WordPress the New Facebook?

Could WordPress be the New Facebook?

Let me right off clarify that headline; I don’t mean privacy-selling-money-grabbing-zombie-biting-waste-of-time. I mean could WordPress be the new darling of the Social Networking field?

Chris Messina wants it to be. He’s started a project called DiSo (“distributed social networking”), to build an “inside out” Social Network.

What’s wrong with Facebook, you ask? Ignoring for the moment the horror that is Beacon, many people have been abandoning the service because it just isn’t useful. Worse than that, it is an increasingly time-wasting activity.

Hugh said it better than most. Darren Rowse and Brian agree. Rather than be the source of “User Generated Content” for someone else, many bloggers are now returning to their roots and putting their energy back into their own site, where it makes most sense and the pay off is greater.

I am a blogging advocate. It’s what I do, I teach it and live it. Even so I can see a place for the Social Networking site because of the way they bring people together. People go to Facebook or MySpace because that is where everyone goes. It is like eBay, or the popular bar in town, it might not be the best but because everyone goes there … everyone goes there.

What blogs currently lack to overcome this is an easy way for users to traverse the connections, to surf friendships and find those degrees of separation contacts without having to give over our privacy to one particular corporation or another. Previous solutions such as the XML based FOAF etc hasn’t really taken off quite yet, it could be DiSo provides the foundations to have the best of both worlds, anything-goes fully owned blogs with the connectivity of a single Social Networking site …

Posted on December 13, 2007 by Chris Garrett 
Filed Under Web 2.0

Comments

7 Responses to “WordPress the New Facebook?”

  1. Tony on December 13th, 2007 4:43 pm

    The social networking sites, in my opinion, are a huge waste of time. Plus there are so many popping up that I have a hard time keeping track of them. Every few days I get an invite for LinkedIn, Spock, Facebook, etc.

    I agree that investing the time in blogging is probably time better spent. I will say that I was able to connect with a few friends via LinkedIn and Facebook that I would never have found without these sites.

    These sites definitely play on the addictiveness that they create with users. All of the widgets in Facebook and you just have to get your profile in LinkedIn up to 100% complete.

  2. Adam Snider on December 13th, 2007 7:56 pm

    I mostly agree with you and others, Chris. Facebook is becoming increasingly useless to me. I do, however, use it to promote my River City Writer blog—and it works, Facebook is second only to Google for new traffic. Same goes for Twitter (though, I find I actually do get a lot of value out of Twitter, but the value you get depends largely on who you follow).

    To me, Facebook is a fun little toy—there are some fun games, and all of my friends are there—but it has little practical value beyond promoting my external projects.

    If Facebook were to disappear tomorrow, I wouldn’t really be upset. If I was suddenly unable to publish my blogs, on the other hand, that would fairly devastating.

  3. El retorno del bloguero » los sueños de la razón on December 13th, 2007 9:52 pm

    [...] Se explica muy bien en la entrada de Gigaom que recomienda La Brújula Verde. También en Codswallop se comenta el asunto. Todo esto a raíz del inicio de un proyecto llamado DiSo (distributed social [...]

  4. Chris Garrett on December 13th, 2007 9:56 pm

    @Tony – So far most people who have found me have done so through my blog. One or two old school friends through “friends reunited” and workmates from facebook, but I have to think I am not hard to find in Google :)

    @Adam – I wonder why I have had zero traffic referred by FB when you do so well out of it? Perhaps I just haven’t been active enough?

  5. Aaron Stroud on December 14th, 2007 2:34 am

    @Tony, I’ve always felt the social networking sites were a waste of time. I think peer pressure is a large component of their success. I know my son sends far more electronic messages via myspace than email.

    @Chris, while Google makes it pretty easy to find someone, I think the search engines are going to get even better at this. They’re going to have to with millions of people starting their own sites on domains that don’t sync up with their real names.

  6. Nathan Ketsdever on December 18th, 2007 1:11 am

    @ Chris. For WordPress to make the jump to social networking it will have to look more like Vox, MyBlogLog, or perhaps Mashable or one of the more newspaper looking sites. I heard that from Chris Brogan that Google reader made the jump to profiles, which suggests they are moving in the same direction too.

    @ Aaron. I believe as long as a blogger gets a profile or two on the main social networking sites with their real name, not owning their domain name isn’t a problem. Also, if you have an original name and run a website–Google is quite good at finding you. Finally, Wink, although not perfect is moving in the direction of people finding in the social networking space.

    Great post Chris. Cheers to all!

  7. Should Google Have a “People Search”? : Codswallop on December 18th, 2007 8:16 am

    [...] comment on my last post and it got me thinking. First, in case you missed it, here is what he said: while Google makes it pretty easy to find someone, I think the search engines are going to get [...]

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