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@@ -1,132 +1,74 @@ - ********* - Friendika - ********* - - Distributed Social Network - - http://friendika.com - - - Since the dawn of the world-wide-web, the internet has been a battleground -between the "big boys" with all their resources, and a bunch of upstarts whose -goal is to topple the status quo - and bring the same powers of global reach -to anybody with a computer and an internet connection. - - The latest battleground is social networking. Many of your friends would -have you believe that the world (and all the information in it) belongs to -Facebook. - - Friendika is here to rock that boat. - - Granted, all your friends aren't here - yet. The people who made fun of you -in high school (yet curiously wanted to be friends with you now) are still -"poking" each other and managing their virtual farms and telling you all about -their virtual gang wars. Would you miss them? - - I wouldn't. - - You probably have a handful of friends that are truly special. Tell those -friends that the world has changed - because it has. It's time to move on. A -year ago, if you had left Facebook, there was no place to go - at least a -place which offered the same kind of social interaction (and wasn't just -another huge company trying to make money off of all of your private -information). - - Today you have options. - - What if there was a social network which provided some of the same -interaction you've grown to love, *and* was free to use, *and* was open source, -*and* where your privacy is always under your control? - - And what if this social network could scale to encompass the entire -internet, and *not* require a central organisation to provide servers? -(In exchange for peddling your private information behind your back.) - - Look no further. - - Friendika is a social network without boundaries, and without ownership. -Friendika installations can link together into a global social network which -is free from central control. Besides the Friendika network (which is privacy -enhanced); you can also connect with and communicate with friends on identi.ca, -Status.Net and many other sites and social networks *today*. - - Welcome to the federated social web. If you choose not to use Friendika -(though we think you'd be foolish not to), you can choose any of 20-30 other -providers of federated social networking software and still be a part of this -vast new social network. This is going to be bigger than Facebook. - - Much bigger. - - We are currently developing connectors to seamlessly communicate with many -other open social networks and providers - like Diaspora, GNU-Social, -OneSocialWeb, and even some of the larger closed services such as Facebook and -Twitter. - - Over the coming months, the boundaries between these networks will start -to become indistinguishable as they all become part of your social circle. - - Our core belief is that your personal thoughts and conversations belong to -you - and are only meant to be shared with those you wish to share them with. - - Period. - - Friendika is secure, and as private as you wish it to be. Our privacy -settings are straight-forward and simple, because we know that relationships -rarely are (straight-forward and simple). Whether you're communicating with -drinking buddies or potential employers, you can rest assured that each is -only able to see the side of you that you wish to present. If you send a -private message to your aunt Mary, we will encrypt it with military grade -encryption. - - Other distributed social network projects talk about privacy and offering -a feature-rich social networking alternative, but all they can deliver is -vapour and vague promises. Things like "Private mail will be in the next -release". - - Friendika delivers. We've got an incredibly rich social communications -interface you can make use of *right now*. - - And lest you think we're just trying to copy Facebook feature-for-feature, -you couldn't be further from the truth. We like the conversational style -because it feels natural, and that's why Facebook grew to be what it is today. -But we're creating something completely different. - - Something better. - - A single instance of Friendika can easily support hundreds of (and up to -several thousand) people using commodity hosting hardware. You could even run -Friendika on an old PC in your closet or garage. Each of these people are able -to connect with potentially hundreds or thousands of friends and associates -on any other supported network anywhere in the world and share photos, links, -status updates, etc. - - But maybe you don't want to be connected to the world... and that's OK -too. Friendika may be closed off from the global community and used to support -social networking amongst corporate, educational, religious, and other private -communities. This makes it an excellent choice for the social networking needs -of young teenagers and especially k-12 organisations. - - Every person on Friendika has unlimited profiles available to them. There -is a "public profile" which can be seen by anybody. Additional profiles may be -tailored to specific groups or individuals. Try doing that on Twitter. - - Groups may be created and used for closed conversations. In this way your -conversations with one group of friends is completely isolated from other -friends or groups of friends. - - You may also create interactive band/celebrity pages, special interest -groups, and even organisational 'soapboxes' - for social communications that -require the ability to scale to global levels. Friendika provides for automatic -relationship management in these extreme cases so that you can concentrate on -your message and public persona - and not worry about being swamped by friend -requests. You can even maintain private social contact with your closest -friends and public updates to your hordes of fans - using the same interface. - - No other social network offers this ability. - - - Join us. + ************* + * Friendika * + ************* + + Friendika Communications Server + + http://project.friendika.com + + + Friendika is a web application for managing social communications. Some +would call it a "social network" or "distributed social network". We think +both terms have been over-used, and don't adequately describe Friendika's +capabilities - though Friendika can also fill those roles. + + At its essence, Friendika is a web application which can monitor various +information and social activity streams, and which also lets you participate +in online conversations with friends and associates, using a variety of network +protocols. These are combined into an overview of your various communications +and activities - regardless of network origin. + + Friendika also manages your personal profiles and photo albums and lets +you securely present each of these to specific audiences. Your communications +can be either open and public, or closed and private. You can easily create +"groups" of contacts with which you can partition your conversations into +private social circles, and which cannot be seen outside the circle. + + Friendika is decentralised. Any account on any Friendika server can connect +with any account on any other Friendika server. You can also connect to and +interact directly with friends on Status.Net and other federated social web +services (e.g. identi.ca, GNU-Social, etc.). + + Outgoing communications can be directed at these networks and also +existing accounts on Facebook and Twitter - or even delivered to email +contacts. + + Incoming data streams aren't limited to traditional social networks. +They may include most any service which provides a syndication feed (both RSS +and Atom). This allows you to view communications from friends in other +diverse social networks - such as Diaspora, Google Buzz, and millions of +blogs, news services, and other websites. You can also import +contacts from (and write to) anybody that is accessible from your email +INBOX and view them in your social stream. Over time we will try to +build two-way bridges to other services so that you can freely +interact in both directions with anybody on an accessible network that +allows it. + + Communications between Friendika servers are private and encrypted, +using military grade encryption - and require mutual identity provenance +before any data is exchanged. These same crypto mechanisms provide remote +password-less authentication; allowing you to post to profiles and view private +photo collections on other servers - without encountering any login and/or +authorisation dialogues when visiting these sites. + + Friendika has no boundaries and no central ownership of the data generated +within the network. Anybody with a commodity PHP/MySQL web server or hosting +account can provide a server, and each individual server can then support +up to several thousand participating members - each with their own unique +communication and privacy needs. This allows Friendika to scale to global +levels and mimics the decentralised architecture of the web itself. + + If you are creating a website which requires social interaction, Friendika +can also take the place of blog software, forum software and feed readers, and +also provide individualised communications and content management - or +simply be used as an alternative to traditional "monolithic" social networks. + + Friendika is also free - in every sense of the word. + + Choose freedom - join us. + + Find out more about the project at http://project.friendika.com ******************* Friendika Demo Site |