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Is Google+ a Cathedral Or a Bazaar?
An anonymous reader writes "With its recent mass suspension of accounts, Google has highlighted its desire to create a social network that is very different to the way many (including those whose accounts were suspended) would want to see it. The metaphor of the Cathedral and the Bazaar used for software development can be applied to the two types of social networks being proposed by Google on the one hand and the pseudonym supporters on the other. Google's Cathedral model emphasizes order and control whilst the bazaar model supports users who can be anonymous, have multiple identities, interact with anyone they please, and remain unobserved."
Why not allow both and let the userbase sort out who they do and do not add on their professional (cathedral) and personal (bazaar) accounts? Because frankly, we already have a cathedral (LinkedIn) and a Bazaar (Facebook), so if Google wants to attract those users, they better be flexible enough to accommodate them.
Bow before me, for I am root.
Not that I think the "Catherdral vs. Bazaar" comparison is really that appropriate as a tool for measuring social networks (and it wasn't intended for that either), but using Google+ will always be - no matter how you twist and turn it - on their rules and conditions. And this regardless of wheter anonymous accounts are allowed or not. The only way to have a truly "bazaar" social network model would be using decentralized nodes. I admit I don't know much about Diaspora, but wasn't that one of their selling points?
Jesus had a UNIX beard.
Google+ is an analogy because there are no "likes."
where they don't have access to most of my information. if you don't want to use your real name then i usually don't want to have anything to do with you on a social network
The Bazaar was likened to the slightly chaotic but powerful collective approach behind the development of open source software.
The Cathedral represented the traditional, closed, corporate approach to software development.
Um, I'm a little confused on their definition of the Cathedral. From Wikipedia (and also from my memory):
* The Cathedral model, in which source code is available with each software release, but code developed between releases is restricted to an exclusive group of software developers. GNU Emacs and GCC are presented as examples.
* The Bazaar model, in which the code is developed over the Internet in view of the public. Raymond credits Linus Torvalds, leader of the Linux kernel project, as the inventor of this process. Raymond also provides anecdotal accounts of his own implementation of this model for the Fetchmail project.
GNU Emacs and GCC were the "traditional, closed, corporate approach to software development"? That's news to me!
... nor do I think the author of this article fully read CatB.
I don't follow nor agree with this adaptation of CatB to social networks
My work here is dung.
Of course they wouldn't want the possibility of anonymity. That makes their information collection services that much less useful for targeted advertising.
Google's attempting to not necessarily take down Facebook or twitter, I don't think anyway. It'd be insane. Facebook had some advantages that Google+ does not, namely, no matter how bad the Facebook UI will get, it will NEVER be as horrible as the best days on MySpace, which is the social media giant it uprooted. Now I'm speaking strictly in terms of UI, in terms of privacy and other issues, Facebook has a long way to go, but Google+ isn't looking to chase FB on those fronts(except for the exclusion of apps; which I think is a benefit for G+).
Instead what I think they're trying to do is coexist and yet dictate some terms, but not try to be this domineering force in the social media market. Hence, a church bakesale. Come see what we've got, it's tasty, if you don't like it, no big deal.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
They DO give you something in return. Remember the days when you had to PAY for e-mail? Quickly finding and contacting someone you know has never been this easy.
That being said, I understand that you may not find these services useful, but to say that they give nothing in return isn't true.
This is a social media environment that I might actually join and one I may let my children join. Linkedin is the only other "social media" account I have and I will never have a Facebook account and shunned MySpace when it was introduced. For me, the lack of any social decency that stems from anonymity is simply not worth it. If I'm going to build relationships with people (isn't that the point of social media?), I'd like to have reputation as collateral for bad behavior.
Perhaps we will return to a point where people think before they speak/post and self censor out of respect for their fellow man. For my tastes, the streets of the Bazaar are pretty filthy but to each his own.
Exactly, my understanding was they do not want those users... whether it's for nefarious reasons or just to keep it from becoming another MySpace gong-show, the jury is still out on that.
I say don't drink and drive, you might spill your drink. Before you get behind the wheel just stop and think.
The fact is that it's a gazebo pavilion temple which is on top of a large pyramid. And of course in the pyramid is a stargate.
And of course in the pyramid is a stargate.
Nah, they'd need real physicists to develop such a thing, whereas google has only half-nerd software engineers capable only of making office software.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
Y'know, it's comparisons like that that make me think there's a few generations now that just haven't learned from the history channel that comparisons like that aren't even close to apt. There's no way at all that anything about a free online social interactive service is anything like a concentration camp.
That's besides the fact that the only thing Google+ ever asked was for you to identify yourself before letting you run free in its sandbox (or, in a few cases, after, to their embarassment), so there really is nothing negative you can say about how Google+ is governing the social network it's constructing.
But back to my point: because people don't understand actual horror, and are steeped in fake, that-looks-like-it-hurts-pass-the-popcorn horror, they're starting to lose sight of why certain things are important. And that's going to end up with actual horror at some point.