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Silicon Valley Investors Wants to Fund a 'Good For Society' Facebook Replacement (calacanis.com)
Silicon Valley angel investor Jason Calacanis just announced the "Openbook Challenge," a competition to create a replacement for Facebook.
"Over the next three months, 20 finalists will compete for seven $100,000 incubator grants," explains long-time Slashdot reader reifman. "Their goal is to find startups with a sustainable business model e.g. subscriptions, reasonable advertising, cryptocurrency. etc. And they want it to be 'good for society.'"
Jason Calacanis writes: All community and social products on the internet have had their era, from AOL to MySpace, and typically they're not shut down by the government -- they're slowly replaced by better products. So, let's start the process of replacing Facebook... We already have two dozen quality teams cranking on projects and we hope to get to 100...
This is not an idea or business plan competition. We're looking for teams that can actually build a better social network, and we'll be judging teams primarily based upon their ability to execute... Keep in mind, that while ideas really matter, Zuckerberg has shown us, execution matters more.
Calacanis has even created a discussion group for the competition...on Facebook. And his announcement includes a famous quote from Mark Zuckerberg.
"Don't be too proud to copy."
"Over the next three months, 20 finalists will compete for seven $100,000 incubator grants," explains long-time Slashdot reader reifman. "Their goal is to find startups with a sustainable business model e.g. subscriptions, reasonable advertising, cryptocurrency. etc. And they want it to be 'good for society.'"
Jason Calacanis writes: All community and social products on the internet have had their era, from AOL to MySpace, and typically they're not shut down by the government -- they're slowly replaced by better products. So, let's start the process of replacing Facebook... We already have two dozen quality teams cranking on projects and we hope to get to 100...
This is not an idea or business plan competition. We're looking for teams that can actually build a better social network, and we'll be judging teams primarily based upon their ability to execute... Keep in mind, that while ideas really matter, Zuckerberg has shown us, execution matters more.
Calacanis has even created a discussion group for the competition...on Facebook. And his announcement includes a famous quote from Mark Zuckerberg.
"Don't be too proud to copy."
and accountability to users and all the other things Facebook is screwing up. Or more accurately anger that trump supposedly benefited finally got people to care about all these things, when they couldn't have given a rat's arse that their electronic lives were being bought and sold six ways from sunday just a few months prior. You got to give him credit for this amazing awakening.
I don't know if its willful or blind idiocy, but everything humans have created has been used for evil by someone. The more detached from others they are, the worse it has gotten. Facebook got huge and couldn't see the trees for the forest. Whatever any of these people come up with... will eventually be sold to a corporation that won't see the users as anything but a profit center and begin to exploit it.
Maybe next time instead of our data, its our computer's data. Maybes it not our browsing habits, but our usage habits. They'll try to abstract and wind up right back in the exact same place.
Because the fastest way to grow is to give your product away, and the fastest way to profit is to throw your morals out the window.
Facebook got huge the same way Google got huge... by creating a lure to get your eyes on ads, then selling you to advertisers. The only huge corporation that gives it away and stays free is Twitter, and they are on the auction block to anyone who can figure out how to monetize them (hint, it will be ads).
The entire point of social media is attention. YOUR attention. To keep your eyes glued to a screen and show you ads. That is ALL it is for. Yes you get benefits from it, if you didn't, you would not stay and see those ads, and the platform would die like so many others. The idea of making a social network that somehow avoids this forever and ever is just an ignorant rant from someone who doesn't understand how business works. Users will not pay subscription fees to join a social network, not when they can get it somewhere else for free. Oh they are running from Facebook in droves you say? And ask them where they are going, or who they are still using. Google +, Tumblr, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. These companies are no different, they just have yet to get caught doing the same shit Facebook was caught doing. And it is inevitable they will be caught at it. And the users will flock to the next free thing because being social SHOULD be free... but as long as hardware and software on a centralized platform is required, it never will be.
No need to worry. Jason Calacanis is a publicity whore and little more than a con artist.
I've been to one of his hackathons before. They're huge. I'll give him that. He promises huge prizes from his own (supposed) fund, but then if you read the fine print, he reserves the rights not to offer any such prize to the winners if they don't meet his (unspecified) criteria. Plus in addition to that, should he select you, you have to give him a part of your future company in exchange for the prize money. No thank you, Jason. If you do go to his hackathons, make sure that the sponsors (other than him) are offering decent prizes. Do not believe in the BS he personally tries to sell you. If you represent a company interested in sponsoring a hackathon, my suggestion is that you sponsor other hackathons than his.
The event I was at ran out of food super quickly. Jason Calacanis begrudgingly ordered more pizza, but only after participants complained on Twitter that the event had no food. But you had to write something nice about him on Twitter and you had to show them your comment on your phone before you could get your slice of pizza. I kid you not. That's the kind of maturity you're dealing with when you're dealing with this guy.