachingle is well poised. I feel that $5 a month is a reasonable amount to pay for web content, but I consume a good amount of it. Some users may only look at a few things a month, and that same $5 is too much for them.
This is why I think that the micropayment option that will work the best has the most flexibility overall. Pricing on the producers end should be allowed in the range $0.01-0.99, with some extra step for payments beyond that. Consumers should know what something costs before they pay, but the mental cost to decide should be minimal (they don't even bother worrying about it until maybe $0.25 or so). Lastly, the amount put into the system should depend on the person and their preferences (lots up front so they don't have to worry about it, or about $5/month perhaps).
All that said, I really like Kachingle. It is a way to support a blog, as well as a way to gather new readers who can now support you for your work. Going to kachingle.com let's you browse what others are kachingling, and you may find a new site that is interesting. I hope this idea grows to many more sites quickly.
This is why I think that the micropayment option that will work the best has the most flexibility overall. Pricing on the producers end should be allowed in the range $0.01-0.99, with some extra step for payments beyond that. Consumers should know what something costs before they pay, but the mental cost to decide should be minimal (they don't even bother worrying about it until maybe $0.25 or so). Lastly, the amount put into the system should depend on the person and their preferences (lots up front so they don't have to worry about it, or about $5/month perhaps).
All that said, I really like Kachingle. It is a way to support a blog, as well as a way to gather new readers who can now support you for your work. Going to kachingle.com let's you browse what others are kachingling, and you may find a new site that is interesting. I hope this idea grows to many more sites quickly.
February 19, 2010
In Support of the VAT
This is going to be followed by a lot of qualifications, so read carefully. I am in general opposed to higher taxes, as giving more money to people who spend it without discretion is dumb. That would be like re-hiring a contractor who came in several thousand over budget, screwed up the job, and watched porn on your TV while you were at work.
Sure the politicians want to do all sorts of great stuff, but until they can prove that they are going to go about things in an efficient manner that won't result in a spending explosion, I don't want to have any part of it. I'm all for health care for all, I don't like people dying because they couldn't afford medicine or procedures, but if we just blindly jump into paying for everyone there are effects elsewhere that cannot be ignored.
So here is my proposal. We get rid of the income tax, because frankly it sucks. We replace it with a VAT that will more efficiently gain tax money from consumers (prices will be raised to cover the VAT). This will put some burden on the poor, so democrats will try to exempt them to some extent. Anyway, we can't do this, because we need the tax money. We still have the welfare programs to take care of all that.
The next part of the proposal is this. We don't let the VAT increase taxes at all initially. The only way to raise it is by establishing savings somewhere else. So you want to raise the VAT by 1%, show that you can cut 1% from government overhead in an area that the money will go towards. This will result in more money for them (they get the 1% increase, plus they don't have to spend as much). This will force cost saving by the spenders, and they will have to look to the republicans who want to cut costs for advice on where to do it.
The reason a VAT is good is because the rates can be raised or lowered (though lowering them seems unlikely) rather easily. The collection mechanism is simple, and hard to dodge. Companies want to add value, so they will find it hard to avoid the tax on such activity. I am not an expert on any of this, rather I just think that something clever needs to be done to get over the impasse we are in.
Sure the politicians want to do all sorts of great stuff, but until they can prove that they are going to go about things in an efficient manner that won't result in a spending explosion, I don't want to have any part of it. I'm all for health care for all, I don't like people dying because they couldn't afford medicine or procedures, but if we just blindly jump into paying for everyone there are effects elsewhere that cannot be ignored.
So here is my proposal. We get rid of the income tax, because frankly it sucks. We replace it with a VAT that will more efficiently gain tax money from consumers (prices will be raised to cover the VAT). This will put some burden on the poor, so democrats will try to exempt them to some extent. Anyway, we can't do this, because we need the tax money. We still have the welfare programs to take care of all that.
The next part of the proposal is this. We don't let the VAT increase taxes at all initially. The only way to raise it is by establishing savings somewhere else. So you want to raise the VAT by 1%, show that you can cut 1% from government overhead in an area that the money will go towards. This will result in more money for them (they get the 1% increase, plus they don't have to spend as much). This will force cost saving by the spenders, and they will have to look to the republicans who want to cut costs for advice on where to do it.
The reason a VAT is good is because the rates can be raised or lowered (though lowering them seems unlikely) rather easily. The collection mechanism is simple, and hard to dodge. Companies want to add value, so they will find it hard to avoid the tax on such activity. I am not an expert on any of this, rather I just think that something clever needs to be done to get over the impasse we are in.
February 17, 2010
Loose Ends
NaNoWriMo: I did not finish my novel, I started out the best I could, but quickly fell behind and gave up on actually getting words down. I figure I'll run with my idea and either get it into a short story or a weird novel. Two of my roommates did finish, and I'm working on getting through their novels. Good job fellas.
Dominos Pizza: I had a post on pizza party a bit back that orders Dominos pizza, basically using an API to automate stuff. Anyway, their ads appear to be all over this page, which I find pretty interesting. I have tried their new pizza, and it is better than the old stuff. Actually it is pretty decent pizza.
ReCaptcha: Quite a while back, I made a post on how awesome I thought ReCaptcha was. Well it is still awesome, and Google now owns it. They are using it to help with their book scanning stuff, and I really think it is an awesome tool.
That's it, I'll post again in a year or so.
Dominos Pizza: I had a post on pizza party a bit back that orders Dominos pizza, basically using an API to automate stuff. Anyway, their ads appear to be all over this page, which I find pretty interesting. I have tried their new pizza, and it is better than the old stuff. Actually it is pretty decent pizza.
ReCaptcha: Quite a while back, I made a post on how awesome I thought ReCaptcha was. Well it is still awesome, and Google now owns it. They are using it to help with their book scanning stuff, and I really think it is an awesome tool.
That's it, I'll post again in a year or so.
October 08, 2009
NaNoWriMo
So my roommates talked me into joining in on NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. The goal of this project is to get people writing. We have one month to write 50,000 words. It doesn't matter how good the story ends up being in the end, as this is not about editing into a publishable work. Any aspiring novel writers out there can get in on this project and have encouragement to get writing. There are local groups that have kickoff and completion parties, so support can even be found face-to-face.
I will be attempting to complete this endeavor, even though I do not consider myself much of a creative writer. I will try to keep up on the progress as I go along.
September 20, 2009
Nickelback
This is a tribute to how bad Nickelback is. The critics of Nickelback lay this out much more eloquently than I can, so I will allow the reader to source those as an academic exercise. The point of this post is how consistently awful Nickelback has been over the years. It is not even socially acceptable to admit that one appreciates Nickelback's music. Those who are misinformed enough to delude themselves into liking Nickelback must hide in this shame and sneak around in the shadows to listen to the sounds of such a pathetically uninspired band. While I don't claim to be the world's greatest judge of music, I think I am qualified enough to say that Nickelback sucks.
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