A “Real’ Alternative to Facebook?
For some time now I have been wondering why no one has been truly successful at building a ‘real’ alternative to Facebook. Now yes there are alternatives, potentially lots of them, but what do I mean by ‘real’ alternative.
Before I reveal the answer to that let us first look at some of the existing alternatives.
Google+ I thought was an alternative but its Circles make it a pain for me and many others. I can’t always remember who I have in the various circles and as a result have had some ‘oops’ when posting.
LinkedIn is great for connecting but from a relationship standpoint it feels like the arctic. Dark and cold!
Instagram seems frivolous even though I enjoy posting pictures and seeing others pictures but again no relationship building components in there.
Ello is the Johnny-come-lately to the social networking scene and their design sucks (I can’t believe they are proud of it) and again you have to figure out who is in your ‘noise’ newsfeed and who is not. And most of all, just like LinkedIn I don’t want to pay for the best features.
Facebook seems to have figured it out and has therefore become the defacto standard and leading entity in social networks. My problem with them are many. They are the big, Goliath monopoly and treat its members like they don’t give a damn. And they don’t. They care about their advertisers and their shareholders even though without our data they would be nothing.
So why hasn’t anyone built a viable ‘real’ alternative to Facebook? Simply put, I don’t think anyone has figured out the secret sauce. The reasons for that are many. Any new social network figures that they:
- Have to be different
- Have to be everything to everyone
- Have to have a way for people to Not share their data (Ello) which means the members will have to pay.
- Have to allow members to earn money on their data.
What we have discovered instead is that people don’t care about making a few pennies from their data and they don’t care if their data is used to give them free services that they want. What they care about is that their data is not abused and that they the members are not abused by an uncaring company. We don’t want something that is radically different than Facebook. We like Facebook! In fact we love Facebook. The only problem is that we also hate Facebook.
So what’s the secret sauce?
Sign up on this blog and I will tell you what I have discovered. I have a dream and I want you to be a part of it. I promise you’re going to love it. Or you’re going to think I am crazy.
