summaryrefslogtreecommitdiffstats
path: root/content/blog/2015-01-01-social-networking-done-right/index.en.md
blob: bdac459743ea714d9f045b2e48194e84629374d6 (plain) (blame)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
+++
title = "Social Networking Done Right"
lang = "en"

[taxonomies]
authors = ["harald"]
tags = ["social networks", "diaspora", "federation"]

[extra]

+++

For the past year and a half or so I've moved most of my social networking
presence to [Diaspora*]. It's been quite a nice ride, I think. The
change of pace from Facebooks aggressive and immersive ad-driven style to a
smaller community has been both refreshing and enlightening.

<!-- more -->

This could be just another social media platform, however. In which case it
wouldn't be very interesting. A matter of preferences and taste, combined with
where the people that you know hang out would determine which platform you
prefered. It could essentially be just another facebook clone. There's enough
of them already, and they're all uninteresting.

What sets Diaspora* apart is that it's a platform for sharing and communicating
with anybody. It's distributed nature is well known. There are a number of
_pods[^pods]_ located around the
internet. [Choose one] that you like and has terms you agree with.
You can even [run your own]. You can share and communicate with
others _regardless of which pod they are signed up to_.

While that's great by itself, it really shines when you realize that you can
share and communicate with people on completely different platforms too! As
long as the other platforms implement the same protocol for sharing messages
and posts that Diaspora* does, it doesn't really matter on which platform your
friends are signed up to. For now this means that anybody on [Diaspora*],
[Friendica] and the [Red Matrix] can communicate with each other.

If you ask me, that's just how social networking should be. Not locked up silos
like Facebook and it's clones, but open platforms for communicating and sharing
ideas regardless of the underlying platform.

[^pods]: Servers running the Diaspora* software.

[Diaspora*]: https://diasporafoundation.org/
[Choose one]: https://wiki.diasporafoundation.org/Choosing_a_pod
[run your own]: https://wiki.diasporafoundation.org/Installation
[Friendica]: http://friendica.com/
[Red Matrix]: https://redmatrix.me/