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Comment by drcube | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

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