The Coop, Social Networking For Mozilla

smileham noted a story about Mozilla developers considering work on a "social networking" Firefox extension called the "Coop" to take up where Flock left off. Also here is a wiki on the subject.

Comments

I love the internet

[MosesJones]

Geeks get to pretend we have a Social network, without all the hassle of actually physically meeting people

NAFSN

[IgLou]

It's a new acronym I'm starting: Not Another Freaking Social Network!

Really, I'd like to see existing social networks evolve and allow more interop before I want to see another new one come up. That's just me though.

Re:NAFSN

[IgLou]

Here's the thing, I don't want a program like this. If I'm browsing, I'm browsing. If I'm messaging, I'm messaging. If you want to interop the two activities, fine. I'm a little put off because I was under the impression that to build in this social browser extension they were introducing a new social network. That's something that I don't think we need. What needs to happen at some point is for social networks to allow interoperability so I can have my friends that use MSN get me on ICQ or GoogleTalk or you name it rather than joining every flipping network under the sun. For me an ideal would be, on my social network (say LinkedIn) I should be able to define I that I have a friend using a particular address (email) and then when I connect my messaging service (GoogleTalk) to that social network it determines who on my network has an authenticated connection to a messaging service. Now I realize I'm simplifying and it's not exactly on topic but I think until social networks talk to each other we don't need additional networks.

Now as for the browser extension, meh. I'm not excited about it. But I must say as the number of FireFox extensions grows that it's quickly no longer becoming a browser and being more of a "internet platform". Which is a good thing as far as I'm concerned, it shifts perceptions that the internet is just web.

Beginning of the end...

[daveisfera]

Firefox is starting to lose what made it great (small, streamlined design that anyone could add to with extensions) and becoming far more bloated than the original IE that it so gratefully replaced. I'm fine with them adding these features, but they should be extensions, not part of the browser itself. Sure, they could make "standard extensions" that come with the default installation of Firefox, but you should be able to remove them and keep the small, streamlined Firefox that we all love so much in the beginning.

Re:Beginning of the end...

[smooc]

I am getting a little tired of the argument: Ohhh they are only adding bloat! It is not streamlined any more. Bladadiebladiebla.

Firstly they are talking about implementing it as an extension. So no bloat added, it even gives you a choice!

Secondly if no experimenting is taking place, no new things will be developed. Experimenting is a necessity to survive. Just following standards will not set new improved standards, there is a reason why there are alpha versions of software: because it has experimental new features and they would like to see if they catch on.

I applaud this move of the Moz team for that matter. Finally an opensource project that looks beyond its own nose.