[Pentaxis]

Hello, fellow Pentaxians.

Like millions of others, I have been dismayed this week by Google's announcement that they will close the Google + social medium.

I enjoyed participating in several photography-based communities on Google + and will be sorry to lose touch with my fellow contributors there.
I therefore would like to ask here for suggestions on a suitable replacement for Google +. I have already decided that I will not open an account on Facebook, Twitter, MeWe and several other sites owned by corporations.


I am already an occasional visitor to Flickr and maybe that will be where I spend more time online. However, I do have interests other than photography and so I would be more interested in a good-to-use, "federated" social medium, and preferably one that, like this forum, is open-source i.e. not controlled by a corporation. Naturally, I need to be where there are communities that engage in interesting and intelligent discussion about things photographic.

Thanks for any constructive suggestions!

[Sandy Hancock]

I got sick of Google+ quite early in the piece. Facebook and Flickr (and Pentax Forums!) were enough of a distraction already

[boriscleto]

Good luck with that.

[Lord Lucan]

I'm not able to recommend any other photo forum, I only use this one, but I have other hobbies and activities and use other specific forums for those. There are loads. I would make the point that I believe it better to join forums which are specific to the subject rather than join a big corporate generic social media site, albeit with special interest areas.

I have been using the internet long enough to have used text-based Bulletin Boards, and then subscription Compuserve in its day. Compuserve (also MSN and AOL I believe) was a "walled garden" which aimed to contain "eveything you need", with interest groups, software repositories, an internal email system, etc and even had its own connection protocol and "browser". Then around the late 1990's people broke out of those walled gardens onto the wider internet with its millions of web sites. But then Facebook, Google Groups and similar others came along and basically revived the Compuserve model of one web site to contain everything, but financed by advertising and the sale of your data to marketeers, instead of subscription. So similarly to Compuserve 20 years ago, there are people using Facebook who never go to the internet outside it, or are afraid or even unaware of what is outside it - things have gone full circle.

However, with the likes of Facebook and Google Groups now crumbling it looks like the circle might be turning again.

[twilhelm]

Google+ was nice, for a short time. Then it seemed like some groups became inundated with spam posts and I walked away from it. I spend my time here, Flickr, and browsing Wordpress. I’m too busy for Facebook these days, so I’m not doing much there.

Good luck finding something else.

[monochrome]

Don’t forget Yahoo! It was closer to an open internet portal, but with tools and resources. That was the intermediate step. Yahoo! Groups was great. Google+ killed it and Google’s business model, like Amazon’s, has bulldozed everything in its path.

Google+ was closed to forestall, for the time being, a serious possibility of antitrust actions by the EU and compelled Congressional testimony and US FTC scrutiny. Ironically, Google HATES scrutiny. That might reveal something regulators and taxing authorities would exploit.

.;

[Pentaxis]

I'm not able to recommend any other photo forum, I only use this one, but I have other hobbies and activities and use other specific forums for those. There are loads. I would make the point that I believe it better to join forums which are specific to the subject rather than join a big corporate generic social media site, albeit with special interest areas.

I have been using the internet long enough to have used text-based Bulletin Boards, and then subscription Compuserve in its day. Compuserve (also MSN and AOL I believe) was a "walled garden" which aimed to contain "eveything you need", with interest groups, software repositories, an internal email system, etc and even had its own connection protocol and "browser". Then around the late 1990's people broke out of those walled gardens onto the wider internet with its millions of web sites. But then Facebook, Google Groups and similar others came along and basically revived the Compuserve model of one web site to contain everything, but financed by advertising and the sale of your data to marketeers, instead of subscription. So similarly to Compuserve 20 years ago, there are people using Facebook who never go to the internet outside it, or are afraid or even unaware of what is outside it - things have gone full circle.

However, with the likes of Facebook and Google Groups now crumbling it looks like the circle might be turning again.

Thanks for your thoughts and opinions expressed here. They somehow ring true.

On the other hand, I did find that in Google + there was the benefit of stumbling upon the unexpected, communities and subjects that hitherto had not been an interest to me.
I shall continue my personal musings on this subject.

[jcdoss]

Is there a social media network that isn't run by a multinational corporate conglomerate? I only use FB for family and a few close friends. I'm here a LOT more than any other group but seems only Pentaxians come here, strangely enough.

[boriscleto]

Is there a social media network that isn't run by a multinational corporate conglomerate?

Steemit is an open source alternative to Reddit. Diaspora is open source and decentralized. Ello is an artist centric noncommercial site that runs on a freemium model and doesn't sell user data.

[Pentaxis]

I'm not able to recommend any other photo forum, I only use this one, but I have other hobbies and activities and use other specific forums for those. There are loads. I would make the point that I believe it better to join forums which are specific to the subject rather than join a big corporate generic social media site, albeit with special interest areas.

I have been using the internet long enough to have used text-based Bulletin Boards, and then subscription Compuserve in its day. Compuserve (also MSN and AOL I believe) was a "walled garden" which aimed to contain "eveything you need", with interest groups, software repositories, an internal email system, etc and even had its own connection protocol and "browser". Then around the late 1990's people broke out of those walled gardens onto the wider internet with its millions of web sites. But then Facebook, Google Groups and similar others came along and basically revived the Compuserve model of one web site to contain everything, but financed by advertising and the sale of your data to marketeers, instead of subscription. So similarly to Compuserve 20 years ago, there are people using Facebook who never go to the internet outside it, or are afraid or even unaware of what is outside it - things have gone full circle.

However, with the likes of Facebook and Google Groups now crumbling it looks like the circle might be turning again.

Thanks for that interesting comment. I can see that your analysis is valid.

Since making my original post I have joined pluspora, a "pod" of the disapora* "federated" system of social groups. So far I have enjoyed the learning experience.

---------- Post added 10-27-18 at 08:22 AM ----------

Steemit is an open source alternative to Reddit. Diaspora is open source and decentralized. Ello is an artist centric noncommercial site that runs on a freemium model and doesn't sell user data.

Thanks for that information. I have now joined pluspora.

---------- Post added 10-27-18 at 08:24 AM ----------

Is there a social media network that isn't run by a multinational corporate conglomerate? I only use FB for family and a few close friends. I'm here a LOT more than any other group but seems only Pentaxians come here, strangely enough.

The answer to your question is "Yes!'. I have discovered there are numerous federated networks. I have now joined pluspora.

[reh321]

There is a generic {not brand specific} photography discussion site called "Ugly Hedgehog", which like Pentax Forums seems to be a relatively small-time operation, not run by a large corporation. They have a "Gallery" section where you can share photos.