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Comment by wolfrom | Hacker News Reader

I think it's been mentioned before that standardization of social networking protocols might work, to the point that they become part of the Internet itself, like e-mail. I think it is only a matter of time (2-3 years) before the majority of Internet users will simply use distributed systems where their social data will be spread over several services (proprietary or open source), and the sharing of that data will follow a standard protocol (maybe a future blend of ActivityStea.ms, Salmon, and others).

Facebook will survive, most likely, but I think its influence will slowly wane to the point where they will be just another "media company" like AOL and Yahoo.

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How would that look from an end-user standpoint? If I'm a person who doesn't know a thing about protocols or technology and uses Facebook a lot, what causes me to start to migrate over to the distributed services? Particularly because one of the great strengths of Facebook is exactly that it's not distributed: all the people you know, in one place. So it seems like to replace one of the core functionalities provided, there has to be some centralized component. And then it's hard for me to see what benefit decentralization is providing for either the user or the service.

An alternative social architecture seems appealing in some ways but I just can't see the [realistic, might actually happen with a significant chunk of the Facebook crowd] vision of how we'd ever get there from here.

I think of that component as a very good area for a startup, which is why I'm part of such a team. I don't think it's unrealistic for one person to use Twitter, Flickr and YouTube for their social networking, while another person uses Facebook and LinkedIn; both should eventually be able to share with each other through a service that specializes in bringing everyone together.

Does your model include a central feed?

It does, depending on your definition. Aggregation of activity streams is a part of it.

Does the user have to set that up? Or does it just happen automatically? That to me seems one of the main advantages of centralization of this sort of thing: users just automatically get publicly posted photos, posts, invitations, etc. from anybody they've friended and vice-versa.

With OAuth and login cookies, it's even easier now than it was when FriendFeed began, but still requires one click to add a service, and a clicking on "Allow" at the end site. Once that's done, a good product should be able to centralize the contacts and social data/activities.

So how do you handle the case of a non-techy user who logs in and wants to upload some pictures? They have to go to Flickr (or equivalent), create an ID there, come back, and link that new ID to the social network feed? Or do you end up providing that sort of service, too, in addition to the option of using an external service? If so, how is this better than a Facebook app that lets you feed your data from an external service into your feed?

At this point, the service would connect the photo sharing of different services to the user based on their choice (I use Flickr, so I share Flickr, or I use Facebook so I'll share that with everyone). There is more functionality than in a standard Facebook App, but Facebook apps (and open social apps, and iPhone apps, etc) would be part of the solution. The service is based on sharing from the services a user already uses, but there's nothing stopping the service from helping users discover new services that are perfect for what they want to do.

Has there been any standardization of those protocols yet? I know Diaspora was working on an entire site, but I don't recall them using any standards... Or even making them.

There are a few different standards, but I don't think it's achieved the level of a W3C style consortium. Google's been working on initiatives, and even Facebook is involved. Appleseed and Cliqset are two products which I believe already implement several protocols, while Diaspora is meant to do the same from what I've read.

They've been having discussions with various standards groups which I forget the names of at the moment.

There are some draft specs on the activitystrea.ms site. FB seems to implement them in Open Graph.

http://activitystrea.ms/spec/1.0/ http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/ http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/Using_Activity...

Best case: Facebook becomes the AOL of social networking

Worst case: Facebook becomes the MS Exchange of social networking

Best case for whom? AOL is a walled garden (which is what FB is now). At least with an Exchange-like scheme I'd have some modicum of control (see Diaspora).

AOL fell by the wayside.

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