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Best Alternatives To the Big Name Social Media?
rueger writes "Over a couple of years I have actually found Facebook pretty useful and/or entertaining. It has certainly allowed me to stay connected with a lot of people with whom I otherwise would have lost track, and for all its weaknesses it was handy for sharing links and such. This week, though, the privacy escapades have pushed me (and a lot of other people) over the edge. If Twitter's 140 characters aren't enough, LinkedIn is too business-oriented, MySpace too ugly, and Buzz — does anyone even use Buzz? What social media options are out there for all of those non-uber-techy folks?"
To me, the 140-character limit of Twitter is more than offset by the conciseness of the information it thusly transports. I find it actually very stimulating to be limited to 140 characters. Forces you to think a little longer before you post.
As Goethe once said: Sorry for writing this long letter, I didn't have time for a shorter one.
But in any case, you can combine Twitter with a Blog and use that if you really think you need to say something longer than 140 characters, then post the link on Twitter. Posterous is an excellent site for that.
And to those who still think that Twitter is the place where people tell you they're having a sandwich -- you are obviously following the wrong people. It is the most efficient information engine I have ever seen -- and many other things beyond that.
I just idle on IRC instead.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
tribe.net is still around.
been around a long time actually.
http://nur.ph/
I have used this on occasion. It needs a bigger userbase.
I hear if you visit this "Outside" you can meet other people and network with them. You can have friends, interests, conversations, etc. The whole deal.
It's Nurph, not Nurf, a slight typo there.
http://nur.ph/
Here's the problem: if you're on a social network that few have heard of, what's the point?
Isn't the purpose of say, Facebook, the fact that nearly everyone uses it? How would a "social network" without other people even work?
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
The thing that makes "social media" useful is its userbase. You could never have found/kept in touch with your old friends if you weren't signed up for a service they were also signed up for. Trying to find a smaller service by definitions means it's not going to be as useful to you.
I don't know how useful this is but I joined a community on Ning that focused on independent rock. These communities are much smaller and it's going to be pointless to ask all your friends to join it. But if you're looking for something more tightly knit surrounding a topic you passionately love then these networks are more specific and probably more helpful.
... I mean, you're never going to find that large of a user base or platform usage. For example, I love getting Onion updates on Facebook but you won't find that on a Ning community. I also have no clue how robust Ning's privacy policy is. I'm content with just putting things on social networks that I'm comfortable showing to everyone. You might do well to just simply adjust what you put up and share and not worry about the potential repercussions. Sure it means less pictures and less bonding via Facebook but I've got real life to do that stuff.
Unfortunately they don't satisfy what you liked about Facebook but
My work here is dung.
...is the one all your friends are on. Otherwise, what's the point? Write your own if you need to. If you want to meet new people, find a site that caters to your interests or join one that everyone else is on. If you want to keep in touch with your friends, who cares which one you use as long as you agree on it.
On another note, the idea that Twitter=Facebook is alien to me. Facebook is multimedia sharing (video, pictures, short status updates, blog entries, etc.) while Twitter is just status updates and link sharing.
Ideally, it'd work something like this:
If you must microblog, Twitter is fine, or find something else. Most of them can publish to other accounts, and all of them worth considering will have at least an RSS feed, if not SMS.
Otherwise, pick any free blog hosting site, or run it yourself. Blogs already provide the basics of what "social networks" do, especially if you use XFN, but even without that, what do you really do on Facebook? Announce your status, post what you're doing, reply to other people's posts ("write on their wall"), organize events (iCal works, and Google Calendar supports it), link to people you like, follow what people are doing (RSS)... ...it's possible I'm missing what social networking is about, as I don't use Twitter or Facebook, but I also don't get what it adds above the Web itself as a medium. About the only thing I can think of is automatically suggesting certain people you might know, friends-of-friends and such, but I'm guessing anything that could provide that would also provide the exact same privacy concerns.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Get your friends' email addresses. Email them. (Your ISP provides you with an email address; contrary to popular belief, there was email before gmail came along).
IRC and Jabber also work well.
If nothing else, this doesn't involve selling your soul to commercial interests.
The only way to win...is to not play.
Seriously, that's the best way to stay out of the Social Media Black Hole. Don't log in. Don't make an account. EVER. Ignore the temptation. Ignore the appeal.
LinkedIn is useful for business purposes. LinkedIn offers a big hammer that discourages spammers. If someone tries to "friend" you, and you don't know them, you click "I don't know this person". After a few rejections, the annoying user loses the ability to "friend" people. The same goes for "questions"; if someone puts up a question that looks like spam, and it's flagged, they soon lose the ability to post "questions". As a result, there are people on LinkedIn worth talking to. However, a big fraction of the users are "consultants" trolling for work. Lots of lawyers, but, after all, lawyers are consultants trolling for work.
I used to enjoy Tribe, which was fun and useful if you're near SF, because many of the people doing interesting art things in SF were on Tribe. But they have near zero traffic now. A few years back, they went "Web 2.0", and they broke their system so badly that "Tribe bug reports" became the most active group. Then they decided to crack down on "adult" topics to please their advertisers, and a big chunk of their user base left. Then they annoyed their main developer, and he left. After those mistakes, I think they're down to about three employees.
It gets straight to the point, for isn't that what Facebook is really about? Why else are half the the female pictures scantily clad and half the male pictures shirtless? Lets just be adults and cut straight through the Facebullshit.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
What if I don't want to travel 5,000 miles everyday to see how all my friends are?
If the whole rest of the planet isn't using it, what's the point? Facebook is what we're stuck with. Get over it.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
You can safely orbit a black hole, if you're beyond the event horizon and pick a trajectory that ensures you stay this way.
I think Facebook might be best treated this way: create yourself a profile with limited content. Particularly don't give informative answers to specific questions. Include a URL to your personal website / blog. Make that public. Make an email address and phone number visible to friends. Update your status and comment to friends periodically, feed links to content you have elsewhere through it periodically. You get most of the advantages of Facebook's visibility and keep their grip off your content and personal information.
Tweet, tweet.
Super super super early stage, but very interesting is Diaspora. This open source project aims to create a completely decentralized social network. It's inspired by Eben Moglen's call for us to break out of the walled gardens.
While walled gardens aren't going away, I really hope this project is at least partially successful giving people back control of their own data.
What if I don't want to travel 5,000 miles everyday to see how all my friends are?
Just use the transporter?
music lover since 1969
Fill it full of noise. Make an account with a random name from the phone book. And say, "I like kiddie porn". If a million of you create just one account, you just might be able to hide in the chaff.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Just use the transporter?
I thought we agreed not to tell the non-techies about this!!
To me, the 140-character limit of Twitter is more than offset by the conciseness of the information it thusly transports. I find it actually very stimulating to be limited to 140 characters.
If only we could impose the same limit on Erris, gnutoo, ibane, and the rest of the gang.
These social networking sites are, in the end, about making money in various ways. It may start off with placing ads, but eventually, they will not be able to resist the sale and ab/use of the data they collect about the users. If you want to do social networking that you can trust, you will have to put up your own site.
Current status: sensual
I don't worry about the privacy much on Facebook. I always assume that they will share my data out with anyone and everyone. That's why I don't put any private data there. I just have my name and a few basics that a simple Google search would turn up anyway.
the more the people, the more useful the network. the less the people, the less useful the network
the best you can do is ride a newish network to popularity. then hop off before it goes out style. then another network rises
friendster, mypsace, facebook... next is?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
If the whole rest of the planet isn't using it, what's the point? Windows is what we're stuck with. Get over it.
So its ok to just bend over and take it since it is popular? What if Torvalds had this attitude? If nobody challenges the leader, then we are stuck with their mediocrity; the lack of competition will yield sub-par satisfaction. Having that kind of attitude is completely nullifies any incentive for innovation and new ideas, and stifles the chance for competition to improve what the [insert mainstream platform here] offers.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
Why dont you just roll your own facebook. Make your own niche.
http://pinaxproject.com/
There's Tumblr, Jaiku, LiveJournal, 4chan...
Or alternatively, you could do your own research.
Sure, Mark Zuckerberg's a douchebag, but most large corporations are run by douchebags and yet I still buy Cheerios at WalMart and drive a Chrysler.
Here's the thing - and don't tell anybody I told you this - if you don't put anything private on Facebook, then your privacy won't be compromised by it.
I use Facebook. I use it because most of my friends are on it. It's a nice way to stay in touch with people who I know, but most of whom I couldn't finish a single beer with and still have anything to talk about. I like these folks - they're part of my past and present - bu some people I only have very small things in common with. I also know when things are happening (a friend's play, or their kids league championship ball game), and where I have common interests with acquaintances whom I would either not interact with at all, or would take years to become closer.
But guess what - I don't put anything on Facebook which is (a) embarrassing (b) particularly personal (c) not already available with an internet search. I never Facebook while drunk (well, I don't get drunk - but you get the idea), and I don't attack people or things. I don't join "causes". I'm not a marketing wasteland, though. I've filled out my "favorite" things sections. BFD. If knowing that I'm in my 40s, like Bowling for Soup and Amadeus, and am married gets Facebook a couple of dollars in ad revenue, go for it. Kroger already knows when I'm on a fucking Diet, and CVS probably informs their spies when the rest of my household has seasonal allergies.
So, that brings me back - unless you really need something else, and are willing and able to migrate your entire friend group to it - quit your whining, be smart with your data, and surf with due caution. You know you can't trust Zuckerberg, and that's 98% of the way to keeping your information safe.
Oh - and whatever you go to will be just as bad eventually. Google can't always not be evil, and even open source projects can have a mole.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Check out the free and open source software, Caucus and build your own social network. I belong to such a Caucus-based community, where invited members can speak openly, and I strongly agree that Facebook is seriously limited by privacy concerns.
You could also look up "The Well" and see what communities of a similar nature are out there. Seems you're looking for something like that.
Identi.ca uses it, and I think the purpose is for people across different social networking sites to be able to follow each other.
Found it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenMicroBlogging
This would ostensibly lead to a decentralization of social networking sites while still allowing people to discover other users.
Will it eventually be possible to have a social-networking standard so that anyone can run their own server, just as with email? In that case it wouldn't matter if one friend uses facebook, another myspace, a third linkedin; they would all adhere to the same standard and so which particular social-networking service you use would become irrelevant.
PS: I apologize for being lazy but I haven't thought about this at all, so there could easily be some glaring reason why it can't possibly work.
I guess I came across as somewhat facetious in my original message. Yet, I was only semi-joking and still stand by my message.
Visit a local community center, join a neighbourhood committee, take the dog for a walk, join your local friends for coffee, tea, lunch, movies, etc. I know enough people that've eschewed their real social lives for their web 2.0 social "life". Given the lack of privacy, the identity theft or targeting, and the sheer waste of time (how much of the time you spend on Facebook is spent solely on communicating rather than simply advertising the details of your life or, even worse, playing honeypot "games"?)
As for friends 5000+ miles away, there're plenty of IM clients for that!
Reddit.
It is a bit tech / democratic / atheistic biased, but it works.
It's not a social network really, but I Google Wave.
I didn't expect much of Wave, but it turns out I get way more meaningful contact out of it than facebook ever did for me.
There are a few things that don't really work with this scenario. First thing is the less people who are on the site the less useful it is. The reason why Facebook is so popular is because -everyone- is on it. Who wants to join a social networking site where you know 5 people on it? As for privacy, is it -really- that big of a deal? Generally all social networking sites will do with your info is target some ads or perhaps make it search-able. Is it -really- that terrible for the world to know that you like Star Trek and want a Core i7 CPU? Mix this all in with plausible denial if it somehow really harms you (is John Smith on FB -really- you who are John Smith?) and you have a situation where it doesn't really matter all that much. Aside from the "creepy" factor, will the information on FB really harm you all that much? Eventually employers will realize that we all have pasts, lives outside of work and it doesn't affect our work in the least. Really, if you get drunk every Friday night with friends and Monday you show up to work on time and do your work does it matter that you got drunk on Friday?
If you don't want something on FB, don't post it. Its as simple as that.
What is there on someone's FB profile (not messages or chat) that is -really- that terrible if the world knows?
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Select the twenty people most important to you and save their names/telephone numbers/e-mail addresses in your cellphone. Thats it. dont copy people who you have not talked with for three years to you new cellphone. Call the ones who are important. Send them a new-year/christmas/easter/whatever e-mail. Normally 2 e-mails per year are enough to follow up.
Use social media with very incomplete identities to meet new people.
You actually used real data on those shopping cards? I have a couple from each chain I shop at (although I do find Aldi to be awesome for some stuff)and switch them around according which vehicle I am driving. Fuck giving them marketing for their fake ass "deals".
Food is social networking, too. Plus, it's 3d fully interactive real-time 360 degree hyper-real resolution with full sensorial input. It's, like, real.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
This is insightful well beyond the reply message.
google buzz is neat. For all the pissing & moaning, I find it simple, useful & consistent - unlike Facebook's myriad of changing security features, Myspace/FB feature bloat. Less is more.
Just use photo sharing for photo sharing, microblogging for microblogging, and chat for chat, preferably provided by competitors so that the data lives in separate worlds. Use different services for public (e.g., Twitter) and private communications (e.g., E-mail). Don't enter full profile information or any sensitive information into any of them.
"Sorry for writing this long letter, I didn't have time for a shorter one."
You sir have made my day!
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Buzzwah.com
If you haven't heard of it, it doesn't do what you want it to.
Insanity: voting in the same two parties over and over again and expecting different results
4chan, etc. Fuck having "friends" online. You get better answers from Anonymous.
Slashdot.
Been around quite some time, too...or so I heard.
One that hath name thou can not otter
zonein2.com is new and gives you 1GB of free space. It allows only your trusted friends to see and share your files.
Quidquid latine dictum sit altum viditur
You reject Buzz as a social network (quite reasonably) because it's not popular enough and then solicit suggestions for an even more obscure social network?
"What kind of music do pirates listen to?" -Paul Maud'dib
"Yeeeaaarrrrr n' Bee!!" -Stilgar, Leader of Sietch Tabr
You need to setup a mailing list (or send dozens of emails each time) if you want to set up something remotely similar to a social network like FB or Twitter.
Oh, and ISP based email only works if you want to pay for your own domain or you can never change ISPs without losing your email address, which I definitively wouldn't want. Yes, Google can shutdown GMail too, but it's way less probable than me moving to another place or simply getting a better deal with another ISP. Besides, GMail offers me much more storage than my ISP, and it's way more reliable.
I'm planning to pay for a domain and set up my own mail server, but for a common user, Gmail and similar offers are the best they can have.
Dilbert RSS feed
I'm actually too lazy to switch them on a regular basis (they were set up with bogus info originally), and half the time I'm using a CC anyway (which throws anonymity out the window).
I still like using my "phone number" sometimes just for the heck of it. I use 867-5309, and it's never been denied. Too many young cashiers these days to even recognize it now. :-)
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I've heard that the founder and current CEO of Multiply has been on Slashdot forever.
But guess what - I don't put anything on Facebook which is (a) embarrassing (b) particularly personal (c) not already available with an internet search.
It's not necessarily what personal info you put on Facebook that's going to come back to bite you in the ass; it's your social network itself. Back in the 1950s, during the McCarthy witchhunt, you got into trouble not so much for what you did, but for who you associated with (or even were just seen talking to). At that point you had the choice of either denouncing that person or being blacklisted yourself. As an aspiring dictator, I drool profusely thinking about how easily I'll be able to cleanse the social landscape of it's undesirable elements. They're falling all over themselves trying to give me lists of all their friends, no housecalls or torture needed.
Of course, it can't happen here, falling on deaf ears, etc...
if you don't put anything private on Facebook, then your privacy won't be compromised by it.
So, if you don't put up your real name, don't "friend" anyone, don't comment to anyone, don't join groups, and don't play games, you've removed all potentially private information. Oh yeah, you've also removed all usefulness at the same time.
Personally, I am not a facebook user, as I've never had any inherent trust of the company and Zuckerberg in particular. I'd like to say Google would do better, but with the uselessness of Buzz, and Schmidt's recent comments about privacy being only necessary if you're hiding something, I'm not counting on them either.
So, I'm waiting for an alternative to come around.
If all your updates are spam posted by idiots, then get better friends. I remove people who spam bullshit all day, and so should you (or shut up about only seeing bullshit).
'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.' - Mao Tse-tung
It's a nice way to stay in touch with people who I know, but most of whom I couldn't finish a single beer with and still have anything to talk about.
Why do you use it then? Isn't your time valuable to you and consequently better spent with people you are close to and not semi-random people you "know" from the internet?
Yay! A common sense approach to privacy. Wish I had mod points.
Knowledge is valuable. Ignorance is dangerous. Censorship is unacceptable. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10
The people I know who are most active in Facebook are also the people that don't miss a Uni party, know almost everybody in their course and are never at home at Saturday nights.
The people that have small profiles are the ones who have a more restricted circle of friends and less time/will to go out.
Yes, I know it's just an anecdote, but it's true for most people in my CS course.
IM requires people to be on the computer at the same time. Since they live 5000+ miles away, you're not even sure they are in the same time zone. I'd say email is a better replacement for those cases.
Dilbert RSS feed
Second Life?
I'm not on FB, but I am on Flickr. I think a lot of people reject Flickr because it costs $25 per year, but it's so worth it. You can upload your pics in hi-rez as well as short videos. You can tag them, geolocate them, add them to groups and pools and on and on. You add your contacts and watch their lives as well. It takes some commitment, but if you tag all your pictures with lots of tags, give them good descriptions etc. you'd be amazed at the 'instant' community that will grow up amongst you - Be it cigar smoking, golden retrievers, business travel or the many other things I'm involved in.
You asked /. what social networking sites are good for the non-uber techie crowd? Why would we know? I'm not even trying to make the joke about how we all live in our grandmothers basement when we're not coding, but seriously?
...a telephone. Gasp!
Facebook IS for non-uber-techy folk: non-uber-techy folk don't care about their privacy.
Face it, the key to a useful social media site isn't the features, or the security, it's the one with all your friends on it. You know, the "social part." Everyone you know is on Facebook. Learn how to deal with the privacy features such that they are, or do without the usefulness.
"Eagles may soar, but weasels dont get sucked into jet engines."
Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte.
~ Blaise Pascal, Lettres Provinciales, xvi (1657)
[I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter.]
Say you're a minor. The child privacy/ anti pedophilia laws will do wonders for you.
New slashdot layout sucks.
My grocer routinely runs sweepstakes by you just using your card, so while some data is faked, my name and address isn't. Yes I realize they are selling my data, just like everyone else.
livejournal.com . Predates (at least for general public consumption) most of the "popular" social sites, you can still attempt to preserve your anonymity if you so desire.
Bringing the "Social" back to "Social Networking".
http://www.lunchwalla.com/
Centered around getting people together to do lunch, dinner, movies, events, and more.
Of course it can happen here. Unfortunately hiding your contacts isn't a good way to avoid it. Because, if someones really interested there are many other avenues to find that information.
The way to stop McCarthyism in the future is political. If you're hiding so much you can't actually live your life then what is the point? Of course its risky, but then again life is a giant risk.
Google have a Orkut which is huge in India etc, bigger than facebook.
I hate to break it to you, but your name, your friends, the groups you associate with, the games you play (on, say, Xbox live or Steam), etc. is no private information. Sure, you'd like to thing so, but as anyone here at /. will tell you, security by obscurity is no security at all.
Now, you may be the person who encrypts all your email, uses only anonymous wifi connections at public places, has a private mail box which was opened with a bogus address, pays for everything with cash, and only plays offline games you buy from second hand stores. In that case, I'll admit you're probably not in the group of people who could get something even marginally useful from FB.
The key here is knowing what information really isn't private at all, and accepting it. Some things in life really don't matter, and you could spend enormous effort trying to conceal them. To me, it's not worth it. Set your limit of comfort and stay there. Assume that everything you do could get printed out and posted on your office door, or mailed to your pastor, wife, mother, divorce lawyer, etc.
My point to the OP was that FB is good, as long as you understand its limitations. And, more importantly, that any social networking site will have essentially the same limitations. You ignore that last part at your own peril.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I'm actually too lazy to switch them on a regular basis (they were set up with bogus info originally), and half the time I'm using a CC anyway (which throws anonymity out the window).
I still like using my "phone number" sometimes just for the heck of it. I use 867-5309, and it's never been denied. Too many young cashiers these days to even recognize it now. :-)
Whenever I get asked for my phone number, I just politely decline to provide it, which works without a hassle most of the time. On the rare few times where that doesn't work (and if I've planned ahead) I'll give them the phone number of their own store. And if you pay in cash, you're as private as you can get.
http://crummysocks.com
nm
Sure, it is full of trolls and other scum, but so is every other place online, and in IRC you often can find some pretty interesting people.
"When in doubt, use brute force." Ken Thompson
Simple: phone calls, visits, get-togethers, parties.
and Twitter for current friends
Ok, let me explain how this works: These systems have what's called a "Network effect". The reason you can keep in touch with all those people you "otherwise would have lost track of" if because they all use Facebook. Thus if you start using Okrut or something, it'll be you, but not them, which will defeat the point.
Twitter doesn't fill even remotely the same slot of functionality. (Although at least as a side-effect, it doesn't have annoying FarmVille shyte).
As for the privacy stuff... well you don't have to put anything all that private on your Facebook account. If you don't want everyone to know what year you were born, don't put it.
People use Buzz, but it's not a replacement for Facebook, sadly. Just because all of these systems have the word "social" somewhere in there doesn't mean they are all drop-in replacements for each other.
then why would you use a network you haven't even heard of yet?
--
Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
Actually I used facebook to stay in contact with my friends back in Europe or America. I almost never use facebook to "talk" to people who leave here. I meet them, in person. Because then you can talk and laugh and get drunk. None of which you can do on facebook.
I might share pictures of such an event on facebook, but that's about it. Web 2.0 will never replace the feeling you have meeting friends in person. Plus there is always a chance you can pick up a girl.
"Freiheit ist immer auch die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden" - Rosa Luxemburg, 1871 - 1919
When social networks first started to appear, I didn't see the appeal. But I'm starting to understand it now.
The things people do on social network sites have been around as long as the Internet; it's just that the modern way of doing them is a bit more convenient.
Suppose my wife and I go out and ride a bicycle event (such as the annual ride from Seattle to Portland) and have a great time. My wife will probably write up an email about it, and send it to a list of our friends and relatives. She has to maintain that list and keep it up to date, and people who aren't on it might never find out about it, even if they would love to read about what we are doing.
The alternative is that she could post it on Facebook or some other site. She could set the privacy settings so that only our friends can see it. Facebook automatically starts helping friends find each other, so over time more and more friends are automatically able to see the posting. And, like a blog, it's also an archive old old posts, so newly added friends can go back and read older items they missed (if they so choose).
Once I realized that Facebook is actually a better way to send out these sort of updates, I started to like it a bit more.
Like anything else, it can be overdone. You might think it is very entertaining to say "I'm eating a sandwich right now" but I doubt I'd agree.
And I don't recommend sharing lots of really personal information: an example today I heard is that some person might say "Man, I really hate my boss" and then his/her boss might find the page and read that comment! Likewise, if you like to go to parties where people drink giant vats full of beer, and/or smoke strange things, you probably don't want to post photos of yourself at those parties; and you don't want to post things like "man I'm so wasted ive got the munchies so bad 4:20 ha ha." Later, possibly even years later, you might be applying for a job someplace and the new company might decline you just because of those wild and crazy public updates.
Another thing to consider: there is a horrible amount of spam in normal email (about 95% of all email sent is spam!). Some people are increasingly relying on social networking sites to communicate: instead of group-emailing their friends, they just update their micro-blogs; instead of sending an email to a friend, they just use the chat feature. Personally, I am very offended that spammers are breaking email for the rest of us, and I don't want to see everyone retreat into walled gardens owned by corporate overlords; I'd like to see a proper fix for email. But nonetheless, there are some people who rarely or never bother to check their email, but check their social page many times a day.
I think in the near future, we will see a great convergence: you will use one client that will alert you to instant messages, emails, personal messages from social networking sites, updates to your friends' micro-blogs, and RSS/Atom feed updates. You will be able to reply via instant message, email, personal message, or updating your micro-blog, or updating your blog if you have one. People don't really care what the transport is underlying the messages; why do we need one client for instant messages, another one for email, another one for social network sites, and another one for RSS/Atom? (One of the selling points for Google Buzz is that it is knitted together with your Gmail.) I would love a super-aggregator, where I could get it to alert me if a message is really urgent or from someone really important, and where other messages would just queue up for my later perusal.
P.S. Two clients:
Ubuntu 10.04 includes a social networking client called Gwibber. It aggregates all social networks for you, and can color-code messages to help you keep track (like, blue messages were pulled from Facebook, but red messages came from Twitter, etc.). You can post an update, and it will automatically push it out to multiple services (Facebook, Twitter,
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
I don't have a twitter account, a facebook account or a myspace account, but I have a real actual friend that I talk to about once a week who DOES have those accounts, and when we talk face to face he tells me what's going on with our old highschool buddies without all the overhead noise of stuff that nobody cares about.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Facebook can track your web browsing if you're logged in. Any time you see a "like" button on a third party site, you're pulling stuff from facebook and facebook can associate that traffic with your account.
http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like
If you want the free-software alternative to Twitter, check out identi.ca. It is similar to Twitter, but explicitly designed to make sure you can control your own destiny. From their FAQ:
Sadly, it continues the meme of inventing new jargon for "update". Just as a Twitter update is a "tweet", an ident.ca update is a "dent". :-/
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
The people I know who are most active in Facebook are also the people that don't miss a Uni party, know almost everybody in their course and are never at home at Saturday nights.
The people that have small profiles are the ones who have a more restricted circle of friends and less time/will to go out.
Same here. Those are the social butterflies. Sadly, I never developed that skill and just feel awkward at parties and gatherings and compensate by randomly saying inappropriate things.
In fact, that was the best part of smoking. It gave me an excuse to walk out of a party for a few minutes. I am quitting smoking, but will continue to use that as an excuse.
Sorry to reply to myself, but I am curious how many other slashdotters starts to feel physically sick and anxious at parties?
Hell, I get anxious and as a result a little angry just when talking to an overly friendly co-worker.
Where can I put my bounty, StatusNet?
What if I don't want to travel 5,000 miles everyday to see how all my friends are?
One of my girlfriends lived in the Philippines for around 4 years. How did we stay in touch? Email. We'd write each other once every couple of weeks. You don't "need" to stay in touch everyday. How did people stay in touch before that? Calls by telephone, and before that mail. Hah. Before that, people only stayed in touch within their own community.
I don't see the point of these social networking sites, not at all.
Om, nomnomnom...
I'm a big fan of MediaHookup.com, a Ning network for media folks and creative types to swap tips, job postings, etc. And it's not just because I run it.
Ok, yes, it is just because I run it.
But really, I think there's a lot of value in niche-topic social networks. Twitter and Facebook are all well and good for mass contact and general socialization. That need's fairly well-filled. Other networks that fill more specific needs -- either in terms of collaboration or in terms of narrow focus -- are more interesting to me these days. Of course, that can be done as a via subsets of the larger networks too. But it's nice not to have all your eggs in one basket.
I've come to the same conclusion. Facebook is great for keeping in touch with people, but adding anything more than a simple status update gives me a bad feeling because of the security concerns.
I'm part of a re-launch effort for a new social network / news vote system. We're keeping user privacy at the top of the list and working to integrate other accounts also (ie., twitter, facebook, youtube etc) so create a more central location.
The site is http://www.mitosis.com and we're actively in beta right now. Come to the front page and signup for launch notification if you're interested.
- Simon
Lots of comments here debating the relative merits of Twitter and Facebook, but the original poster was asking for alternatives.
I say, go out and find yourself a good old fashioned BBS, make friends there, invite friends there, and have fun. One possibility is this nice little place which has been online for 22 years and has a great friendly bunch of people.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
I use Buzz.
I then feed my Buzz stuff to Facebook and Twitter using Twitterfeed.
I get my picasa stuff shared to those I want to share it with and I get my blog stuff shared out to the widest audience I can. it works great.
Social Media is about distribution of info. your social graph probably extends across sites... might as well use a tool that will distribute your content to all of those sites. Buzz fits the bill perfectly.
This reminds me of an article I read on the Business Insider about how Zuckerberg tried to delay development and later try to hack HarvardConnection/ConnectU. One lesson is that the actual password of even failed password attempts can be sensitive.
Affero's GPL, no ip logs and protected encrypted servers.
we.riseup.net
Sure, Mark Zuckerberg's a douchebag, but most corporations are run by douchebags...
There fixed it for you.
Buddypress enables you to create an online community simply and easily with great flexibility. Its integrated into Wordpress which means blogging is simple and intuitive Check it out at http://buddypress.org/
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
What happens when your friends put information about you on Facebook, such as a picture of you at that party. Thats why it should be reasonable to restrict the people who see the information.
Atlas stands on the earth and carries the celestial sphere on his shoulders.
"We have known each other many years, but this is the first time you've come to us for counsel or for help. We can't remember the last time you invited us to your house for a cup of coffee, even though our sysadmin is godmother to your only child. But let's be frank here. You never wanted our friendship. And you feared to be in our debt."
"I didn't want to get into trouble."
"I understand. You found paradise on the Internet. You had a good trade, you made a good living. Symantec protected you and there were credit card laws. So you didn't need a friend like us. Now you come and say 'Slashdot, give me justice.' But you don't ask with respect. You don't offer friendship. You don't even think to call us 'Slashdot.' You come into our site on the day our daughter is to be married and you ask us to do counsel - for advice on some OTHER site."
"I ask you for social networking."
"That is not social networking. Your Facebook is a social network."
"Let them suffer then as I have suffered."
[Slashdot is silent]
"How much shall I mod you?"
[Slashdot turns away dismissively]
"Timothy, Timothy, what have we ever done to make you treat us so disrespectfully? If you'd come to us in friendship, this scum who ruined your online life would be suffering this very day. And if by some chance an honest man like yourself made enemies they would become our enemies. And then, they would fear you."
"Be my social network... Slashdot."
[Slashdot at first shrugs, but upon hearing the title, lifts its login, and a humbled Timothy posts the form]
"Good."
[Slashdot confirms his login for Timothy in a paternal gesture]
"Someday, and that day may never come, I will call upon you to do a service for me. But until that day, consider this justice a gift on my daughter's wedding day."
[Slashdot turns to the Geek] "Give this job to a moderator. We want reliable people, people who aren't going to be carried away. We're not murderers, in spite of what this undertaker thinks... "
A lot of the comments here say that the ... let me just quote one:
—slashdot.org: #31978746 Missing the Point by thePowerOfGrayskull
But e-mail is a federated medium. Anyone can run a server, and anyone can send/receive. Their argument wouldn't hold water for e-mail, but it currently does for social networks.
That needs to change, and it will change in time. Many of the technologies to make it happen already exist: RSS, OpenID/OAuth, pingbacks, etc. They just haven't been coordinated and solidified.
There are certain artifacts of the old web that remain affixed like so many barnacles. They include the little buttons that litter major websites, beckoning you to spread their content for them. Not to say you shouldn't, but that it shouldn't be button-based. That's where the user agent is supposed to do the work, not each website implementing its own sharing widgets.
Like I say, it'll go away, but it will require a federated system. Your friends will subscribe to an RSS of your statuses. If they comment, it'll send you a pingback. And so on.
-HobophobE
Nothing laughs forever.
So, if you don't put up your real name, don't "friend" anyone, don't comment to anyone, don't join groups, and don't play games, you've removed all potentially private information. Oh yeah, you've also removed all usefulness at the same time.
I am yet to work out how the games on Facebook are useful. Or even the slightest bit interesting. Painful is more like it. Annoying too.
I am anarch of all I survey.
The key difference being that Facebook friends in no way correspond to real friends; I'm "friends" with tons of people on Facebook that are only acquaintances or less IRL.
Good old fashioned internet forums or message boards provide all the online social interaction and information you could ever need in whatever field of interest you choose (there's a forum out there for every conceivable subject) without sacrificing your privacy (as long as you are careful). Many have social network type functions as well.
Of course most of them will have google ads so google could still cobble together all your online actvity..
Easy way to find forums that interest you is a forum search engine such as: http://www.boardtracker.com/
If there's something older and bigger and all-people-have-it (facebook acknowledges this also) than e-mail then I'am still to learn about it.
Also, IRC, as someone already mentioned it. And of course skype and every possible IM.... Even ICQ was useful to connect to people and have them in touch.
Facebook would like to become Internet, and it will - when and if reality TV becomes The TV. When and if people forget forums and blogs. Why do we think Facebook pages and discussions will be less ad-plagued once FB feels secure in it's uniqueness? Right now they are working advertising voodoo behind our backs, but how long will we wait to have it right into our faces like we have AdSense now?
http://opencm3.net, http://www.nongnu.org/gm2/
The solution to truly being safe in your distopian world is to have no friends at all.
Howdy cow... from the top of my head (from the emails that spam my unused hotmail account):
Friendster,Hi5, Wayn, Zorpia, Buzznet, Multiply, Gather, Care2, etc... you can look at aa bunch more here
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
I'm nearly 60 [although most of my life has been spent with computers], I hated Facebook from inception, it 'felt' shallow and stupid and something that made friendship a commodity. Also I didn't [and don't] like the constantly changing privacy and ownership 'landscape'.
So, since I have a green agenda, I've helped a group in East London implement an Elgg instance for my fellow greenies: http://www.hackney-environment-network.org.uk/ like a credit union, mamy of these people have a common bond with myself.
I'm hoping that these smaller and sometimes subject oriented groupings may be part of the social network future. A missing piece is an ethical, open-source, privacy preserving consolidator though. One reason I chose Elgg was for the 'promise' of OpenSocial: http://code.google.com/apis/opensocial/
On y va, qui mal y pense!
What about google's "open social"? Haven't heard about it for a year or two ..
Well, I can definitely tell you that I completely identify with almost everything you've said. Never thought of the smoking excuse. I have taken fictitious urgent phone calls though. For some reason, I always need to go to the bathroom first. Handy being able to set alarms on my phone using my ringtones.
Over here (netherlands) hives is way more popular (and friendly) then facebook.
I dont think facebook will get a big marketshare here
Don't worry too much about parties. Find a setting you find comfortable with other and new people. (Re)Try to attend social events every now and then. Don't pride yourself in being antisocial. VL is no replacement for RL.
If you want to start building your own social network and/or help out in FOSS social networking, check out Noserub, an OSS decentralised social networking protocol with some existing implementations in PHP and so forth.
Otherwise I'd check out Ning.com. There you can build your own social network in half an hour or so.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Top 10 reasons why I am a Facebook douche,
1. I tell Facebook when I log-on and off (profiling when i'm home, how long I spend on line)
2. I discuss with friends via Facebook topics like the company I work for and my profession, which allows my working habits (ie. when I'm away from home and my income) to be estimated
3. I discuss with friends via Facebook topics like when I will be away on holidays, providing useful information for people who may want to break into my house
4. I am happy for Facebook to profile roughly where I live and where my friends live
5. I hand out other personal information that can be used to profile me easily (eg. birth date, phone numbers and addresses)
6. I network with like-minded people - so I am profiled by what I say/like, but also by what those around me say/like too
7. I provide details of immediate friends and family (my children, my partner, my siblings, etc) such as if they exist, if they're at school/work, etc. allowing someone to know if the house is empty during the day, determine incomes etc.
8. I have not a care in the world about what Facebook does with my data - as long as I don't know about it
9. I believe it's trendy to have virtual friends - who I don't see face to face or interact verbally with - providing me a shield from the real world
10. I spend hours each day playing a farm game because it completes my life and gives me meaning
If you really want to network, try the phone - or the car - or the train/bus/walking... You will be amazed how well you can network when you are not a Facebook/Twitter/etc douche
Sincerely,
The Facebook Douche
PS I can guarantee ALL Facebook users meet at least one of the above criteria - if not all.
privacy != security.
Compromising your banking account information is a matter of security - it's about protecting resources or confidential data, and in that case you have all the reasons to go into a rant about not sharing info if you want to keep it secret.
Compromising your family's friends and activities is a matter of privacy - it's about protecting from undue intrusion and interference in their daily private life. The whole point of privacy is that these personal thoughts and activities are not *important* enough to be public, much less secret - it's the quotidian life. And the importance of keeping that private is that quotidian actions are not public speech or performance and are simply 'no one's business'.
It's no secret that public disclosure of the most banal activities modifies their behavior - you don't even need some oppressive authority watching and acting on that information, social pressure is good enough for a conforming/normalizing effect.
If everything in life is assumed to be public and subject to inspection by strangers, people will censor their actions and interactions in different ways - most by avoiding anything socially questionable or even just atypical, others by turning daily life into a clandestine process (and incidentally reinforcing the idea that privacy is about 'suspicious, secret activities').
Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
But guess what - I don't put anything on Facebook which is (a) embarrassing (b) particularly personal (c) not already available with an internet search.
It's not necessarily what personal info you put on Facebook that's going to come back to bite you in the ass; it's your social network itself. Back in the 1950s, during the McCarthy witchhunt, you got into trouble not so much for what you did, but for who you associated with (or even were just seen talking to). At that point you had the choice of either denouncing that person or being blacklisted yourself. As an aspiring dictator, I drool profusely thinking about how easily I'll be able to cleanse the social landscape of it's undesirable elements. They're falling all over themselves trying to give me lists of all their friends, no housecalls or torture needed.
Of course, it can't happen here, falling on deaf ears, etc...
And the facebook privacy changes back in december have made your list of friends public information. Read those policies folks: you can remove the list of friends from your profile so they don't show (or restrict it to friends only, etc), but they're still considered public by facebook. This means they can give it to whomever they want, and already provide it to any application a friend of yours may be using.
By that theory, I could be in trouble because my boss is rich, so he knows another rich person, who knows a senator, who knows George Bush Sr, who was business partners with Osama bin Laden's father!
I'm assuming you don't feel up to running your own full-fledged web server. Opera Unite solves most issues I associate with Facebook and the like:
1- you keep ownership of your stuff. No more finding your personal photos used in someone's ads.
2- you keep control of your stuff. Everything remains on your hard drive, you can pull it off the web anytime you want.
3- you can easily backup everything. It's all in a directory.
4- tight and reliable user groups management. No more finding out that private party pictures reserved for friends or family made their way to the 'everybody' group because FB screwed up or tried to monetize more.
It does have drawbacks though:
- you need an always-on PC
- it's a bit rough around the edges still
- it doesn't mesh the way Facebook does. you've got to go to everyone's pages one by one to keep up to date on everyone.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
Make up a plausible false name. Use it on Facebook. Tell your friends what it is via a back-channel. They might think you a bit eccentric, but that's a price worth paying for your privacy. And if you regularly read Slashdot, there's a good chance your friends know and love your eccentricities already.
You may want to try http://www.ipernity.com/
You're not using Buzz because you don't think anyone uses it (I think you're right, incidentally), so you're asking us for other social networking ideas that you've never heard of? Sounds like a losing proposition to me.
Someone needs to make a new Facebook, like how it was when it started up. Back when it was used to find people, connect to them, and keep in touch on occasion, but wasn't meant to be your portal to the Internet or a gateway to every social interaction in your life. I found value in Facebook back then. Now? The only value I find in it is what I've invested previously, not what I'm gaining. That said, I'm aware of the sunk costs fallacy and don't want to be a victim to it for too long, so if they push much harder, I will be leaving Facebook as well. From the very beginning I had everything set to friends only (or stricter), but now I'm being forced to remove parts of my profile as they make them public, since I simply don't want to share that information with others I don't know.
A box of stationary, a pen and postage stamps.
using 145 words to support the 140 characters limit
http://www.classy.dk/log/archive/001074.html
Those were perfect for non-techy folks.
All you had to do was properly insert your Bell handset into the Acoustic Coupling Device, type ATQ0E0M1L2####### into the modem terminal command window, and away you go!
If you are a teenager, you might enjoy Netlog. If you aren't, consider the upside: because they mostly deal with teenagers, they have to care about privacy...
It comes in different languages and has all the basic needs for social networking.
http://www.netlog.com/
Personally, I prefer email above social networking.
Social Networking sites don't work if they are small. The entire point is lost if all of your friends (or colleagues, in some cases) aren't on the same site as you.
I personaly use www.mywebber.com for social networking. It allows you to build a custom page with you can add users to update. Great for work. Please I can login anywhere and have access to my bookmarks and files, along with custom news. My two cents... I ask for a penny return. :)
This is OK for data you upload, but what about when you are at a party, and someone snaps an embarrassing/NSFW pic of you, uploads and then tags it? Still bad....
Waiting for the other shoe to...
I good friend of mine realised this to their horror, after a political crackdown started, and they were in facebook, tagged next to several people on the hit-list. I suggested that they kill their account by posting their login and password. Viola, account compromised and not a legal liability. You can honestly say 'anyone could have done it'.....
Waiting for the other shoe to...
Try joining a martial arts club, I'm living in what could reliably be termed a "redneck" town in Canada, and found that MA tended to attract disciplined, motivated and generally interesting people of all ages and sizes.
I don't think it has the latest and greatess web 2.0 fancy features. But it does what I need it to do. I have been using www.yuniti.com for a while and thought there aren't alot of people on there. I have gotten my family and close friends on there, which has allowed me to share photos and stories with them quite easily. There are some things that are lacking ofcouse, but like i said gets the job done. I think other sites have this (I haven't used anything else in a long time). but it lets me break up my connections into groups. So, i can share certain info with certain people and not with others. Might be worth checking out.
What is this "Party" thing you speak about?
Some new website?
Crabgrass is a pretty unique social networking utility. It is maintained by the folks over at riseup.net, and is free software. Since it is done by the riseup folks, you know it is built with privacy and security in mind... http://we.riseup.net/
If privacy is a concern (as stated), my only advice is to stay off social media sites. Besides just the common issues of implicit privacy being compromised or betrayed, they really just aren't meant for privacy. They're actually meant for the exact opposite: sharing information with the world. If you want privacy, send (encrypted) emails, keep a journal, set up your own blog where you can carefully control who sees what. Bottom line is that these sites are information companies, just like Google. They make their money by sharing information about you. If you don't like that, don't give them the information in the first place.
Slashdot is not a game, Slashdot is not a game. Crap, I just lost points.
Just as a point of reference, you can get a domain name for 5$ a year. The bigger issue is that a lot of ISPs give you crap about trying to run your own mail server. Blocking port 25 is not uncommon.
Slashdot is not a game, Slashdot is not a game. Crap, I just lost points.
It seems to be the nerds tumblelog choice... very reduced to the max.
I used to be entirely against Facebook. Did not have an account, did not want an account. I thought I did not have lots of "long lost friends" that I needed or wanted to keep in touch with. Everyone I wanted to communicate with I did communicate with.
Plus I had a personal web site that I could upload content to if I wanted to share things with people via the web.
Finally I signed up. I'm glad I did.
Facebook is different from having a web page.
First of all, it's far easier to manage (though more simplistic and limited in capability) than a web page.
Second of all, your friends are all notified as soon as you update your Facebook page. There are tools that allow people to be notified when a web page is updated, but I don't use any of them, and odds are my friends don't, either.
But there are two important things that Social Networking has done for me:
First of all, I realized that there were a lot more people out there that I have known in my life that I would like to keep in touch with than I realized. I'm interested, even in a voyeuristic way, in how some of my old acquaintances turned out.
But secondly, by having a group of friends that frequently spout off even mundane bits of trivia puts those people in my focus of attention and keeps them there. For example, prior to social networks, I could have easily corresponded with friends through email. But I hardly ever write letters. And so people slowly fade apart over time. But social networks like Facebook allow me to receive and make informal correspondence with people much more easily and frequently. Friendships don't seem to fade so easily when people post little trinkets every day or so. And I can easily drop a simple comment, or even just click the "like" button, to let my friends know I read what they said and I am with them.
You know what else I have found?
People are a lot more polite on Facebook. When your friends are actually people you know and who know you, you are careful about what you write because you are sensitive to your friends' and family's feelings.
The lack of anonymity on Facebook contributes to this.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Try peoplestringresource.com They share their ad revenue with users, and you get e-mail too.
I'm in my late 20s and have been looking for roommates to share a house with on craigslist. Obviously everyone is concerned about who they live with, and doesnt want to live with weirdos, so people ask for a link to a facebook page as a "unofficial background check" to see what you are about before they even meet you or talk on the phone. Having to tell people I don't have a facebook page makes them suspicious of me and automatically makes me a weirdo. Who in their 20s doesnt have a facebook page now a days?
Not parties, but phone and IM. I can't stay on for more than five minutes without making an excuse to hang up or log out. There's only one person who breaks that rule for me: I can talk to her for about an hour, but not significantly more.
Put identity in the browser.
There are so many social networking sites and applications that it is almost impossible to keep up with all of them on top of regular e-mail. People even hire assistants to help them manage their virtual social networking. In the past we've had Gimp(now Pidgin) and Trillian to help us out by giving us a universal instant messenger. Does anyone use Digsby, or others like it? we can now access twitter, facebook, etc. We even have phone applications to help us manage our social networking on the go. So whatever sites and clients you decide to use for social networking should usually dictate which universal solution you choose. Check out Nomee (there are others like it): http://techcrunch.com/2009/04/01/nomee-is-an-all-in-one-social-networking-aggregator-and-rss-feed/ Here is a project proposal for managing social networking sites (what do you think): http://diso-project.org/ - Christine Malczanek
Twitter has problems. Twitter isn't social media. Twitter is one way communications. It's the AM radio in the land of walkie talkies. Plus, any URL on twitter is going to show up in compressed form. You have no idea where you're going until you get there.
I wish someone would rebuild facebook as it was 20 months ago. That was social media.
Support SETI@home
You've already mentioned the social-networking sites and affiliated social media that are big in the United States: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and MySpace. If someone's going to be on social networking, it's going to be on at least one of them. There is no benefit to belonging to a social network that may be technologically superb and ideologically correct if no one you know or want to connect with uses it. And good luck winning all your friends over to it and then their friends too!
On vit, on code et puis on meurt.
Example from real life. I was in an expat community in Korea that used Facebook to organize and share. One night, a bunch of them went to Busan for some partying, and a mate of mine got completely hammered, as usual. His gal went home early, and he ended up making out with another gal in the expat community. The picture of them on the karaoke sofa went up on Facebook. Soon after, it was tagged. Within five minutes, it had been untagged, but everyone knew by that point, including people who weren't in Busan ... and, of course, his gal.
Yeah, that was fun. O_o. What a Christmas party that situation made.
Put identity in the browser.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites
I wish we could evolve a P2P system where you get to control through a nice encryption setup where your data goes, who are your friend and only leak what you need...
I wish to see systems like http://www.peerson.net/ evolve and maybe layer themselves over I2P or such anonymous networks.
I prefer coffee for my social networking solution, or beer. Tea is more of an infusion.
Oh, I'm sorry sir, I thought you were referring to me, Mr. Wensleydale.
What about Ning?
I have not set up a social network using Ning, but am a member of a few. Does anyone have experience with it?
(1) you can untag
(2) you don't have to be using Facebook to be tagged, so staying off won't help
(3) What are you doing pulling a NSFW stunt in public, and then complaining about being found out?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Facebook is the best site for staying connected with your friends, to really stay connected then both you and your friends need to have an account on the same site.
and as you cannot make people have accounts and use them on any facebook replacment, then any move to the alternative will likly fail.
Just never put anything on facebook that you would care, if the world say it and you will be OK.
Now if you really just need a site to post your thoughts/status on then their are many alternative, but good luck getting your friends to read them.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
If you're foregoing behavior that you would otherwise partake in (contacting and keeping in touch with friends) because you are fearful that some kind of dictatorial regime is going to use that behavior against you in the future, then that dictatorial regime has more power over you than it ever needed, whether it wanted it or not.
In other words, if you are seriously scared that you may be witch hunted because of your facebook profile, then your concern should be with fixing the society that you are a part of so that the fear of witch hunting is no longer reasonable (if it ever was). The type of behavior you are describing is just betraying how easy it is to manipulate you with fear.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
.. and go outside?
If your friends are remote, you could send them an email or call instead.
Crazy ideas.. I know, but I'm gonna get all retro over this bizznatch yo.
Phantom... Maybe a little less opera on the first date.Try more candles. That half-mask thing was really working for a whole lot better than you give it credit for.
If you want to have a secure, private conversation online and you don't want it viewed by any unauthorized eyes, including the site admins, then ThreadThat.com is for you. A thread is a conversation similar to those that take place on FB, however, you decide who can see each conversation and what they can do with that conversation. All text and attached files are encrypted using strong AES encryption while in-transit and while at-rest. Couple self-generated passkeys, secret messaging and multi-factor login authentication and you have an online Fort Knox. Other than an email address that you own (used for thread activity notifications only) no personal information is required to create and account. And best of all, it is free (for life if you create an account in 2010). Check it out. ThreadThat.com. Socialize in secrecy.
Maybe try Orkut? No, it's not a joke.
There is a pretty good signal to noise ratio on livejournal, for people who prefer to go elsewhere there is dreamwidth, greatestjournal, insanejournal and deadjournal. For full disclosure I have a permanent account with Livejournal. but a lot of people have deadjournals as well and there has been significant movement to dreamwidth which is apparently still evolving the open source aspects of these type of journals. hope this helps
Simply put, they could use "techy" social networking services like IRC, instant messengers, email and all that too. But they don't see it. They congreate in the places with the greatest publicity and the most of their friends present. So ... facebook, twitter. That's it.
You can only escape this by getting into some techier community. Or by meeting people in real life.
#1. Don't pay sprocket any mind, he is a bullshit artist. #2. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1293667&cid=28621185 where sprocket was totally "perfectly" (the word he refused to define along with his evading all questions put to he) blown away by his own dyslexic mind due to -> #3. Sprocket also likes to put words in others mouths they never even said and tries to state they "implied it" when his dull brain obviously cannot interpret written english properly because when asked by the person replying if sprocket could find where said person supposedly stated what sprocket said he did? Sprocket ran or evaded all questions there. I bookmarked that for everyone's reference so this no mind Sprocket could see it again and regret his stupidity in being a wanna be computer expert (not). He certainly got his ass handed to him there. Read it yourselves, and decide how "expert" sprocket really is.
What about Mojofiti?
http://www.mojofiti.com/
You and the Mojofiti(TM) Experience:
* Everything you publish is translated into 28 languages -- Messages, wires, Blogs, etc.
* You read everything in your native language -- regardless of the language in which it was published.
* Communicating without language barriers is cool.