Welcome to the new web.(lists.whatwg.org)
lists.whatwg.org
Welcome to the new web.
http://lists.whatwg.org/htdig.cgi/whatwg-whatwg.org/2011-November/033914.html
25 comments
You're an optimist.
I'm a pessimist - Google+ is too little, too late. Facebook is already too big to fail, Google+ being here the equivalent of Microsoft's Bing.
Facebook won't open up. They don't have than in their DNA, their biggest asset is their huge audience and they'll do anything they can to keep that audience on Facebook -- opening up their platform in a way that benefits competitors simply makes no sense.
The Internet as we know it is indeed dying.
I'm a pessimist - Google+ is too little, too late. Facebook is already too big to fail, Google+ being here the equivalent of Microsoft's Bing.
Facebook won't open up. They don't have than in their DNA, their biggest asset is their huge audience and they'll do anything they can to keep that audience on Facebook -- opening up their platform in a way that benefits competitors simply makes no sense.
The Internet as we know it is indeed dying.
There is no "too big to fail". There was a little financial incident in a small north american country some time ago, where some "too big to fail" institutions failed. I've already heared some teens don't like Facebook anymore because mom and dad are also there.
What changes is the web framework style. Asynchronous page loading provides a smoother experience compared to refreshing the whole page. Gmail and Thunderbird will be increasingly similar. Just that one is in a sandbox called browser and the other's sandbox is called operation system.
What changes is the web framework style. Asynchronous page loading provides a smoother experience compared to refreshing the whole page. Gmail and Thunderbird will be increasingly similar. Just that one is in a sandbox called browser and the other's sandbox is called operation system.
Indeed, there is no such thing as too big to fail, however you can say of certain companies that they are too big to fail easily. Facebook was once small and fragile. Not anymore.
The semantic web dream is dying, replaced by web versions of Microsoft Exchange.
What changes is the web framework style
The semantic web dream is dying, replaced by web versions of Microsoft Exchange.
Who is "the web"?
Web sites/applications just try to be as user-friendly as possible. Unfortunately, stuff like RSS/Atom is not user-friendly compared to Follow/Like/Friend. HTTP GET ist not user-friendly compared to AJAX page changes. Providing open interfaces and standards is additional work, without obvious benefits for companies and most users don't care.
This semantic web dream you talk about--what is it? Nobody is selling this to ordinary people. All i see of "Semantic Web" guys, are baroque XML snippets (FOAF, RDF, etc) and mumbo jumbo about namespaces and ontologies.
Web sites/applications just try to be as user-friendly as possible. Unfortunately, stuff like RSS/Atom is not user-friendly compared to Follow/Like/Friend. HTTP GET ist not user-friendly compared to AJAX page changes. Providing open interfaces and standards is additional work, without obvious benefits for companies and most users don't care.
This semantic web dream you talk about--what is it? Nobody is selling this to ordinary people. All i see of "Semantic Web" guys, are baroque XML snippets (FOAF, RDF, etc) and mumbo jumbo about namespaces and ontologies.
> web versions of Microsoft Exchange.
What a nightmare! Hey guys, we are we so pessimistic these times? We should fight instead.
- Facebook is annoying but you want to keep in touch? Use one of the many tools allowing you to receive your fiends baby pics without opening Facebook. If no tool suits you, hack another one! (I would love a command line fb, by the way)
- Tired of shitty web apps that lost the pure HTTP way and mess with click events? Find or hack an extension that shut them down. If too badly bad, pull on the black hat and make a fuck of that.
- Lack of inspiration? Read again pg's essays, it fuels one with renewed inspiration.
What a nightmare! Hey guys, we are we so pessimistic these times? We should fight instead.
- Facebook is annoying but you want to keep in touch? Use one of the many tools allowing you to receive your fiends baby pics without opening Facebook. If no tool suits you, hack another one! (I would love a command line fb, by the way)
- Tired of shitty web apps that lost the pure HTTP way and mess with click events? Find or hack an extension that shut them down. If too badly bad, pull on the black hat and make a fuck of that.
- Lack of inspiration? Read again pg's essays, it fuels one with renewed inspiration.
I don't think the problem most people have with Facebook is the interface, but the lack of control over your personal data.
Google+ is not that small, and with their hooks in search, maps, mails, videos, etc, they can grab a significant portion of the social blob. They have some leverage.
Someone reasoning like you do some 7 years ago would have said Hotmail was too big, but then they came with Gmail and it was a real break in.
Imagine in a few months, G+ user can opt-in to see their friends' +1 on Youtube's videos in their stream, and for some reason it becomes very hot a feature. Then Facebook want the same, but don't have a Youtube. They "could" add Youtube +1 in their stream using Google open APIs, but then it would be fair for Google to require them to open their API for the reverse, and allow G+ users to have their FB friends' pics in their streams.
This would be a killer feature, because it is really not fun at all to have to go to g+, fb, tw, etc. (not counting Chinese SNSes I have to follow too) and then HN, etc.
In fact, Google Reader was not very far from such a tool, but didn't have the locally generated content's critical mass to move things over, and the interface is/was too "advanced user". Google plus may have enough mass, and had the chance to simplify the UX, by starting from scratch.
Someone reasoning like you do some 7 years ago would have said Hotmail was too big, but then they came with Gmail and it was a real break in.
Imagine in a few months, G+ user can opt-in to see their friends' +1 on Youtube's videos in their stream, and for some reason it becomes very hot a feature. Then Facebook want the same, but don't have a Youtube. They "could" add Youtube +1 in their stream using Google open APIs, but then it would be fair for Google to require them to open their API for the reverse, and allow G+ users to have their FB friends' pics in their streams.
This would be a killer feature, because it is really not fun at all to have to go to g+, fb, tw, etc. (not counting Chinese SNSes I have to follow too) and then HN, etc.
In fact, Google Reader was not very far from such a tool, but didn't have the locally generated content's critical mass to move things over, and the interface is/was too "advanced user". Google plus may have enough mass, and had the chance to simplify the UX, by starting from scratch.
So you're basically saying that Facebook will open-up because Google may force them by using their quasi-monopoly, pulling an IExplorer versus Netscape on them.
However, I have my doubts that this will work, quite the contrary - Google may have GMail and Youtube, but while Google was experimenting with shoving Buzz down on Gmail users' throats, Facebook was busy becoming a platform. Which is the reason why Facebook is now on its way to become THE identity provider for the Internet, the reason why Facebook is the preferred method of login for services like Foursquare.
And unfortunately for Google, the trust of other businesses in them has been eroded in time. For example, only Google could piss off an entire category of businesses by crawling their content and presenting it as its own, with graphical results on the first page of any location-related search: http://www.google.com/places/
It's a shame really, because if Google was considered a benevolent-dictator of the Internet, than trust itself would have been enough for third-parties to consider integration with them. In this instance however I'm seeing other online services just picking Facebook, as while they are evil, at least they are the ones with soon-to-reach 1 billion users.
Youtube integration will be awesome, but that's not enough when the rest of the Internet is on Facebook. Also, checkout what Facebook did with pictures uploads. They are effectively killing Flickr. I'm seeing them doing the same for movie uploads ... they probably haven't felt the need for doing that, seeing that the preferred way of distributing Youtube videos to friends is Facebook ;)
However, I have my doubts that this will work, quite the contrary - Google may have GMail and Youtube, but while Google was experimenting with shoving Buzz down on Gmail users' throats, Facebook was busy becoming a platform. Which is the reason why Facebook is now on its way to become THE identity provider for the Internet, the reason why Facebook is the preferred method of login for services like Foursquare.
And unfortunately for Google, the trust of other businesses in them has been eroded in time. For example, only Google could piss off an entire category of businesses by crawling their content and presenting it as its own, with graphical results on the first page of any location-related search: http://www.google.com/places/
It's a shame really, because if Google was considered a benevolent-dictator of the Internet, than trust itself would have been enough for third-parties to consider integration with them. In this instance however I'm seeing other online services just picking Facebook, as while they are evil, at least they are the ones with soon-to-reach 1 billion users.
Youtube integration will be awesome, but that's not enough when the rest of the Internet is on Facebook. Also, checkout what Facebook did with pictures uploads. They are effectively killing Flickr. I'm seeing them doing the same for movie uploads ... they probably haven't felt the need for doing that, seeing that the preferred way of distributing Youtube videos to friends is Facebook ;)
Ahem, you may be too pessimistic. I actually like the fact that Google is challenged on social content. When you have so many great people and you are challenged on an issue, it can give interesting results.
For instance, I am no fan of most of the changes in search (eg. Instant, Snippets) but I think that adjusting search result rankings to the "+1" of my circles is a big deal in long term. It makes "+1" an actually useful button. I now start using it as "intelligent bookmarking". Except if you believe in near future people will search Internet through Facebook or will not search at all, which I don't, then this little "+1" feature is a big leverage against Facebook.
Google are also challenged by Amazon with their platform, and I would be surprised if they did not prepare some thing on this side. It is just that, with Buzz and Wave, they learnt that one big company like them is not a start-up and therefore can't "release early, fail quickly, iterate" (as so often advocated here on HN). So we, observers, would better be patient.
Don't forget Chrome. It seems to me that this is an incredibly fast entrance in browser market, and really did shake things up, for the better. If Google, through its browser and mobile OS, find a way to make life much easier for open social network users, Facebook may have to comply. It would not be stupid for Facebook to be open, they would still have the biggest number of users, and their revenue should not drop just because they allow other social content provider to access their data openly (as long as they continue offering a good user experience).
For instance, I am no fan of most of the changes in search (eg. Instant, Snippets) but I think that adjusting search result rankings to the "+1" of my circles is a big deal in long term. It makes "+1" an actually useful button. I now start using it as "intelligent bookmarking". Except if you believe in near future people will search Internet through Facebook or will not search at all, which I don't, then this little "+1" feature is a big leverage against Facebook.
Google are also challenged by Amazon with their platform, and I would be surprised if they did not prepare some thing on this side. It is just that, with Buzz and Wave, they learnt that one big company like them is not a start-up and therefore can't "release early, fail quickly, iterate" (as so often advocated here on HN). So we, observers, would better be patient.
Don't forget Chrome. It seems to me that this is an incredibly fast entrance in browser market, and really did shake things up, for the better. If Google, through its browser and mobile OS, find a way to make life much easier for open social network users, Facebook may have to comply. It would not be stupid for Facebook to be open, they would still have the biggest number of users, and their revenue should not drop just because they allow other social content provider to access their data openly (as long as they continue offering a good user experience).
AltaVista. Yahoo. America Online. Nortel. WorldCom. Excite. GeoCities. Xoom. Hotmail. MySpace.
What makes you expect the 'good-old Google' to come back?
They have been steadily moving in a more and more closed direction for years now. What would cause that trend to change?
They have been steadily moving in a more and more closed direction for years now. What would cause that trend to change?
I don't know if there are so many facts behind your assertion that Google is going in a more and more closed direction.
Is it because they took more time than previously to open Android 3.0? It has been settled, right? And we know the reasons.
Did they slow down on releasing open-source softwares? Maybe, I don't follow it closely enough to decide.
Chromium is still open.
They did shut down some APIs, but this is a normal process of refactoring, removing stones you have on your way.
I see a recent strong trend in Google evolution, but it is not toward walled garden or closed formats or else. It is toward more and more design, ajaxy things, prettiness, and I think it is a bit unnecessary, and they may have to revert some of these changes.
Is it because they took more time than previously to open Android 3.0? It has been settled, right? And we know the reasons.
Did they slow down on releasing open-source softwares? Maybe, I don't follow it closely enough to decide.
Chromium is still open.
They did shut down some APIs, but this is a normal process of refactoring, removing stones you have on your way.
I see a recent strong trend in Google evolution, but it is not toward walled garden or closed formats or else. It is toward more and more design, ajaxy things, prettiness, and I think it is a bit unnecessary, and they may have to revert some of these changes.
I suggest taking a look at http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GBSGBbc9UtA/TmexwLaJN9I/AAAAAAAAAK... for an indication of Google's current thinking on "open".
Google isn't as bad as Facebook, yet. But they're not exactly as "open" as many other organizations either.
Google isn't as bad as Facebook, yet. But they're not exactly as "open" as many other organizations either.
Right - and the kind of thinking embodied on that slide doesn't inspire much confidence in their motives. i.e. they aren't being open because they believe it's good for everyone. They seem to intend it as a Trojan horse that will give them control over other people's products.
Where does that slide come from? Is the rest of the deck available?
It's apparently part of the discovery documents from one of the ongoing lawsuits Google is involved in. You know as much as I do about it now; I have no idea whether the rest is available without looking in court records.
Google's current 'openess' reminds me slightly of the early OSX days and Darwin being open source etc.
Listen to this guy. Nils Dagsson Moskopp, what a great post.
We are giving the web away because people can't handle email, address book and a blog.
We are giving the web away because people can't handle email, address book and a blog.
> "We are giving the web away because people can't handle email, address book and a blog."
How typically computer-geek of you. Users don't like our convoluted, hard-to-use systems and have abandoned them for products that are easier to use and appeal more to their perception of how technology should work!
How dare they! The plebes! DO NOT THEY NOT KNOW WHAT THEY DO?!
Why won't people do more work to preserve the freedom of the web, like setting up their own blogs, and manually maintaining their own contacts?!
How typically computer-geek of you. Users don't like our convoluted, hard-to-use systems and have abandoned them for products that are easier to use and appeal more to their perception of how technology should work!
How dare they! The plebes! DO NOT THEY NOT KNOW WHAT THEY DO?!
Why won't people do more work to preserve the freedom of the web, like setting up their own blogs, and manually maintaining their own contacts?!
That's because of a lack of education, because we, the technically inclined people, have failed to serve the normal people, preferring instead to:
1) reinvent the wheel over and over, each time with a new interface, shinier and more limited than the one before it
2) cater more to our hypothetical grandmas instead of our children ... which ironically are able to write HTML in Notepad just fine, if taught how to do that
People all over Europe have learned to drive cars with manual transmissions - because after the initial pain, the vegetative nervous system kicks in and the wheel, the pedals, the gear switch, all of them become a natural extension, of which you don't think about anymore, just like breathing. And if automatic transmissions are great too, that's because they stay out of your way.
The UI of modern software is nothing like that. Nothing is logical anymore, nothing is designed anymore to be an extension of you. Normal users have to think about their every action, they have to visually search for clues in the UI for every stupid thing they do, they have to rote learn the paths they have to take for the software to take them from some point A, to some other point B. I saw users that have notes on the actual clicks they have to make for certain common actions. I don't know about you, but to me this is freaking painful to watch ;)
Btw, for some good user-experience guidelines, check out The Design of Everyday Things: http://amzn.to/ryfiuI (the link does contain my affiliate code) ... the one thing I took away from this book is that simplicity is a complex topic.
Really, step down from your high horse, it's not like you yourself are not guilty for the current state of our industry. We all are.
1) reinvent the wheel over and over, each time with a new interface, shinier and more limited than the one before it
2) cater more to our hypothetical grandmas instead of our children ... which ironically are able to write HTML in Notepad just fine, if taught how to do that
Users don't like our convoluted, hard-to-use
systems and have abandoned them for products
that are easier to use
People all over Europe have learned to drive cars with manual transmissions - because after the initial pain, the vegetative nervous system kicks in and the wheel, the pedals, the gear switch, all of them become a natural extension, of which you don't think about anymore, just like breathing. And if automatic transmissions are great too, that's because they stay out of your way.
The UI of modern software is nothing like that. Nothing is logical anymore, nothing is designed anymore to be an extension of you. Normal users have to think about their every action, they have to visually search for clues in the UI for every stupid thing they do, they have to rote learn the paths they have to take for the software to take them from some point A, to some other point B. I saw users that have notes on the actual clicks they have to make for certain common actions. I don't know about you, but to me this is freaking painful to watch ;)
Btw, for some good user-experience guidelines, check out The Design of Everyday Things: http://amzn.to/ryfiuI (the link does contain my affiliate code) ... the one thing I took away from this book is that simplicity is a complex topic.
Why won't people do more work ...
setting up their own blogs
Really, step down from your high horse, it's not like you yourself are not guilty for the current state of our industry. We all are.
"People all over Europe have learned to drive cars with manual transmissions - because after the initial pain, the vegetative nervous system kicks in and the wheel, the pedals, the gear switch, all of them become a natural extension, of which you don't think about anymore, just like breathing. And if automatic transmissions are great too, that's because they stay out of your way."
This is how it is, every time a user gets familiar with _concepts_ of his/her user interface, such as a minimize button, a window, a taskbar, it is "re-invented" and changed. No longer is there a minimize button in latest Ubuntu, the taskbar is no longer a taskbar its some weird form of activity with grouping bar in Windows 7.
All the concepts of the user interface such as buttons and scrollbars are exchanged, the basis of what a user _interfaces_ with, is changed. A great suprise then when a user has to relearn everything and gain new concepts just to use a new tool or web a new website. Many just dont go down that way and stick it out with facebook as "the internet".
Tip for UI designers: Stop designing, stop your user-interfacing design, there is one already which the user knows. Focus on _your_ data and fit it into the old and tried concepts of buttons that look like buttons and have only one function, not also state "button is staying pressed in", thats a checkbox. Darn it.
This is how it is, every time a user gets familiar with _concepts_ of his/her user interface, such as a minimize button, a window, a taskbar, it is "re-invented" and changed. No longer is there a minimize button in latest Ubuntu, the taskbar is no longer a taskbar its some weird form of activity with grouping bar in Windows 7.
All the concepts of the user interface such as buttons and scrollbars are exchanged, the basis of what a user _interfaces_ with, is changed. A great suprise then when a user has to relearn everything and gain new concepts just to use a new tool or web a new website. Many just dont go down that way and stick it out with facebook as "the internet".
Tip for UI designers: Stop designing, stop your user-interfacing design, there is one already which the user knows. Focus on _your_ data and fit it into the old and tried concepts of buttons that look like buttons and have only one function, not also state "button is staying pressed in", thats a checkbox. Darn it.
Unfortunately it's not possible to "stop" designing web UI as there is no standarzied ui library in html/css. Web apps have been shoehorned into a system that was never intended to behave like an app.
Stopping random UI experiments would require a replacement system designed specifically for web apps that access a standard library of controls.
Stopping random UI experiments would require a replacement system designed specifically for web apps that access a standard library of controls.
Instead of designing your own button, why not use <button> and let the Browser+OS decide how it will lock? Instead of making your own checkboxes (and the behaviour for it) you can just, you know, use the html chekbox. Instead of designing your own form, and "styling" input fields, and then you need to add "behaviour" to the input fields - which will diverge from the browser+os standard, you can just use <input> and <form> tags.
For the rest of the gui widgets like tabs which dont have a html spec, just style it up as close as you can to _look_ like a tab and make it behave like a link - thats enough.
Look at facebook, their UI is a horrible mess, they have introduced thier own "widgets" and changed behaviour for most of the common widgets, like the scrollbar which suddenly jumps back 40% when it reaches the lowest 10 or 20% or so. So the functionality expected - the scrollbar represents a _finite_ document, suddenly it is infinite. Destroy such "ui" crap with the force of a thousand suns.
It may be good for facebook, they can do so since they have 800 million users, and anyone whom they teach _their_ widgets and ui-interactions is further instilled and locked into their usage platform, but as a webdev of projects with less than 1 million people, you cant do that. Stick to the standard. Dont make your users locked into your widget and your conception of what a button or scrollbar is.
For the rest of the gui widgets like tabs which dont have a html spec, just style it up as close as you can to _look_ like a tab and make it behave like a link - thats enough.
Look at facebook, their UI is a horrible mess, they have introduced thier own "widgets" and changed behaviour for most of the common widgets, like the scrollbar which suddenly jumps back 40% when it reaches the lowest 10 or 20% or so. So the functionality expected - the scrollbar represents a _finite_ document, suddenly it is infinite. Destroy such "ui" crap with the force of a thousand suns.
It may be good for facebook, they can do so since they have 800 million users, and anyone whom they teach _their_ widgets and ui-interactions is further instilled and locked into their usage platform, but as a webdev of projects with less than 1 million people, you cant do that. Stick to the standard. Dont make your users locked into your widget and your conception of what a button or scrollbar is.
We've been using Twitter's Bootstrap in quite a lot of our recent web app projects. It provides a reasonable "standard widget set": http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/
Yeah there's lots of great UI libraries but it doesn't really solve the problem since they aren't universally applied.
Users still have to learn the UI controls of each library or whatever else the designers come up with.
Users still have to learn the UI controls of each library or whatever else the designers come up with.
The UI "we already know" is there because designers did not listen to your advice, and I thank them for that.
I am also glad, that I don't have to do everything via CLI (which I do like. For some tasks). I am also glad, that I don't have to scroll the content in the window by hunting some scrollbar with my mouse pointer. Hey, I also do like that I don't see scrollbars anymore on my OS.
> Stop designing ...thats a checkbox. Darn it.
Exactly!
Exactly!
Yep! What I like about html is how predictable its limitations make it. I can visit a decade old website created by a 14-year old and have the smoothest user experience imaginable. Everything behaves the way you'd expect it.
Javascript is more powerful, but that also means more power to screw up. Sometimes the results are amazing (like Gmail) - but more often than not it just ends up confusing and frustrating, with vital parts of the UI hidden behind a clusterfuck of menus and widgets.
Javascript is more powerful, but that also means more power to screw up. Sometimes the results are amazing (like Gmail) - but more often than not it just ends up confusing and frustrating, with vital parts of the UI hidden behind a clusterfuck of menus and widgets.
> Users don't like our convoluted, hard-to-use systems
To me Facebook is just as convoluted and hard-to-use as anything else.
To me Facebook is just as convoluted and hard-to-use as anything else.
If the systems are hard to use that's our fault. We, the technically oriented geeks, failed to build something for normal humans.
But I don't think that's the case. Grandma has to be taught to use Facebook as well, it's not like it's an intuitive interface, quite the contrary IMO.
It's a problem of not realizing the danger of loosing this wonderful and fragile thing we built.
A lot of you geeks have Facebook accounts, so it's not like it's a service for the technically impaired.
But I don't think that's the case. Grandma has to be taught to use Facebook as well, it's not like it's an intuitive interface, quite the contrary IMO.
It's a problem of not realizing the danger of loosing this wonderful and fragile thing we built.
A lot of you geeks have Facebook accounts, so it's not like it's a service for the technically impaired.
Most people cant handle facebook. They dont even know what they are doing there, its more like a random walk clicking around stuff. Have you ever watched a teenager use a computer? I have, it was not pretty.
> We are giving the web away because people can't handle email, address book and a blog.
We are giving the Web away because there are extremely few well designed, modern open source Web software.
We are giving the Web away because there are extremely few well designed, modern open source Web software.
[deleted]
How are we giving away anything?
It's ironic that ten years ago many people (average consumers) thought that AOL was the Internet. Now they think Facebook and Google are. Ten years from now, it'll be something else and HN type people will still be doing their own thing as usual.
Is our thing complaining about the popular things from the lesser travelled discussion forums? Snickering about how the masses don't know Facebook from the web from the Internet. "The fools!"
That's obviously tongue in cheek but there's some truth to it. At the end of the day does it really matter if people are happy using the one thing on their computer that they can actually use and understand?
That's obviously tongue in cheek but there's some truth to it. At the end of the day does it really matter if people are happy using the one thing on their computer that they can actually use and understand?
As I write this there are two comments that have been downvoted to the bottom for expressing how difficult the post is to read. They draw attention to the post's textual interface, albeit perhaps sarcastically ("Is the new web better at UX than this? That was painful to look at.").
Not only is theirs a serious concern, but it speaks to the main issue of the post, for it reminds us that like web interfaces, even text has accreted arbitrary rules to interpret it. Take the apostrophe for example, it is for most purposes superflous as one can tell from context whether a word is plural, possessive or a contraction. Well, I can tell the difference, cant you?
The original post is saturated with consistent, but by no means universal and certainly not empirically-derived, pre-conceived rules for communicating textual content: the date posted is in italics; the site name is bracketed and bold; the post name is bold; links which serve a sorting function are colored, underlined and bracketed; a presumably copied email prefaces the actual post in italics with each line itself prefaced with a less-than-sign; and most importantly much of the post is composed of incomplete sentences ("A web where...").
We allow ourselves to bend the rules of grammar. And as we bend them, we adapt to the new general rule.
We are all familiar with the english teacher's common correction of a misplaced object: "It's 'He and I went to the store', not 'Me and him went to the store'". This "rule" has been so often repeated, that most days I hear college-educated individuals perform the inverse, substituting the nominative for the objective case, as in "Bob critiqued the web page with Jack and I." What is interesting to me is apparently the act of replacing the nominative with the objective also occured in the Latin language around 200 AD (and it's a common act in children). So, if we create our rules for grammar empirically and not not arbitrarily, we can look at saying "Me and Jack did something" as acceptable because it has a natural precedent.
Which is all just to say that communication as a web form or in paragraphs is subjective and organic. Differences in type should be no more surprising than differences in human ethnicity.
Not only is theirs a serious concern, but it speaks to the main issue of the post, for it reminds us that like web interfaces, even text has accreted arbitrary rules to interpret it. Take the apostrophe for example, it is for most purposes superflous as one can tell from context whether a word is plural, possessive or a contraction. Well, I can tell the difference, cant you?
The original post is saturated with consistent, but by no means universal and certainly not empirically-derived, pre-conceived rules for communicating textual content: the date posted is in italics; the site name is bracketed and bold; the post name is bold; links which serve a sorting function are colored, underlined and bracketed; a presumably copied email prefaces the actual post in italics with each line itself prefaced with a less-than-sign; and most importantly much of the post is composed of incomplete sentences ("A web where...").
We allow ourselves to bend the rules of grammar. And as we bend them, we adapt to the new general rule.
We are all familiar with the english teacher's common correction of a misplaced object: "It's 'He and I went to the store', not 'Me and him went to the store'". This "rule" has been so often repeated, that most days I hear college-educated individuals perform the inverse, substituting the nominative for the objective case, as in "Bob critiqued the web page with Jack and I." What is interesting to me is apparently the act of replacing the nominative with the objective also occured in the Latin language around 200 AD (and it's a common act in children). So, if we create our rules for grammar empirically and not not arbitrarily, we can look at saying "Me and Jack did something" as acceptable because it has a natural precedent.
Which is all just to say that communication as a web form or in paragraphs is subjective and organic. Differences in type should be no more surprising than differences in human ethnicity.
Perhaps not coincidentally, 200 AD was about the time that Rome started to falter: in 235, the "Crisis of the Third Century" permanently wrecked trade, knowledge, and culture. The crisis marked the real beginning of the medieval period, and 476 was too late to do anything about it.
Tis true. And if not merely coincidence, it leaves us our choice of interpretation: was it cause or consequence.
As much as I wish the innovations of g+ and Facebook were centered around RSS and email, this is just the way new technologies evolve. Identity management and permissions management for who can see a user's content just don't have a good standard yet. Therefore private companies are rolling their own proprietary solutions and competing with each other.
At some point, the standard techniques for dealing with these issues will become Standards. This is a well worn path. Html was a standardization of the previous 10 years of work on markup languages, plenty of them proprietary. There are other examples... ODF standardizing on XML and cloning established MS Office functionality... etc.
Real Standards that could address the article's concerns are only reasonable when NO innovation is necessary, merely choosing a methodology that has already been built and proven to work in practice. IMO, Java more or less committed suicide when it started a standards-first innovation process, which resulted in many multi-year projects doing design-by-committee of an api before anyone tried to build an implementation or an actual product on top of it.
As long as G+ is introducing features not available elsewhere, the fact that it's a currently closed system just isn't a reasonable criticism.
At some point, the standard techniques for dealing with these issues will become Standards. This is a well worn path. Html was a standardization of the previous 10 years of work on markup languages, plenty of them proprietary. There are other examples... ODF standardizing on XML and cloning established MS Office functionality... etc.
Real Standards that could address the article's concerns are only reasonable when NO innovation is necessary, merely choosing a methodology that has already been built and proven to work in practice. IMO, Java more or less committed suicide when it started a standards-first innovation process, which resulted in many multi-year projects doing design-by-committee of an api before anyone tried to build an implementation or an actual product on top of it.
As long as G+ is introducing features not available elsewhere, the fact that it's a currently closed system just isn't a reasonable criticism.
Sounds just like the old web, if you were blind and went to a Flash fullscreen website.
As much as I like the ways that sites like G+ are trying to push the envelope, if you're handling data that was created by or belongs to others it's more important to fit into the greater data ecosystem than to stand out...
As much as I like the ways that sites like G+ are trying to push the envelope, if you're handling data that was created by or belongs to others it's more important to fit into the greater data ecosystem than to stand out...
To me the difference between "old-web" and "new-web" is a lot like the one between "program" and "application.
Old-web was just text and markup. A lot like the output of command line programs that could then be used by other programs to perform what we want.
New-web is about application. Programs made for the end-user. Apps aren't thought to be pipelined with other apps. Thus for a web-app, the browser is often designed to be the only supported plateform. Thus the extensive use of JS.
Old-web was just text and markup. A lot like the output of command line programs that could then be used by other programs to perform what we want.
New-web is about application. Programs made for the end-user. Apps aren't thought to be pipelined with other apps. Thus for a web-app, the browser is often designed to be the only supported plateform. Thus the extensive use of JS.
> A web you
cannot easily read without JavaScript because somewhere in the page
header there is a „<style> body { visibility: hidden; } </style>” later
getting unset by a script that the platform owners want you to run.
To be fair to Google, that sounds like a fairly standard clickjacking prevention mechanism. It's necessary to provide protection to browsers that don't support X-Frame-Options.
To be fair to Google, that sounds like a fairly standard clickjacking prevention mechanism. It's necessary to provide protection to browsers that don't support X-Frame-Options.
The only power the "new web" has is the power we give it.
It's not us geeks that will decide this. It's people who never understood the things he's talking about, and therefore won't miss them much. The things he's talking about are all more complicated than the thugs replacing them for the common use case (though it makes many more complex things impossible), which makes this somewhat inevitable.
Tools will come out to ameliorate the problems with the new order of things. That things are controlled by a handful of entities is much more worrying, though.
Tools will come out to ameliorate the problems with the new order of things. That things are controlled by a handful of entities is much more worrying, though.
i remember the old web, a web without RSS or ATOM feeds.
Yeah. Gopher and Archie. And you would 'talk' with someone. People had shell accounts.
Good thing is: No one is keeping you from giving a CPR to Fidonet. Redundancy gives resilience.
Good thing is: No one is keeping you from giving a CPR to Fidonet. Redundancy gives resilience.
I remember when #foo was an IRC channel, not a Twitter hash tag.
We need a better, open, ways of connecting people on the 'old' web.
In the grant scheme of thing, do people really think it is a big deal if a page shows you a 404 error, even if the content you are looking for actually exists? I think it's very tempting to get lost in tiny details like that.
It might appear to some like a tiny detail, but things like this break the web. HTTP status codes are there for a good reason.
A similar situation is when your provider redirects you to its own search page instead of giving you the 404.
So what are we going to do about it? There must be a business opportunity here.
I really don't get it, why the dying social networks like Myspace, Friendster, StudieVZ et.al. are not embracing the distributed social protocols like crazy.
OAuth, Salmon, PubSubHubbub, FOAF, ... everything is right there.
OAuth, Salmon, PubSubHubbub, FOAF, ... everything is right there.
Standardized identity as a service with a distributed client/server approach like email. Companies can offer their own service and customers sign up to their chosen provider.
Users are supplied with controls to determine what components of their identity third parties can access. A "work" profile, a "friend profile" etc.
Third parties integrate the standarized identity profiles but have no control over what specific data they can access.
Users are supplied with controls to determine what components of their identity third parties can access. A "work" profile, a "friend profile" etc.
Third parties integrate the standarized identity profiles but have no control over what specific data they can access.
Why does everything have to be a business opportunity? Prioritizing monetary value over other kinds of value is how we got into this mess in the first place.
I feel your pain; and wrote about it: http://danielmillsap.com/blog/culture/cultural-artifacts-in-...
it's a bit sad that in the most decentralized media, people tend to stick to the most centralized utilities to communicate with each other (I use them too). but:
> With less sarcasm: What use is this if one already reads the blog?
none. if you don't want to use it - don't. move on.
giving users another subscription channel is not a problem. a problem appears when someone uses these closed platforms as their only communication channel, f.ex. it's impossible to move a fanpage with it's community out of facebook. when people and organization treat it just as another feed broadcast (as whatwg did), everything is fine.
> With less sarcasm: What use is this if one already reads the blog?
none. if you don't want to use it - don't. move on.
giving users another subscription channel is not a problem. a problem appears when someone uses these closed platforms as their only communication channel, f.ex. it's impossible to move a fanpage with it's community out of facebook. when people and organization treat it just as another feed broadcast (as whatwg did), everything is fine.
And don't forget: "This content not authorized for mobile devices."
The correct response to hyperbole is always, "We'll see."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tbsx_vZTcNI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tbsx_vZTcNI
Google tried it the other way via Google Wave and unfortunately nobody bought into it.
Regarding the rendering technologies it was exactly the same, a big pile of JS that you need to render actual content.
The main point of the author seems to be that G+ doesn't use progressive enhancement.
The main point of the author seems to be that G+ doesn't use progressive enhancement.
Jesus, downvotes for mentioning Google Wave.
I was specifically responding to this part: >A web where re-sharing of content is limited by the platform, not by the capabilities of your client. A web where you cannot comment on an article unless registering in a corporate namespace (which kicked you out if you happened to choose a name they do not particularly like).
The point was that Google tried it open, it didn't work. Facebook is closed, they tried that. Is it working?
I was specifically responding to this part: >A web where re-sharing of content is limited by the platform, not by the capabilities of your client. A web where you cannot comment on an article unless registering in a corporate namespace (which kicked you out if you happened to choose a name they do not particularly like).
The point was that Google tried it open, it didn't work. Facebook is closed, they tried that. Is it working?
Google Wave is probably the single worst introduction of a new technology that I've ever seen. To this day, I have no idea what it actually was or was for. All I know is that it did everything, but nothing, and it did it simultaneously in shared sessions.
I'm a member of a forum for graduates of one of the schools I went to. In 2007 it was a vibrant and active forum, growing steadily, and straining its hosting account, which constantly had to be expanded.
At some point, around 2009, most of the members of this forum got Facebook accounts. That forum is now completely dead.
Facebook took all the oxygen out of the site, and it seems like a lot of other sites.
Now very mainstream people seem to think of Facebook as "the internet" and they just hang out there. Some of the bigger sites are doing ok, still, of course.
But at least for that forum, its audience is gone.
To a person, the members of the audience say they love it, and many of them say they hate facebook because "its so impersonal." On the forum they were able to share more private things with closer friends.
I think they would rather hang out on the forum, but there isn't the critical mass anymore... simply because Facebook is more addictive.
It has gotten into some sort of a gamification, or addiction loop, in these peoples heads, it seems.
I think the web is going to undergo a radical change in the next 5 or so years.
At some point, around 2009, most of the members of this forum got Facebook accounts. That forum is now completely dead.
Facebook took all the oxygen out of the site, and it seems like a lot of other sites.
Now very mainstream people seem to think of Facebook as "the internet" and they just hang out there. Some of the bigger sites are doing ok, still, of course.
But at least for that forum, its audience is gone.
To a person, the members of the audience say they love it, and many of them say they hate facebook because "its so impersonal." On the forum they were able to share more private things with closer friends.
I think they would rather hang out on the forum, but there isn't the critical mass anymore... simply because Facebook is more addictive.
It has gotten into some sort of a gamification, or addiction loop, in these peoples heads, it seems.
I think the web is going to undergo a radical change in the next 5 or so years.
Facebook is doing the same thing to your forum that your forum did to USENET.
In the 90s, USENET was lively and active. It was federated, decentralized, and you could use any client you wanted to access the information. Web based forums came along and shifted that control away from the loose internet and into the owners of the forums.
In the 90s, USENET was lively and active. It was federated, decentralized, and you could use any client you wanted to access the information. Web based forums came along and shifted that control away from the loose internet and into the owners of the forums.
That's one way to look at it.
I don't remember it quite that fondly.
I also remember the missing replies, broken threads, spam you couldn't really do much about, endless flamewars about top-quoting vs bottom-quoting, etc.
Plus the pace was just glacial - it could take hours for some posters posts to appear.
Maybe is was better in the REALLY old days - a bit of quick, non-exhaustive google groups searching shows my first usenet posts in June of 1997.
I don't remember it quite that fondly.
I also remember the missing replies, broken threads, spam you couldn't really do much about, endless flamewars about top-quoting vs bottom-quoting, etc.
Plus the pace was just glacial - it could take hours for some posters posts to appear.
Maybe is was better in the REALLY old days - a bit of quick, non-exhaustive google groups searching shows my first usenet posts in June of 1997.
Hmm, I graduated from college before the REALLY old days were over, apparently. :)
I don't mean to glorify USENET. The web based forums brought many cool new features -- you could post images that worked reliably, the Slashdot-style moderation stuff was a big boon, etc. I just meant to point out that the internet moves in cycles, and those cycles seem to lead towards newer technology and more centralized control.
I don't mean to glorify USENET. The web based forums brought many cool new features -- you could post images that worked reliably, the Slashdot-style moderation stuff was a big boon, etc. I just meant to point out that the internet moves in cycles, and those cycles seem to lead towards newer technology and more centralized control.
As an administrator of an online message board, I concur. Web content is being so efficiently aggregated that some forums turn into the awkward conversation between two redditors: "Check this out!" "Heh, yeah. I saw that."
Communities before were usually separated by platforms, because the platforms were not yet sophisticated enough to support vast communities of varying opinions. Now we have a few big players that can do this and more. Social media has turned into a war over who can blow the most filter bubbles, and with services like OpenID and "connect with facebook", everything has slowly become part of the same identity.
I'm hoping that a new platform will eventually come along to pry this apart, but it's going to take a completely different paradigm to cause it. Unless something like Google+ proves otherwise, websites like Facebook and Twitter et al have the potential to monopolize social networking.
Communities before were usually separated by platforms, because the platforms were not yet sophisticated enough to support vast communities of varying opinions. Now we have a few big players that can do this and more. Social media has turned into a war over who can blow the most filter bubbles, and with services like OpenID and "connect with facebook", everything has slowly become part of the same identity.
I'm hoping that a new platform will eventually come along to pry this apart, but it's going to take a completely different paradigm to cause it. Unless something like Google+ proves otherwise, websites like Facebook and Twitter et al have the potential to monopolize social networking.
The problem is that most of the web has been gobbled by inane "check this out!" comments and insightful, rich discussion is confined to an ever smaller % of it.
A lot of people feel very alienated by this lowest common denominator standard of the web and the fact that niche sites are dying even in absolute terms. Hopefully we will see a revival, when more people realise they were better off before this over-sharing nonsense. People adapt more easily to a lower standard than to a higher one, though.
A lot of people feel very alienated by this lowest common denominator standard of the web and the fact that niche sites are dying even in absolute terms. Hopefully we will see a revival, when more people realise they were better off before this over-sharing nonsense. People adapt more easily to a lower standard than to a higher one, though.
I hope you don't mind a shameless plug, but I believe something like my startup might be this new platform of which you speak: http://loggur.com.
I'm not claiming that my startup in particular will be it, but something like it. Just saying this probably puts me in the category of "just another young whipper snapper who aspires to be the next Zuck"... but I have no desire to do anything like Facebook or Google or intentionally copy any particular model. I just want to do what works (well).
Loggur is clearly an infant at this point and I'm sure the initial impression given by its current presentation of the idea doesn't exactly scream "innovation" or "the next big thing"... but bear with me. I'm starting off relatively simple and will iterate as I get feedback (as is expected of any startup) but the general end result, as I envision it, will essentially be an extremely wide variety of user-editable tools specific to each user and/or community, from communication to productivity and automation - or both. I realize that the current presentation is pretty vague, but that will change after iteration and solid examples. The current descriptions are based on an alpha version which I put together earlier this year to prove the concept.
I'm not claiming that my startup in particular will be it, but something like it. Just saying this probably puts me in the category of "just another young whipper snapper who aspires to be the next Zuck"... but I have no desire to do anything like Facebook or Google or intentionally copy any particular model. I just want to do what works (well).
Loggur is clearly an infant at this point and I'm sure the initial impression given by its current presentation of the idea doesn't exactly scream "innovation" or "the next big thing"... but bear with me. I'm starting off relatively simple and will iterate as I get feedback (as is expected of any startup) but the general end result, as I envision it, will essentially be an extremely wide variety of user-editable tools specific to each user and/or community, from communication to productivity and automation - or both. I realize that the current presentation is pretty vague, but that will change after iteration and solid examples. The current descriptions are based on an alpha version which I put together earlier this year to prove the concept.
The concept of loggur seems interesting, but to be completely honest, I thought the "help us get featured on" written in small characters before the logos of TechCrunch, Mashable, etc. was deceiving in a really lame way.
I've seen other startups on HN do the same thing and received positive responses for doing so, which is why I did it. It seems to be a matter of perspective, I guess. As per your response, I'll make the "Help us get featured on" text larger. My intention isn't to be deceiving or lame. I just hope to someday be able to remove that text.
In my opinion, such a platform, or several, using an entirely different paradigm, already exist. To overtake Facebook, it is simply a matter of making it as easy to use as Facebook, and Facebook annoyances having reached a breaking point. Whether there is yet sufficient impetus to do the UI work and whether Facebook users are ready to move on to the next thing is another question.
I'm going put put my two cents in, and say that a platform capable of replacing Facebook for discussion and community on the web has already been created.
It's called Reddit.
Bear with me here, I realize this is probably an unpopular opinion.
On Reddit, all content is open -- I don't think I've ever seen a 'closed' sub-reddit available only to members. I'm not sure it's even possible.
Yet, in spite of all communities being effectively open, most sub-reddits have a strong sense of community, and are very active. Personally, I really enjoy proggit and r/math for this reason -- active discussion, community moderation, and a strong sense of community.
It's called Reddit.
Bear with me here, I realize this is probably an unpopular opinion.
On Reddit, all content is open -- I don't think I've ever seen a 'closed' sub-reddit available only to members. I'm not sure it's even possible.
Yet, in spite of all communities being effectively open, most sub-reddits have a strong sense of community, and are very active. Personally, I really enjoy proggit and r/math for this reason -- active discussion, community moderation, and a strong sense of community.
True. I have little interest in actual discussions on G+ or FB because of the public use of my full name, and the connections that I have there. There are, and will remain, plenty of people that enjoy interaction that has a bit more anonymity. r/truereddit is quite good.
I think part of what has happened to these dwindling forums is that they are functionally out-dated, and a bit too insular. -It takes too much time for new people to get up to speed on most boards. (dont forget Hubski, btw. :))
I think part of what has happened to these dwindling forums is that they are functionally out-dated, and a bit too insular. -It takes too much time for new people to get up to speed on most boards. (dont forget Hubski, btw. :))
but you still have to register for reddit... reddit's owned by conde nast, it's not an open platform. Conde nast could at a moment's notice shut the entire thing down, or put it behind a paywall, or sell your 'likes' to an advertiser. This is a problem common to all centralised solutions.
No, you don't have to register. You have to register to post.
As for shutting it down: The code is open source, so while it'd be hard to unite around a common replacement, if they tried to shut it down it would not be the end.
As for shutting it down: The code is open source, so while it'd be hard to unite around a common replacement, if they tried to shut it down it would not be the end.
Nitpick: Reddit is no longer owner by Condé Nast, they are now a subsidiary of the parent company, Advance Publications.
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This is the type of thinking that will hasten Facebook's demise. And it's a perfectly reasonable line of thought.
The next time you hear the phrase "It doesn't scale" in reference to something, ask yourself why it needs to. In some cases it might not.
Centralised approaches (e.g. websites on the open internet) obviously need to scale. Facebook is a public website. And it's on the open internet, for anyone with an account to see and ready to be hacked by those with skill who do not need accounts.
I always come back to this: How many people do you really need to be reading your profile? Friends, coworkers, family, ... potentially anyone, anywhere in the world with a computer and an internet connection? It just does not make sense.
The next time you hear the phrase "It doesn't scale" in reference to something, ask yourself why it needs to. In some cases it might not.
Centralised approaches (e.g. websites on the open internet) obviously need to scale. Facebook is a public website. And it's on the open internet, for anyone with an account to see and ready to be hacked by those with skill who do not need accounts.
I always come back to this: How many people do you really need to be reading your profile? Friends, coworkers, family, ... potentially anyone, anywhere in the world with a computer and an internet connection? It just does not make sense.
There are private subreddits, such as Gryffindor.
> mainstream people seem to think of Facebook as "the internet"
For quite a few years people used the Internet Explorer icon on pamphlets and posters as an icon representing The Internet. It seems people are now starting to use Facebook's icon for that.
For quite a few years people used the Internet Explorer icon on pamphlets and posters as an icon representing The Internet. It seems people are now starting to use Facebook's icon for that.
Just to corroborate, I've done user testing with young people (13-15) and Facebook is definitely seen as 'the internet' - along with YouTube.
When I was 13-15 "the internet" was IRC and nothing else. I still can't understand how I managed to spent countless hours doing just that (scripting and that "flooding" thing seemed to be great fun though)
The same goes for the other end of the spectrum, people over 50-60 who started using the intern.. ehm sorry, facebook to connect with their grandchildren and play games. Their whole browser experience ends there, they don't ever type a URL in and have no notion of bookmarks other than facebook's app bookmarks (and they get disillusioned when they're missing).
Interesting. Can you impart any more information?
Certainly.
This was user testing with groups of young people in Tower Hamlets, London in 2010.
Aside from testing the UX spec we talked more widely around discovery and every group indicated that they began most tasks with a search on YouTube. Music, games, movies, homework research: all started visually on YT.
Facebook came up because the majority of these kids didn't have email addresses, instead doing all their email-like conversations on Facebook messaging and their IM on Blackberry BBM.
This was user testing with groups of young people in Tower Hamlets, London in 2010.
Aside from testing the UX spec we talked more widely around discovery and every group indicated that they began most tasks with a search on YouTube. Music, games, movies, homework research: all started visually on YT.
Facebook came up because the majority of these kids didn't have email addresses, instead doing all their email-like conversations on Facebook messaging and their IM on Blackberry BBM.
they began most tasks with a search on YouTube
This really underlines why buying YouTube was a smart move for Google.
This really underlines why buying YouTube was a smart move for Google.
It's also weird IMHO when you see an advert or movie trailer, and they tell you to visit their facebook page, rather than their own website...
It is just a repetition of the "Use AOL Keyword "ID4" (for Independence Day).
Walled gardens for the less technical savvy have been the norm. Outside of the hacker/coder/geek culture, has it ever really been different? Prodigy -> AOL -> MySpace -> Facebook
Walled gardens for the less technical savvy have been the norm. Outside of the hacker/coder/geek culture, has it ever really been different? Prodigy -> AOL -> MySpace -> Facebook
I agree, over the years we've seen this type of thing again and again. I tried to explain to my mom once about the concept of a browser and that the IE icon on her desktop was not the Internet. After a while I gave up after realizing she was perfectly happy with her misconceptions about what the Internet is.
It's only a matter of time when something else will replace Facebook as "the Internet". These things work in cycles.
It's only a matter of time when something else will replace Facebook as "the Internet". These things work in cycles.
I think the web is going to undergo a radical change in the next 5 or so years.
Hasn't it radically changed every year?
Hasn't it radically changed every year?
"6. The only constant in the world is change."
http://www.techrepublic.com/article/egoless-programming-the-...
http://www.techrepublic.com/article/egoless-programming-the-...
What kind of change? Further toward a centralized, monopolistic, Facebook-esque service or an implosion of that model?
this was quite insighful actually.
daark. I get the uncertainty and fear of the 'seedy' nature of G+ and rise of the corporate platforms...but seems like more of us trying things out, learning, so we can maybe direct change/influence the evolution of the platforms....
Someone call the UX police. Cannot read that. Looks like it got lost from 1995.
> Cannot read that
it's called 'text'. You've heard of 'words', yeah? Well text is just a collection of words - think of it like a photo album or playlist, but for words. We call them paragraphs.
The great thing about paragraphs is that you can group a whole bunch of words together to form more powerful concepts than the individual words themselves.
Paragraphs have a very simple UI - in fact you're using one right now!
it's called 'text'. You've heard of 'words', yeah? Well text is just a collection of words - think of it like a photo album or playlist, but for words. We call them paragraphs.
The great thing about paragraphs is that you can group a whole bunch of words together to form more powerful concepts than the individual words themselves.
Paragraphs have a very simple UI - in fact you're using one right now!
No ads? No photos? No like button?
What limits good content to 1995?
What limits good content to 1995?
Blame your browser, it barely modifies the default styling.
Is the new web better at UX than this? That was painful to look at.
And apparently the old web is filled with sarcasm and spite.
Another example: trello.com is a very nice and free card tool for small projects, but because they wanted to avoid having an "edit" button on editable text, they hijack my clicks, so it makes it painful to select text, and quite impossible to use "middle-click as paste".
But, there is a more positive perspective liked to Google+. In fact, I think the midterm result of Google entering in the SNS arena could (and should) be to force open Facebook. I mean, right now G+ is not open, it doesn't have all the needed APIs, and this is probably OK because they they need a critical mass before opening, and one should not bash them for testing, pondering, adjusting a bit more before releasing some important changes. Time is on their side anyway.
But in the end, they will go, I hope, the full good-old Google way, which means:
- Read/write APIs for posts, followers, followees, etc.
- Ability to dump all data and go away
- RSS or similar subscribing hooks
These tools will allow a much higher interoperability for social content, similar to interoperability of emails today. Users will not really care if the comments on their baby pics are written using Facebook, G+ or any other Social Content Manager, they will read and respond to them in the SNS of their choice, like we do today with emails. (I wrote a bit more ion this topic there: https://plus.google.com/104035200377885758362/posts/A9r7twSD...)