* <> Next-level social Created: 9/3/2017, 2:42:54 PM So, I got this email the other day from a startup that was looking for people who want to "take their social to the next level." ... Lady, my "social" is at such a low level, taking it to the next level would only entail responding to more than one comment every three months. Why is it that I don't post anything to Instagram, or Twitter, or Facebook, or whatever other service people are flocking to at the moment? Should I get into that? 'Cause I'm happy to get into that. For a start: what fucking year is it? 1979? 1991? Do any of you remember Compuserve, or Prodigy, or America OnLine? A brief history lesson for those of you that don't: in the dark days before widespread consumer Internet access there were a number of competing "online services" that provided information, shopping, and communication facilities. They were all "walled gardens" as we say: you could enjoy the scenery and mingle with the people on one service, but you were cut-off from people on other services. Ultimately, Internet access, email, and the World Wide Web obviated all of those proprietary services. Why? Try for a moment to imagine a world in which you can only call people who use the same phone carrier as you. Would that not be insane? How about a world in which you can only send packages to people in your postal network. Is that not completely idiotic? Of course, we have to change the analogy somewhat to more closely map it to the current state of affairs. As accounts/memberships at the various "social" walled gardens are free, people have accounts across three, ten, maybe a dozen services, so a better analogy would be that before you can send Bob a package, you have to find out whether Bob has a UPS account, or a FedEx account, or a DHL account, or whatever. The bottom-line is that the social media landscape is comprised of a number of companies offering superficially different versions of the same services, each of which is existentially threatened by the concept of an open and extensible social media framework that any software developer can implement, and which favors no single company or application above any other. -- Excerpted from: PUBLIC NOTES (H) http://alph.laemeur.com/txt/PUBNOTES-H ©2017 Adam C. Moore (LÆMEUR)