[sf-lug] any opinions or thoughts on identi.ca?

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Sameer Verma (sverma at sfsu.edu):

> The software is an enabler, but its only one component of the
> "service". The consumer will look at it as one service and not in
> separate layers, as technologists do. 
> 
> You could run your own service on laconi.ca but unless others buy into
> your service's value, you'll be a network of 1.

Without the OpenMicroBlogging protocol and the radically decentralised
architecture it permits, that would actually be true.  However, because
Laconica _isn't_ limited to the 1950s big-dumb-monopoly-service-provider 
model, the network effects available from participating microblogging
sites have the potential to vastly exceed those of Twitter, Inc.'s site.

And you won't have, as with Twitter, the annoyance of the entire service
going completely offline every time someone gets upset over Russia's
intervention in Abkhazia.  

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/08/technology/internet/08twitter.html

By the way, the argument you've been sort-of articulating (about the
whole importance and value residing in hosted network services and their
network effect, such that software and licensing no longer matter) was
originated by Tim O'Reilly, and promulgated lately via O'Reilly Media
columnists, OSCon, Matt Asay columns, and the Open Source Business
conference.

I think I said to Tim, when I first heard him expound that viewpoint,
"Gee, I guess it's pointless for me to run a Web server, then, because
I'll have a network of one, and should just move everything I say onto
CompuServe."