There is an Open Source Rival to Facebook: WordPress | Hacker News Reader

There is an Open Source Rival to Facebook: WordPress

steveburge.com

82 pointsekaln46 comments

I think people on HN tend to forget that most people dont care about the technical requirements etc. The reason people use facebook because its usage is clear and defined for what its build.

You go on Facebook to check in with your friends, see photos, chat/message. You just dont do it with a blog.

It's like saying you could use paper towels as toilet paper. There is probably some overlap in functionality, but people clearly associate types of products with their specific use case

The analogy here would be more like using books as toilet paper....

Indeed, I should step up my English skills

I don't see how this is different from saying "The World Wide Web is the open source rival to Facebook".

It's true. There isn't anything about Facebook you can't do with your own website. Facebook just centralizes it and makes it easier on the digitally challenged. It's the Geocities of the 21st century. And it too shall eventually crumble, while the Web continues on.

Make it easy to host, set up, administer and link websites and you will have defeated Facebook. Unfortunately, that's easier said than done. People have been trying for 20 years.

I read it more as Wordpress does Diaspora better than Diaspora than it as a serious competitor (without the open qualifier) to Facebook.

Yes, that's huge part of it ... "stop talking about never-will-make-it projects like Diaspora"

But there is a strong part of me that thinks WordPress could become a serious (although very different) competitor to Facebook.

> But there is a strong part of me that thinks WordPress could become a serious (although very different) competitor to Facebook.

I'm not sure that Wordpress will ever be a real competitor or replacement for Facebook, although Wordpress is pretty popular as it is today.

Whatever "the next Facebook" turns out to be, it is unlikely to look anything much like Facebook! It will need to do one or two features well that Facebook does badly or not at all, and be a means to a particular end. For example, the original focus of Facebook was to share contact details and let people communicate about events within a relatively small group of people (students in specific universities). The interesting stuff happened elsewhere; the site merely allowed it to happen more easily. I don't think that an open/distributed clone of present-day Facebook is going to be enough, which rules out Diaspora and friends.

I think a well designed Google+ API and infrastructure could be integrated into WordPress effectively to form the missing pieces of a "social" backbone. That's how Google+ can succeed in my mind--as a view-agnostic infrastructure that sites can build off of to add the social features. It seems that people think that G+ must succeed as a specific destination, but I think it can spread and succeed in more "hidden" background role.

I feel like drcube's comment could be repeated to you here. Anyone's components could be plugged together to create an identity service and a synchronized or centralized stream of data ("microblog posts" ala Twitter, a "news feed" ala Facebook, a photostream ala "Instagram") etc. The hard part is composing it into a platform or something that appears as a centralized platform in order to get people to use it.

Yes, the secret sauce here is potentially Automattic. With WordPress.com, Gravatar and a substantial hold on WordPress.org, they have a rare opportunity to create a centralized platform.

So the question I've asked elsewhere applies... what advantage is it that WordPress is open source now? If they're going to turn it into a social network, they're either going to have closed components (specific to Wordpress.com) or they're going to have to re-invision (and reimplement larges chunks of) it as a distributed social network, something that you seem to be happy to dismiss Diaspora of trying to do. Otherwise, it's just as "closed" as Facebook if I have to use a Wordpress.com site.

I feel like there is a massive misunderstanding of what Jetpack does and provides in the way of a social network. All indications I've seen is that Jetpack just shares to other social networks. It does... effectively nothing... to provide an alternative free of other social networks.

I mean, you even call out Gravatar as being "owned" by Automattic. I don't mind Gravatar but it's a bit stale and certainly not in the vain of a distributed or "open" social network.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding but I don't see how Wordpress is anything like a social network other than you citing the fact that it can tie into other ident providers and share to other social networks. That describes... a metric ton of sites out there.

Sure, it may be that Automattic may need to release more closed products if they want to implement this vision

It may not even be the vision they have for Automattic ... but I do think it's an opportunity they have.

For Gravatar, no it's not a social network at all, but it's a potential part of a bigger, wider identity platform.

>it may be that Automattic may need to become a more closed if they want to implement this vision

If we're just discussing Automattic becoming a closed Facebook competitor, sure it's possible. I think they have the position to do so, but I'm certainly not interested in another closed platform, even if bits of the core software are free.

Gravatar is a wider identity platform, but it too just piggy backs on email. It's an avatar platform that piggy-backs on the email identity platform. And sadly, the avatar platform isn't distributed either.

In my opinion, BrowserID has a much better chance of being the technical and featureful identity provider. Anyone can be a BrowserID provider and provide any level of security from literally none to quadruple factor auth with PKI if they wanted. I would love to see proposals on how to layer functionality like Gravatar on top.

That's a social network alternative that I could get excited about!

There's nothing wrong with the idea of Diaspora, just the execution.

The author seems to conflate WordPress the software and WordPress.com the service.

> You control the source code. You can easily export your site from WordPress.com and take your site with you.

Only if you download WordPress from wordpress.org and install it on your own server (or shared hosting account). The dot-com version contains a lot of proprietary code.

> WordPress.com has already become a login option on many different websites.

Only if you opt to host your blog with them. WordPress.com is a great service, but hosting your blog there is mutually incompatible with having complete control over the source code. Besides, half the WordPress sites out there are self-hosted, and WordPress.com logins don't work there.

Some of the features the article mentions, like JetPack, may be available for both WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress blogs. But that's just comments. There is no meaningful aggregation between WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress blogs when it comes to posts and pictures. Until there's an easy way to follow a lot of WordPress blogs no matter where they're hosted (hello, RSS), it will be difficult to make the argument that WordPress the software makes a promising social networking platform.

What we really need if we want a distributed and open-source social networking platform is improved interaction between independent sites. Not with newfangled stacks like Diaspora, but something that can be slapped onto any existing blog, microblog, or photo sharing service as a plugin (again, think RSS but much more powerful). Why limit your network to WordPress.com users, or even all WordPress users? Give me a common API that lets me follow folks on WordPress.com, DeviantArt, and Pinterest at the same time, a gem that I can add to my Rails-based blog to support this API, and a nice open-source client that ordinary people can use to access all that data. If a few companies like Mozilla and WordPress.com started collaborating on this, it would be a thousand times more viable than Diaspora can ever be.

I agree with you, but I think the author is trying to get at what WordPress _can_ do, not what is currently in place.

Yes, very much so. This post was about the cards that Automattic hold in their hands and really is just one idea about how they could play them.

You mean something like http://activitystrea.ms/ ?

There are wordpress plugins that do this, the most famous is BuddyPress http://buddypress.org/. But that's pretty useless until wordpress.com includes it in their offering which I don't think they do.

But isn't the OP is talking about a step towards that common API you're looking for? Wordpress duplicates a lot of FB functionality, and the Jetpack identity framework provides tools for applying user-controlled permissions to accessing the data exposed by those functions. It isn't hard to imagine that exposure taking the form of an API, or the expansion of that identity framework to Google / Twitter / Open ID authentications.

Doesn't sound like you necessarily disagree all that much.

I see we are continuing the tradition of shoe-horning WordPress into roles it was not designed for.

As I understand it, Emacs was originally a text editor.

Well, WordPress no, but BuddyPress yes.

You aren't a maker/hacker are you...

edit: I should clarify - A LOT of people shoehorn many things into functions they aren't designed for.

That's one of the quintessential characteristics of invention and technological progress: using things for new functions they have not been designed for.

You know, like using computers not to do math but to leave comments on a social news site.

The main open source alternative to Facebook is Friendica. It has more features than Diaspora, encrypted communications, emphasis upon decentralization and you can install it easily on a LAMP stack. You don't have to settle for being data mined and sold by Mr Zuckerberg, or owned by the Communications Data Act.

Sites aren't people. It's linking wp sites. Don't even see how this stands even in general concept of 'facebook rival'.

Technically, it sounds plausible (?), but that's irrelevant.

Yes, it's plausible and that's the main thrust of the argument.

I'm not even sure Matt M. has a clear idea of how the direction this might play out but it might be like this:

- build a huge set of site running the same codebase (done) - start to connect them on the admin level (doing) - start to connect the on the user-facing level (starting)

The issue isn't publishing, or even selective publishing, it's smart aggregation.

You'd still need a solution like a feed reader or a site like FriendFeed. And even then, you don't have the interactivity of FB with the ability to "like" content, comment, and tag. It's the content that brings people to FB, the opportunity to see who's up to what, look at funny photos and chat and gossip with friends.

This is a very interesting analysis. It's one that I would've never thought of, but seems accurate. The fact that wordpress powers a great majority of sites would be a huge factor in their success at playing the "social" game. Funny, though, that most of those sites also incorporate FB "like" buttons. Good read.

WordPress: PHP-Nuke for the new generation.

Give me a break. My family isn't using Wordpress and I don't see them use Wordpress in near or far future.

True, at the moment it's only site owners and WordPress.com bloggers who are really tapped into this network.

We're talking about potential here.

As more end-users features like comments get added to JetPack, the chance is there to entice more users like your family.

Sorry but this just seems to miss the point of how Facevook bested competitors that, in theory, covered the same ground as FB did (Friendster, MySpace, xanga, etc). Execution is as important as e idea...and FB, by focusing on a narrow band of features and customization, created a service that was easy to use and addictive. Nothing about Wordpress or the plugins required to get it to FB functionality will match this.

This is like saying that WP is the open-source alternative to Titter, except that you can write more than 140 characters and even add photos/tables/anything...Twitter is more than just a text and newsfeed platform

When you look at open and portable software for personal sites, as people in the Indie Web community do, WordPress is an obvious frontrunner. Facebook and WordPress started in very different places, but because they've expanded to provide a lot of tools for establishing an online presence, there is certainly some overlap. For instance, some businesses use their Facebook page as a blog.

By the way if you like running your own site and can make it to Portland at the end of the month, consider going to http://indiewebcamp.com/

The pendulum does always swing away from a walled garden. The author makes a compelling case for Wordpress as a distributed and open potential social platform.

Love to hear what Matt thinks about it.

»"The pendulum does always swing away from a walled garden"

I sympathise with the sentiment expressed but must point out that there is no market force that prefers un-established open products to established walled gardens save for a fraction of hackers' tastes and preferences. Most people don't care, for rationally self-interested reasons, whether the product they use is open or closed as much as whether it works or not.

>>I sympathise with the sentiment expressed but must point out that there is no market force that prefers un-established open products to established walled gardens save for a fraction of hackers' tastes and preferences.

Oh, yes there is, it's called change.

The point isn't that established players are immortal. It is that the role of open v closed in that usurpation process is negligible.

Closed systems overturn open systems just as much as the other way around (or closed v closed or open v open). Very few people outside hacker culture care whether what they use is open or closed.

I'm making a cathedral v bazaar argument. Openness itself is of little benefit to end users, but open systems have a potential for distributed evolution that's lacking in centrally planned systems

I'm not predicting that Wordpress will supersede Facebook, but I do predict that something will eventually. Of all the alternatives known to me, Wordpress is a fascinating suggestion.

What you need for a migration from one social network to another:

1) The existing platform being annoying/uninteresting/distrusted. 2) A small but "cool" section migrating to a new platform.

Facebook won by being adopted by an effective wedge group - college student. Those who open source might (or might not) be a different but effective wedge group.

<$0.02> Android not WordPress</0.02> Its not about Open 'source' but simply 'open'. Weak proof of this is the Facebook Phone rumors a while ago. What if FB could at this stage own Android? FB wants/needs hardware presence for longer term. Too bad Google is too focussed on "Social" as defined by FB.

jetpack and buddypress together would seem to give you a distributed-facebook experience.

True, and BuddyPress has a history with Automattic.

Even more simply, to create a powerful identity platform, they'd probably just need to improve the Public Profile area on WordPress.com.

At the moment there's just First Name, Last Name, Public Display Name, About Us and Gravatar (another Automattic product and the key image identity platform for the web)

Wordpress should take on Buyypress' profile information management system [xprofile], that would make Buddypress much more attractive imo. The fact that a user sees completely different information in the wp-admin dashboard from the data they entered into the Buddypress front end is very confusing and messy from a UX stand point.

Nope.

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