Mashable | I spent 2 weeks socializing in VR, and I saw the future Mashable When Mark Zuckerberg donned an Oculus Rift on stage at the Oculus Connect conference last fall to show off a group of avatars playing cards in virtual reality, it was meant to be a peek at the future of social networking. But it turns out that future ... |
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I spent 2 weeks socializing in VR, and I saw the future - Mashable
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App.net, the microblogging service launched as a paid-subscriber alternative to ad-supported systems like Facebook and Twitter, has decided to close its doors and release its software as open source.
In a blog post, App.net cited diminishing revenuea lack of subscribersas the reason for the shutdown. Users have until March 14 to export their data, and at some point (it hasnt been specified when) all of the code underlying App.net will be released as open source.
The project was widely regarded as a brave idea, but it was at odds with the accepted economics of social networking projects. It chose to only partially open-source its code base and didnt generate enough critical mass to make it self-sustaining.
The original idea behind App.net, as Simon Phipps explained in a skeptical 2012 InfoWorld blog, was to crowdfund an effort to create a messaging platform that could host many kinds of apps, with Twitter-like microblogging as one of the most prominent. Since users paid for the privilege of accessing the service, it theoretically would be immune to the ethical quandaries of an ad-supported service. It was also meant to be more appealing to developers frustrated with Twitters tooling.
After an initial burst of interest, App.netin 2014had enough customers to remain online but not hire full-time staff. The company had chosen to open-source only part of the code base and was perceived as unwilling to commit completely to an open source model and thus stimulate further adoption.
App.nets approach stood in contrast to Diaspora, another open source social networking project. App.net had one central piece of closed, hosted infrastructure to run the service, with a number of open projects running on top of it. Diaspora provided all the code as open source, but left the burden of running it to users (some of whom have provided hosting for Diaspora nodes as a service).
Neither App.net nor Diaspora attracted a sizable audienceincluding the developers who were meant to be the primary users and evangelists for those systems.
Despite its commercial nature, Twitter remains a chief venue for devs to connect with each other and obtain quick answers to shouted-out questions. For most people targeted by App.net, the immediate utility of Twitterand the fact that everyone was already using itoutweighed any concerns about the commercial nature of the platform.
App.nets shutdown notice hinted at the company realizing it had banked too heavily on developers as drivers of the business, rather than lay users. Ultimately, we failed to overcome the chicken-and-egg issue between application developers and user adoption of those applications, wrote App.net founder Dalton Cadwell. We envisioned a pool of differentiated, fast-growing third-party applications would sustain the numbers needed to make the business work. ... [B]ut that initial excitement didnt ultimately translate into a big enough pool of customers for those developers.
One possible model for what App.net had in mind is Box. That enterprise storage company has focused on providing APIs for developers, allowing businesses to build their own storage and content-management functionality, with regulatory compliance already built into the platform. Box works because it addressed a genuine need and provided tangible conveniences; for most people, App.nets value was more nebulous.
The next (and last) step for App.net is to offer all its infrastructure as open source. Previously, the company open-sourced key projects that ran on top of the service, such as the alphamicroblogging client, but not its full underlying platform. One possibility is for App.net to go in the same direction as Diasporawith the ability to be self-hosted, in much the same manner as a WordPress installation.
Will people ditch Twitter for an indie, bootstrapped alternative? Probably not, when Twitter remains ubiquitous, easy, and already populated by the people they want to reach. The more likely scenario is that others will repurpose App.nets code into a useful optiona DIY service platform, for instanceand save the pieces for other projects. The big lesson is that it takes more than providing an alternative to get people to switch to it.
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Social network App.net to shut down, open-source its platform ... - InfoWorld
Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram these are the household names you hear and probably even use every day.
If you are a bit deeper into the subject, you also know that those are unicorn startups with current valuations ranging from $37 billion to $328 billion.
Starting your own social network may sound like a good plan in theory, but the entire processes is a bit more complicated than just building some app and watching the raving fans coming in.
In this guide wed like to outline not just how to create a social network in terms of tech stack, but what additional considerations you should take into account for such project.
Do you really need to be the next Facebook? Smaller niche social networks can also become popular and profitable if you know how to play your cards right. Theres a good reason why new websites and apps are being launched faster than you blink since the days of MySpace.
The niche is still ripe and striving. And heres exactly what it takes to make a social networking site that doesnt run flat in just a few years.
Facebook has been often accused of reaping off MySpace concept. They didnt quite invent the bike they modified an existing idea and expanded it based on the user requests. As Mike Jones, the former head of MySpace admitted:
The real problem was that the world had been trained by MySpace that social networking was interesting, but the actual product had been perfected by Facebook.
If you plan to start a social network, you dont need to re-invent the concept either.
In fact, users may be put off by the unfamiliar functionality and too out-of-the-box features. Intuitive web design guidelines exist there for a good reason it suggests the user how a certain product works and encourages faster adoption.
However, building a complete Facebook clone is no longer a viable route either.
While your app should look familiar and intuitive, it should also have a unique twist (aka your unique value proposition) to foster that user base growth. Here are just a few possible ideas and examples:
Bottom line: To make a social media website, you need to think of a unique twist and how you can market it to your target audience. After all, no matter how awesome is your product, its worth nothing without a growing user base.
Theres no definitive rule whether you should build a website or a mobile app for your social networking site.
Instagram, Vine, and Snapchat made it big as mobile-only solutions, while Facebook, LinkedIn, and Pinterest took a while before releasing native mobile apps.
In general, it all boils down to the type of features youd like your product to have and the kind of audience you wish to pursue. Obviously, if youd like to allow blogging within your app, making it mobile-only wont make much sense and if you encourage instant sharing - a web app isnt your best bet either.
The development costs, in this case, may vary slightly, as the pricing for mobile apps is usually lower compared to web apps. However, if you plan to launch an MVP first with only a limited amount of features to test your concept, a web app may be a better route to take.
If you are still wondering how to start a social network like Facebook with little to no tweaks, heres the exact tech stack theyve used:
Facebook Messenger features its own unique architecture, which is based on infrastructure sharing and dynamic cluster management. Basically, for each group users they create a special cell, which encapsulates the overall business logic and persistence (using HBase). To scale the app, they just need to add a new Cell.
Facebook additionally consists of a large number of custom-built apps and elements with the hush-hush stack they are not disclosing publicly. In fact, Facebook developers are not allowed to talk of their job a lot and share what exactly are they doing for the company.
In any case, when you decide on the technology to use for social networking website development, consult with the developers you hire. Based on your new website features and estimated traffic, they should be able to suggest you the optimal architecture.
Now apart from a powerful backend, your app will also need a pretty face to woe in those early adopters. Facebook may have gotten along with being pretty ugly, but today thats no longer a strategy worth copying.
In general, all social networking website feature a similar structure and user screens:
This is the skeleton of a social networking app. Obviously, you will want to add some additional functions to make your product stand out from the crowd.
UX design here is highly important. You need to make sure each and every step of interactions is highly delightful, intuitive and gets the user exactly where they have anticipated.
Your best bet here is to create a list of user stories one-two sentence descriptions of what your app needs to be doing (A user can register using an email and receive confirmation link).
Based on these stories UX/UI designers will be able to propose the ultimate product architecture and create the initial wireframes. The development team can also adjust their project more accurately if you have those in place.
Now, you are probably interested how much an online social networking site will cost you to build?
Bad news here its really hard to give a precise estimate when you dont know all the required product features. So here are some educated guesses for a start:
What you should keep in mind is that social networking websites are usually developed continuously. All of the big name platforms got started with a minimal viable set of features to validate their concept and steadily grew larger over time.
You can build a simple social app with truncated functionality starting from $35,000, yet it will require much more investment over its lifespan. So start thinking early about your monetization strategy and how you plan to gather investments for your next big thing in the world of social!
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What does it take to start your own social network - BusinessZone (blog)
Naked Security | News in brief: new browser launched; social network closes down; cyberattack on health provider Naked Security There are myriad browsers clamouring for attention alongside the big ones made by Google, Mozilla and Microsoft, mostly based on the open-source part of the Chrome browser, and some are better than others. Opera, which makes one of the minnows, has ... Opera Neon the future desktop browser Say hello to Opera Neon, our new concept browser - Opera Desktop |
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News in brief: new browser launched; social network closes down; cyberattack on health provider - Naked Security
Social networking has grown to be become one of the largest and most influential components of the web, but despite how prevalent it is in the Western World (especially among the younger crowd), not everyone uses it or understands it. Just think of the older people you might know or people who've live in locations where internet access isn't the norm.
Also recommended:The Most Popular Social Media Sites & Apps
The open-ended nature of social networks may only add to the confusion. Once signed in to a social network, having answered a few basic profile questions, it's easy to sit back and wonder what you are supposed to do next.
Perhaps the easiest way to understand social networking is to think of it like high school. You had friends in school and you knew quite a few people even if you weren't friends with all of them, but it's likely that you didn't know everyone.
If you ever moved to a new school or if you can imagine moving to a new school you start out with no friends. After attending classes, you start meeting people, and as you meet them, you begin associating with those that have similar interests.
Getting started with social networking is much the same as starting at a new school. At first, you don't have any friends. But as you join groups, you begin to meet people, and you build a friend list of those with similar interests.
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Social networking is based on a certain structure that allow people to both express their individuality and meet people with similar interests.Here are a few of the most common components of a social network:
Profile. This is your own little piece of digital real estate where you tell the world about yourself. Profiles contain basic information, like a main photo, short bio, location, website and sometimes personality questions like who's your favorite actor and what's your favorite book. Social networks dedicated to a special theme like music or movies might ask questions related to that theme.
Friends and followers. Friends and followers are trusted members of the site that are allowed to post comments on your profile or send you private messages. You can also keep tabs on how your friends/followers are using social networking, such as when they post a new picture or update their profile. Friends and followers are the heart and soul of social networking. It should be noted that not all social networks refer to them as friends or followers LinkedIn refers to them as connections but all social networks have a way to designate members as trusted.
Home feed: Since the goal of social networking is to connect and interact with others, almost every social network puts a live feed of updates from friends on the home tab. This gives users a real-time glimpse of everything their friends are sharing.
Likes: Lots of social networks have made it easy for users to "like" another user's content by tapping or clicking something like a thumbs up or heart button. It's an easy and straightforward way to put your personal stamp of approval on something that a friend posted.
Comments. A primary focus of groups is to create interaction between users in the form of comments or discussions. Most social networks support comment sections on every type of post.
Groups. Some social networks use groups to help you find people with similar interests or engage in discussions on certain topics. A group can be anything from "Johnson High Class of '98" to "People Who Like Books" to "DoorsFans". They are both a way to connect with like-minded people and a way to identify your interests. Sometimes, groups are called by other names, such as the 'networks' on Facebook.
Tags: As an alternative to groups, lots of social networks have turned to tagging to allow users to categorize their posts according to their topic. Social networks will either automatically generate a tag when you type a pound sign (#) before a keyword (called a hashtag) or require you to enter in several keyword terms in a specific tag area. These tags become links, and when you click or tap them, they take you to a new page where you can see all of the most recent posts from everyone who included that tag in their posts.
Social networking is a nice form of entertainment, great for meeting people with similar interests and useful for staying in touch with old friends/acquaintances. It can also be a very effective promotional tool for businesses, entrepreneurs, writers, actors, musicians or artists.
Most of us have hobbies, or things that we are keenly interested in such as books, television, video games or movies. Social networks allow us to reach out to others that have the same interests.
You are never too old to get involved in social networking! There are plenty of social networks to choose from including niche social networks that focus on a specific theme or style of posting.
If you're stumped on which social networking to join first, have a look at this list of 25 top social networks to get a glimpse of what each one offers. Try one out and see what works for you. You can always leave and try something else if you don't end up up loving it.
Next recommended article:10 Popular Social Media Posting Trends
Updated by: Elise Moreau
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What Is Social Networking? - lifewire.com