The call to decentralize social networking

[EGreg]

I'm talking about this: http://myownstream.com/blog

Back in May I wrote this little piece about the need to decentralize the social internet. I with all this talk of Diaspora, and Alex Payne writing about wanting to decentralize Twitter, I think it's become relevant to talk about.

What do you think it will mean for the industry if someone pulls off decentralized social networking and does it well?

[CPops]

I don't think normal people (the non-technical masses which are necessary to make social-networking type sites a success) will come anywhere close to understanding what a decentralized or distributed social-network is.

The amount of time & money given to Diaspora and the like is mind-boggling to me given that 99% of the population will probably never understand what it even is.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think it's too complicated for people to understand what is going on and most people will ignore it.

[code177]

It's a nice idea, but it won't happen. There's simply no business incentive for the big players to even think about integrating in this way.

Additionally, once you set up a data exchange you're relying on an honour system to ensure content items are edited or removed, and that whoever is hosting nodes that your traffic goes through isn't snooping.

[EGreg]

Thanks. By the way, if you really are about privacy you can use https instead of http. That problem has been solved.

What do you mean by "integrating"? You mean no one would actually host streams like they host websites?