[hackerspaces] Social Swarm

[hellekin]

On 01/22/2012 05:25 AM, Al Jigong Billings wrote:
> How does social swarm do more than what Diaspora is doing? Why not contribute there?
> 
*** Well, the social swarm initiative is a step up in the abstraction
layer: Diaspora* is one of 21 projects being identified "trying to solve
these issues", in the "server-based (decentralized, federated)"
approach. There are 10 more in the "P2P/F2F-based (fully distributed)"
category. [1]

As you can see the scope is a bit wider than just Diaspora*. The idea is
to invite free software developers as well as non-developers to reflect
on a set of requirements to re-appropriate the meaning of social
networks--I go along with Howard Rheingold [2] to define them as "the
sum of human relationships", and devise communication strategies to
steer the people away from corporate surveillance--here, Eben Moglen
comes to mind.

The usability page [4] mentions: We can learn from Diaspora and
Facebook. Does it mean we have to be browser-based? Maybe. Maybe not. It
only matters if the software manages to fulfill our requirements and be
so terribly easy to use that your mother has not to worry where to click
next!

A similar, but more appropriate question would be: how is social swarm
different from the Free Network Foundation [5] initiative? That is one I
posted to our list, and I invite gmc to have a look: maybe there are
reasons for joining forces there.

On the non-technical side of the argument, we find similarities with
Unlike-us [6] and ContactCon [7], the former being more oriented towards
media and culture theory, the latter more linked to the US startup
ecosystem.

Cheers,

==
hk

[1] http://wiki.socialswarm.net/Software
[2] https://plus.google.com/116069455891181229072/posts/SBATa3rQKjW
[3]
http://www.betabeat.com/2011/12/13/in-which-eben-moglen-like-legit-yells-at-me-for-being-on-facebook/
[4] http://wiki.socialswarm.net/Usability
[5] http://freenetworkfoundation.org/
[6] http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/unlikeus/
[7] http://contactcon.com/