More control of your own data
If you are registered on a public Pod, you then pose the
same question as for the other services: who are the operators and what will
they do with my data? The developer of the official site is three students of
the New York University (the fourth from the founding team died November 2011).
They operate Diaspora as a charitable organisation which runs only on
donations. The operator of other public servers has given up on the
transparency. "However, many pod operators have already started leading
the way as good examples and enter their information in detail without even
considering data protection and the intended use", says Falko Kraft, a
Community member. Donations for the service is required. Of course, they offer
you the option of using your own server which will manage only your data. This
means maximum control without having to give up on any function offered by the
social networking site.
How to control
your own data best?
Diaspora allows downloading of all the data from the server
using an export function. This is provided if you want to shift from a public
pod to your own server. The software required for your own pod can be
downloaded - for free - under github.com/diaspora/diaspora/wiki. The setup is
not absolutely trivial for a lay man but a detailed description is available on
the site in a step by step manner. A private pod just needs a standard PC. A
diaspora server has about 20,000 users running on just two computers, which has
two Intel Xeon E3-1245 Quad Core with 16 GB work space and a 3TB hard disk. If
you want to start the server for other users - maybe a friend or a family
member, then you just have to ensure that the computer is connected with a
stable DSL cable and is permanently online. Otherwise no one will be able to
log in.
The use of Diaspora and the web user interface remains the
same - irrespective of where you are on your own server or a public one. The
time the source code was published in September 2010 there was a skimpy news
stream to see the friend’s profile and the option to download photos. The data
traffic in Diaspora network was coded right from the beginning - it was coded
with the GnuPG encoding used in the mail traffic. The later versions followed
the link from Diaspora to Facebook and Twitter such that the status messages
were posted even here on request. Another innovation was the "Aspect"
- standard word for a friend circle. Google later took this concept as
"Groups" in Google+, where Diaspora also adapted the Google+ layout.
Diaspora also took a few other functions from the competitors: Hashtags, a
direct message system, and a "like" button. People who made the
switch immediately started feeling at home - and started enjoying a few
advantages: Diaspora is free of any promotional messages, you can use any type
of pseudonym and the most important one here is that the data is not passed on
to companies. However, data protection and control are not the only areas in
which Facebook has room to improve.
Facebook is
massive and at times is so confusing that the user can just get lost.
Facebook is massive and at times is so confusing that the
user can just get lost. There is a certain method behind it because Facebook
wants to record the associations of the users with each other in as many ways
as possible - sticking to the company's main principles of opening the world
and forming a connection.
On the other hand, the Special Interest networks have set a
clear focus on one subject matter or an application purpose. It is since a long
time that such portals have been available - like YouTube or the photo site
Flickr. However, they were never developed while keeping the social network in
mind. And this is exactly the gap which is now filled by the new services
wherein the social networks have a strong bond among the users and a strong
association with the contents.
Better organisation of the stream
Tumblr and
Pinterest are two of the latest fast growing portals; these make sharing of web
contents easy.
Tumblr and Pinterest are two of the latest fast growing
portals; these make sharing of web contents easy. You can even share the
content on Facebook but your messaging stream hardly matches. Thus, you will
always get to see all the content of people or companies but these will always
be sorted as per the topic (for instance landscape photography). That is why
the interesting articles and contributions always keep going down at a rapid
speed in the message stream. On the other hand Tumblr, which was already
launched in 2007, can search for subjects like design, literature or technology
this helps you in finding interesting contributions within a few seconds.
The Social
Nextwork: Twitter
The personal associations with others works in the same way
as in Twitter, you can follow any Twitterer but he she has to accept your
friend request. The difference with Twitter is that the the user is represented
by a micro blog whose URL is determined during the registration. Thus, the user
is not registered as a person but in the form of an URL. Anyone can post their
contents in this micro blog - but is absolutely optional. Here, Tumblr
functions just in the same way as the blog platform wordpress; the only
difference is it's a lot simpler and is different in case of the social
components like the favouritism criteria and re-blogging of the content. Using
key words (Tags) you can also search for a particular content - and can even
follow these tags. Thus, you will get new entries even from other users who
have not been followed by you. Pinterest is another sharing platform. This
digital photo and video pinboard has almost over 12 million users in the USA,
but still requires invites. Even this site is split in categories which help
find other users and thus enabling you to follow them. In addition to this,
many users create their own "Boards" which define the other field of
topic. The "Pin it" button - a small JavaScript bookmarklet available
in the favorite list of the browsers - can be used to display all the images
and videos of a website which can be pinned. In the beginning the websites could
not prevent from the content from spreading in this manner - but this
possibility was true in the meantime. The reason for this is the question
whether one is even allowed to publish images on a website of any other site
(the own Pinterest profile). A copy on the Pinterest server may not have been
taken seriously and is published again without the creator's consent. The
entitled person can quickly even recognize the violations here as the Pinterest
is easy to search. The risk of a warning is much greater with Pinterest as
stated by the lawyer Thomas Schwenke on spreerecht.de. The question now is that
how fast will Pinterest draw attention of the entitled person as there has been
no warning till now.
More recommendations by friends
New social networks do not change only the consumption of
the web content but also the TV consumption. Thus, the user moves from
Couchfunk to the latest TV program as it runs while talking of the possible
culprits at the scene of crime. Such discussions are also seen on Facebook or
Twitter which is seen to achieve the same number of messages that when someone
gets the Oscar’s top rank award. However, it lacks in sorting those users who
do not want to know anything about it. Such users stay by themselves when it
comes to special services. And that just goes on: the USA analysis says that
even today 40 percent of the TV viewers use a smartphone or tablet at the same
time. Smart TV applications could even strengthen this trend.
Couchfunk Social TV
Teaser
A different type of a social network which has formed is a
location-based service like Foursquare. It runs as a smartphone app using which
you can "log in" from any point of the world, using which you can
find friends or specific offers (for instance discounts). Foursquare offers
points and ranks for checking in - this is done to gain popularity - taking
advantage of the play instinct of any user. Even Facebook has tried using the
function "Places". But this does not offer rewarding system or any
special offers and is thus used seldom. Consider the ever increasing popularity
of the Smartphones with which a person can be constantly online uses services
for local community like Shopping Apps for good deals in the surrounding areas
- always popular as indicated by the increasing number of users. Such services
makes it easier for the user to take a decision on the basis of the experiences
had by other users - primarily from his/her own social circle. In addition to
Facebook using several other networks means a lot of expenditure. A
simplification that can be considered would be a standard protocol using which
the user can communicate with each other across networks - just as SMTP
standard allows it for e-mail traffic. Vodafone has been working on such an
interface called "Onesocialweb" since middle 2010. However, the
project has not been accepted as an idea till date.
Foursquare offers
points and ranks for checking in - this is done to gain popularity - taking
advantage of the play instinct of any user.
Facebook has already started offering a programming
interface a user can post content from other networks automatically on Facebook
using this interface. In addition to this, this interface also allows
registration using the Facebook log-in - something that reduces the pain of a
new registration - and something which shows that Facebook does not foresee any
competition in these services. On the contrary: Facebook even benefits from
this as the automatic content sharing increases the activity on Facebook at the
same time. Mirko Lange, the Managing Director of the Social Media Agency says
which of this network has established later clearly depends on the usage as
well as on a popular user interface with an intuitive operation. If the user
finds the interface annoying he/she immediately moves out in search of a new
interface - and then in the end goes back to Facebook.
Total No. of Users
Facebook stands at
the top rank in social networking sites without any doubt as regards to the
number
Facebook stands at the top rank in social networking sites
without any doubt as regards to the number. But the users are more active on
small networks thanks to its clearly defined objective or subject matter.
1.
Facebook: 800mil.
2.
Twitter: 300mil.
3.
Google+: 90mil.
4.
Tumblr: 33mil.
5.
Foursquare: 15mil.
6.
Pinterest: 12mil.
7.
Diaspora: 0.3mil.
Growth in users
New services – Fourquare grown the best in User
New services like Foursquare have grown significantly from
July 2010 to July 2011 whereas the established ones like Facebook have hardly
grown after that. MySpace, once the most popular, has fallen quite
dramatically.
1.
Foursquare: 384%
2.
Tunblr: 218%
3.
Twitter: 31%
4.
Facebook: 14%
5.
Myspace: -50%
