An Open Source Facebook?

I think social networking is a great thing, but there is a dark side. Using social networks give large corporations such as Google and Facebook personal information that was never available to them in the past. There are programs that churn through the vast amounts of data collected and do things such as targeted advertising.

These corporations probably know you better than you know yourself.

The other problem is the number of social networks that you need to sign up to - to stay “in the loop” as it were. Some people don’t like Google Plus so you have to be on Facebook to talk to them and vice versa.

I feel a bit uneasy with the power that we are giving Facebook and Google. A way to solve these problems may be to create a decentralised, open source social network system. I was thinking about this earlier today and did a quick search on Google. There are numerous groups who have the same fear that I do and have come to similar conclusions on how to solve it. Movim and Diaspora are examples of two projects that are ongoing.

Eventually, the world has to give up its Facebook and Google addiction. Do we really want them owning the world?