Let's say you are a Facebook user. You have a bunch of friends that you hang out with on Facebook. When you wanted to reach someone, you make a post. All your friends could see and comment on the post. Everything was cool.
Then you discovered Twitter. It was all about posting short updates. It let you follow anyone and be followed by anyone. You came to appreciate that Twitter is all about putting on public persona on display. Twitter was useful on its own.
But when the time came to send a message to everyone that you connected on Facebook and Twitter, you realized that it's not like webmail. You couldn't send a message from Facebook and expect Twitter followers to receive and respond. Well, there are ways now, but no easy way available right on the Facebook website.
Unlike email, you cannot type johndoe@twitter.socialnetwork and janesmith@facebook.socialnetwork and expect the message to be delivered to John Doe on Twitter and Jane Smith on Facebook. Facebook and Twitter are separate networks with separate contacts and separate relationship model. They do not talk to each other as peer network. It is as if AT&T smartphone cannot call Verizon wireless subscriber because only in-network calls are allowed. That's ludicrous.
Their are multiple reasons for lack of social network federation support. First reason is that no one knew social network was going to really take off as a means of real-time communication. Early adopters and social network makers never imagined a hockey stick growth that happened over the last few years.
Second reason, perhaps more relevant one, has to do with lack of incentive from each social network. There is no clear incentive for social network to allow other networks to interact with users on its network. Given a choice, social network would much rather have users using their own website because more pair of eyes translate to more ad revenue. This is especially true when all popular social networks are built on freemium model where more traffic is considered as greater monetization opportunity.
We saw the similar dynamics with instant messages as well, as I discussed earlier. When I wrote my earlier post, I wasn't sure what kind of disruptive force might lead social networks to federate. But I think we are seeing early signs of such forces.
One of them is open subscription protocol called Tent. Tent protocol is like HTTP. Tent.is is an alpha release of Tent server running in a hosted environment. Earlier this week, Tent opened up Tent.is alpha. Now it's easier than ever to set up your own by signing up with no-cost Test.is alpha instance.
It works very similar to Twitter, but the main difference is that there is no centralized server. Unlike Twitter, Tent fetches its updates from servers that Tent user follows. This means everyone is running their own instance of Tent, and is in control of their own content.
Then you discovered Twitter. It was all about posting short updates. It let you follow anyone and be followed by anyone. You came to appreciate that Twitter is all about putting on public persona on display. Twitter was useful on its own.
But when the time came to send a message to everyone that you connected on Facebook and Twitter, you realized that it's not like webmail. You couldn't send a message from Facebook and expect Twitter followers to receive and respond. Well, there are ways now, but no easy way available right on the Facebook website.
Unlike email, you cannot type johndoe@twitter.socialnetwork and janesmith@facebook.socialnetwork and expect the message to be delivered to John Doe on Twitter and Jane Smith on Facebook. Facebook and Twitter are separate networks with separate contacts and separate relationship model. They do not talk to each other as peer network. It is as if AT&T smartphone cannot call Verizon wireless subscriber because only in-network calls are allowed. That's ludicrous.
Their are multiple reasons for lack of social network federation support. First reason is that no one knew social network was going to really take off as a means of real-time communication. Early adopters and social network makers never imagined a hockey stick growth that happened over the last few years.
Second reason, perhaps more relevant one, has to do with lack of incentive from each social network. There is no clear incentive for social network to allow other networks to interact with users on its network. Given a choice, social network would much rather have users using their own website because more pair of eyes translate to more ad revenue. This is especially true when all popular social networks are built on freemium model where more traffic is considered as greater monetization opportunity.
We saw the similar dynamics with instant messages as well, as I discussed earlier. When I wrote my earlier post, I wasn't sure what kind of disruptive force might lead social networks to federate. But I think we are seeing early signs of such forces.
One of them is open subscription protocol called Tent. Tent protocol is like HTTP. Tent.is is an alpha release of Tent server running in a hosted environment. Earlier this week, Tent opened up Tent.is alpha. Now it's easier than ever to set up your own by signing up with no-cost Test.is alpha instance.
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| This could be bigger than the worlds biggest tent to date if it's coupled with attractive UI and easy setup experience. Source: http://www.zdf-enterprises.de |
Go try it today. My Tent server is jkim.tent.is.
You couldn't send a message from Facebook and expect Twitter followers to receive and respond. free instagram followers instantly Well, there are ways now, but no easy way available right on the Facebook website.
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