Social Plugins

[matvey bossis]

Guys,

We have seen a couple of hacks, which re-enable shared items in GR.
These hacks might cease to work, if G decides so.

Here is another idea for a hack: how about a Chrome (or whatever)
plugin, which would use your '+1' items list, instead of the old
Shared Items somehow. Ideally, it would show also who else +1'ed the
item.

To bring back commenting, in lack of a google equivalent, the
'Facebook Comments' plugin may be utilized. I know, I know, it sounds
ridiculous, but Google will roll out it's own comments plugin once, I
am sure.

What do you think?

[Juan Luis Chulilla]

If you deceive me once, your fault; if you deceive me twice, my fault.

After the destruction of readers' social functionalities, insist in using google services for the same purpose has a basic logical deficit.

--
------

Dr. Juan Luis Chulilla Cano
Director, Online and Offline, S.L.
Telf.: 91 5233401
www.onlineandoffline.net

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Douglas Adams

[Emmanuel Pire]

Agree. That's why we work on an open alternative that any feed reader can implement. 

Emmanuel

[Juan Luis Chulilla]

Emmanuel, such alternative would be a microformat? I mean, every feed reader  should be modified in order to support this 

[Steve Conover]

You'd have to hack on it a bit, plus you'd be requiring two identities
(which, to me, kind of kills the idea for "normal" users), but I bet
you could get it to work.

I have to say, the pollyannish OSS chorus is getting pretty tiring.
OSS is great for building rock-solid libraries and daemons, but has a
pretty poor record of producing usable products for end-users.
Services have an especially serious challenge: they must be
maintained, and hosting bills must be paid, by someone, and end users
become dependent on that person not losing interest - there are severe
SLA and economics problems.

Google+ and FB aren't going anywhere for a long time (same with your
gmail accounts). If those models provide what you want then IMO you
should seriously consider building on top of them.

[Juan Luis Chulilla]

I just don't get how you can say that FOSS is not a viable solution for products intended for end-users. What about wordpress, for instance?

although I use some google products, I am convinced that sad stories such as wave or reader are fantastic lessons about the dangers of cloud services totally out of their users' control. Just image that other provider convince a lot of us for using their free service. After some time of appreciating such service, then they change totally the conditions, or go bankrupt. Either case we lose, and we are not able to react as a community.

I don't see this issue as ideological but as practical. The best lesson of Google's dramatic changes is focused on control: who control the platform?

[Les Orchard]

On 11/6/11 10:56 AM, Steve Conover wrote:

> I have to say, the pollyannish OSS chorus is getting pretty tiring.
> OSS is great for building rock-solid libraries and daemons, but has a
> pretty poor record of producing usable products for end-users.

Yeah, because no one uses WordPress or Firefox. It's not about being a
Pollyanna, it's a practical matter of sustainability.

Whether the product is usable depends on whether there's effort put into
usability and inviting usability experts as contributors. It can and has
been done.

> Services have an especially serious challenge: they must be
> maintained, and hosting bills must be paid, by someone, and end users
> become dependent on that person not losing interest - there are severe
> SLA and economics problems.

That's true, but it doesn't have much to do with OSS. Other than, you
know, being free to go start up your own service elsewhere with the same
software when the one you were using goes down.

> Google+ and FB aren't going anywhere for a long time (same with your
> gmail accounts). If those models provide what you want then IMO you
> should seriously consider building on top of them.

And that's what got us into this fix in the first place. Google+ and FB
might not be going anywhere, but they own the APIs and can pull out the
rug (or do something distasteful) at any time. If we rebuild using open
software and formats, there are fewer points of failure.

That said, no successful sharing ecosystem can ignore Google+ or FB or
Twitter. That's where a lot of our friends are. But the way to go, IMO,
is to treat them as supported but optional channels - and not the
foundation for the whole thing.

--
m...@lmorchard.com
http://decafbad.com
{web,mad,computer} scientist

[Les Orchard]

On 11/6/11 10:36 AM, Juan Luis Chulilla wrote:
> Emmanuel, such alternative would be a microformat? I mean, every feed
> reader should be modified in order to support this

The more that can be done with existing feed formats, the better, IMO.
Then you can get value in and out of existing readers without
campaigning for modifications

[Steve Conover]

Ironic that WP and FF are brought up, they solved the economics:

http://en.wordpress.com/about/
http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/careers.html#feature-team

Code and architecture and prototypes fall far short of what it takes
to make a living platform. And if you're making something that's
social, there are zero current examples of successful open-source
social platforms. Diaspora is trying to be the first (and, notably,
they're creating a real organization, i.e. with money, and if you
dismiss Mike's suggestions on technical grounds you might consider
that the technical stuff might not even be the hard part to get right
here).

If social news was something you could get VC funding for, you'd start
out by using Twitter, FB, or Google for *at least* identity. People
who wonder out loud on this list about whether this or that Twitter
integration might work should not be immediately jumped on. Not all of
us agree that the demise of Reader is clear evidence that only an OSS
replacement will do.

[Juan Luis Chulilla]

But we are not talking about conquering the world or competing with Facebook, but about sustaining little communities of dozens or a couple of hundred of users which are going to share and discuss text contents. Without featuritis, bandwidth and server workload would be negligible

[Les Orchard]

On 11/6/11 12:16 PM, Steve Conover wrote:
> Ironic that WP and FF are brought up, they solved the economics:
>
> http://en.wordpress.com/about/
> http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/careers.html#feature-team

The economics here don't have to be bad, either. This could even be a
place where people could directly pay for something they care about.
Would you pay US$12 to support a social news service for a year? A
little money goes a long way these days.

> Code and architecture and prototypes fall far short of what it takes
> to make a living platform. And if you're making something that's
> social, there are zero current examples of successful open-source
> social platforms.

Zero, if you don't count the web of WordPress sites (and the web in
general) as a social platform - which I do. Not everything has to look
like a Facebook substitute.

> Diaspora is trying to be the first (and, notably, they're creating a
> real organization, i.e. with money, and if you dismiss Mike's
> suggestions on technical grounds you might consider that the
> technical stuff might not even be the hard part to get right here).

I wish them luck, but I'm not holding my breath.

> If social news was something you could get VC funding for, you'd
> start out by using Twitter, FB, or Google for *at least* identity.

Who needs VC funding these days? I'd say the impulse to build atop
another company's platform as a shortcut to VC funding is part of the
problem. If you need money, head to Kickstarter and get a few dozen - or
a few hundred people - together who care about the service.

> People who wonder out loud on this list about whether this or that
> Twitter integration might work should not be immediately jumped on.

If I've jumped on anyone, it's because I'm tired of seeing services I
care about get wrecked or yanked. And it pains me to see new efforts
heading down the same paths that have lead to disappointment in the past.

It's like earthquake-proofing buildings. How many do earthquakes do you
need to live through before you start thinking maybe things should get
built on different foundations?

> Not all of us agree that the demise of Reader is clear evidence that
> only an OSS replacement will do.

Then we can agree to disagree, and I'm sorry if that tires you. You can
ignore people talking about OSS, whether you think we're pollyannas or not.

[Andrew Hickey]

On Sun, Nov 6, 2011 at 6:26 PM, Les Orchard <l.m.o...@pobox.com> wrote:

>> Code and architecture and prototypes fall far short of what it takes
>> to make a living platform. And if you're making something that's
>> social, there are zero current examples of successful open-source
>> social platforms.
>
> Zero, if you don't count the web of WordPress sites (and the web in
> general) as a social platform - which I do. Not everything has to look
> like a Facebook substitute.

Also LiveJournal is based on a free software codebase, (Dreamwidth
uses a substantially identical one too).

--
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National Pep CDs - http://cdbaby.com/cd/nationalpep

[Steve Conover]

Please see the top of the thread. The first two responses were
basically off-topic critiques of a pretty interesting idea, pushing
OSS. That's what's tiring. OSS talk is fine, I'm all for trying out
whatever it is people want to try, but it doesn't have to be spammed
on to every thread on this list.

[Alex Chaffee]

On Sun, Nov 6, 2011 at 7:56 AM, Steve Conover <scon...@gmail.com> wrote:

You'd have to hack on it a bit, plus you'd be requiring two identities
(which, to me, kind of kills the idea for "normal" users), but I bet
you could get it to work.

Wait a second, Steve. The solution Ridllr (and, now, I) have chosen uses OAuth to access a user's Google account. It could require a separate username/password system, or it could use a Google Open ID, or another Open ID login system. The base case for "normal" users would be one id, but with occasionally more authentications with their same Google ID.

 

I have to say, the pollyannish OSS chorus is getting pretty tiring.

I see no conflict between open source software and a community-supported or for-profit business using that software.

There are also some distributed feed protocols/systems that would spread the load, possibly enough to reduce hosting costs or push them onto the user, minimizing the administrative overhead and SPOF of a service like sharebro.org.

 

Google+ and FB aren't going anywhere for a long time (same with your
gmail accounts). If those models provide what you want then IMO you
should seriously consider building on top of them.

Exactly. When adding comments, for instance, it makes sense to integrate with one or more of Disqus, Facebook Comment Box, and even Plus if their API supports it. My ideal would be syncing comments across all those systems, unless the author and/or commenter wants to limit comments to a certain network.

When designing shared feeds -- i.e. where your shares are shared *to* -- it totally makes sense to get off Google. But I envision a unified "Share" bookmarklet that lets you configure (and then override) whether this share (link + note + excerpt + source ref) goes to Tumblr, Posterous, Sharebro, HiveMined, or even back into a Reader share with the "broadcast tag" on (something I just learned about).

 

On Sun, Nov 6, 2011 at 3:15 AM, matvey bossis <bos...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Guys,
>
> We have seen a couple of hacks, which re-enable shared items in GR.
> These hacks might cease to work, if G decides so.

Yep, which is why Emmanuel and I are working on getting an in-Reader Share button to post to an out-of-Reader RSS feeder.

 

> Here is another idea for a hack: how about a Chrome (or whatever)
> plugin, which would use your '+1' items list, instead of the old
> Shared Items somehow. Ideally, it would show also who else +1'ed the
> item.

I'm looking into Google APIs today. I don't even know if G+ has an API, let alone whether +1s are available, nevermind the different meanings of the +1 button(s) ("i like it" vs. "i like it and it's not a G+ post" vs. "I share it").

 

> To bring back commenting, in lack of a google equivalent, the
> 'Facebook Comments' plugin may be utilized. I know, I know, it sounds
> ridiculous, but Google will roll out it's own comments plugin once, I
> am sure.
>
> What do you think?

It's so crazy, it just might work!

--
Alex Chaffee - al...@stinky.com
http://alexchaffee.com
http://twitter.com/alexch

[Emmanuel Pire]

I'm reading very interesting things here. Thanks Les Orchard to speak in the favor of a NEW alternative, not a mashup of services that could go nut like Google Reader did.

Here is reformulation:

What are now the ways to share something (link, content, image, ...) on the Web ? Lots you will say. I see only one: the only tools we have to share rely on Social Networks. Twitter, Facebook or Google+, you need to have an account on that site.

Worst than that, all your followers should be in the same ! That's not something i like, it's very closed and as said, hosted by services can prefer money over user satisfaction (cf google+) - 

So, is there already a way to share in an open way (RSS) and without the need of Social Networks ? Sure, a blog. 

Ok, so everything is fine ? No: not everyone wish to have a blog, they just want to "share" and not be bothered by technical stuff. And more important, once you have your feed on you blog, how are you going to find people to follow ? And how are you going to comment it ? On your blog, ok but then i need to click, load the page, reach comments... was easier in reader.

How can we make this simpler ? By creating a high trusted authority for feed sharing. A hub you could add your feed to so it gets commenting features in reader that implement our protocol, and visibility on the platform. Your public feed could be shared at sharebro.org or still in your blog or tumblr or whatever you like that produce RSS feed.

We are sharebros. not hostbros or greaderbros. we care about being able to share, comment and find new interesting feeds. Therefore, we should not concentrate primarily on feed hosting, or fixing gReader, but on a way to aggregate feeds, and an open trusted service that can handle commenting for any item we can share.

Yes, reader apps will have to implement this, so they can show a friend list and everything. If we do it right, they will. no reason they would not, it would be a cool free feature for them. And maybe one of the best thing: you could start reading an item on your fat client (desktop), then go mobile and still have friend list and commenting features in a web-based reader for example.

Is this clearer ?

--
Emmanuel Pire
Web development
http://lipsumarium.com/

[matvey bossis]

On Nov 7, 12:03 am, Alex Chaffee <a...@stinky.com> wrote:
> > Google+ and FB aren't going anywhere for a long time (same with your
> > gmail accounts). If those models provide what you want then IMO you
> > should seriously consider building on top of them.
>
> Exactly. When adding comments, for instance, it makes sense to integrate
> with one or more of Disqus, Facebook Comment Box, and even Plus if their
> API supports it. My ideal would be syncing comments across all those
> systems, unless the author and/or commenter wants to limit comments to a
> certain network.
>

it seems, there is an interesting service for retrieving and
aggregating comments like these, called "ConvoTrack". Unfortunately, I
could not get it to work.

found about it here:
http://inventorspot.com/articles/aggregators_spindex_google_buzz_streamline_social_media_experien_41426

I imagine, it would be nice to have a plugin like this, which will
bring us the relevant comments attached to a link (e.g.a RSS item),
and a list of users who shared or commented the link, from across a
wide range of social networks.

[Galina_Ovt]

> an open trusted service that can handle commenting for any item we can share

Why can people be sure that this service will not disappear?

[Emmanuel Pire]

That's the whole point. you can't.

I'm twisting my mind everyday to find solutions to that. but at the end, some server has to host the feed... and this server could go down. When it was google, well... they almost never go down and we were pretty sure they would not stop business the day after...

On Wed, Nov 16, 2011 at 6:36 PM, Galina_Ovt <galina.o...@gmail.com> wrote:

> an open trusted service that can handle commenting for any item we can share

Why can people be sure that this service will not disappear?

[Steve Conover]

There's no twisting to be done. Services that don't have the economics
figured out one way or another are fundamentally suspect.

We trust google to hold our mail for good reason, because they have
very very strong incentives to keep the service going, keep it secure,
etc.

[Galina_Ovt]

That is why I have been suggesting that thinking about a business model similar, say, to WordPress could make sense.