Month: November 2019

There have been multiple attempts to offer an alternative to Facebook and I have tried and continue to use several (Diaspora, MeWe). The network effect (people stay where there are other people) makes it very difficult to gain traction. Now, Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder, is going to give it a try. The new service is called wt:social.

wt:social will differ from Facebook (and Twitter) mostly in how it is funded and how it is funded has consequences for how it works. Facebook and Twitter are funded by targeted ads and make use of user data to sell these ads. Wales intends to fund wt:social using the same kind of contribution model he used with Wikipedia.

Because wt:social has been relatively possible, Wales has had to institute a wait list approach for those not wanting to make an immediate contribution. I admit to being one of these individuals. I contribute to several social media sites, but the $100 a year subscription model was too much for me at this point. I would have contributed a lesser amount and I might eventually contribute the $100, but I want to see if the site can attract a substantial amount of activity before it would be worth this amount to me.

wt:social is built on an a previous news effort that never really gained much traction. It does retain some features of the effort and allows participants to create and “subwikis” that can be followed as an addition to following the posts from specific friends. I created a wiki – K12 Edtech – to see how this might work. Individuals interested in this topic who join wt:social are encouraged to add this “group” and to contribute. I intend to see the wiki with links top content I have written elsewhere and maybe some original content so there is initially something there to see. If nothing develops in a month or so, I will probably just delete the topic. Give it a look if interested.

If you are interested in wt:social and want to spend some time to see how it develops, my wait time was about a week.

If you are unhappy with Facebook or Twitter this may offer an alternative and a big name in the tech community may be able to pull off creating an option. How satisfied you are will depend on whether the new offering can attract users and what you found objectionable with other existing services. The elimination of the business model based on harvesting personal information to drive ads could be your objection. If you want to leave Facebook because of what you read there, it is hard to predict if things will improve with a different service. wt:social does allow control over acquaintances and wiki sources so your feed may end up more to your liking.

I have been a supporter of the Brave browser and ecosystem since I first tried it months ago. Simply put, the Brave ecosystem is intended to protect user privacy and still allow a way for content creators and online service providers to generate revenue to support their effort and infrastructures. The Brave browser allows users to take several different actions:

• Block ads, cookies, and scripts
• View Brave screened and delivered ads and be compensated for being open to this content
• Compensate content creators and service providers

Which of these capabilities is implemented is under user control. I do think it appropriate that if users block ads they should consider the reality that they are also accepting the work of others without compensation or at a minimum rejecting the assumption producers made when engaging in the creative process. So, I promote Brave as way to receive compensation AND compensate creators without abandoning privacy.

When I started with Brave, there was no opportunity for users of the browser to receive compensation by viewing selected ads. I put in $50 as a way to explore the full system as it developed. The availability of revenue for viewing Brave controlled ads was not available at that time. I did take advantage of the compensation opportunity when it became available, but must say that even at the amount of time I spent online I was still paying most of my commitment out of pocket. Not a big deal, but I do understand how the very frugal might see this as a problem.

One of the issues I had with Brave was that I could use Brave on all of the various devices I use, but the revenue generating opportunity was only available on my computers (not my phone or tablets). For many users, the phone and tablet may be their only devices or represent the vast proportion of the time they spend online. I think this was even true for me.

Today, Brave has announced that it now makes available the opportunity of iOS users to receive compensation for their attention. The multiple options I describe above are easy to set up.

I describe my experiences with Brave in multiple posts you can locate by using the search box on this site.

I think Brave will influence what happens online. My concern is that other players who could have easily implemented similar opportunities will now respond with similar programs limiting the commitment of users to Brave. This is how business seems to go, but it does seem unfair that innovation is so often mimicked leaving little for those who forced advancement.