Am I the only one for whom #Microsoft pushing #AI into every single product is the same, but absolutely the same scenario like #GooglePlus was? With the expected flop at the end as well?
#GooglePlus
@chmod777 for me it was during the sunsetting of #GooglePlus.
Looking at the join date of @FiXato@mastodon.social I've been here since 16 Sept 2018
Als damals Google+ einfach so beendet wurde, war ich traurig und auch wütend, weil ich ein Netzwerk verlor, das mir von den Menschen her zusagte. Über Umwege fand ich dann zu Mastodon und ich glaube, ich habe ein besseres Google+ gefunden und eine digitale Heimat.
Google+ .. Who remembers Google+ (Google Plus)?
I loved it, and created my account the night it was launched, and I ended up with 15,000 followers. #googleplus #socialnetworks #throwbackThursday
GooglePlus would make more sense as part of the fediverse rather than anything else.
Luckily there are better things for us now like Mastodon and NodeBB!
Just Rest There For a While
Last night I woke at 3:45 and just caught the last of the blood moon eclipse but I wasn't able to take any photos. The moon looked quite pink, unlike the one here.
I took this image during my participation in the #GooglePlus Mentorship Program for Photographers led by Robin Griggs Wood. What a great experience that was! This was my comment about the photograph and the mentorship then:
"Like this moon ...I feel that I have been told "just rest here for a few minutes, and look around you. We are all here to support and help you define yourself."
(Sigh.)
This is also my favourite tree which I featured recently.
I hope you have a great Friday, all my Pixl- and Fedi-friends.
#EllieKPosts #moon #FullMoon #Sunset #Trees #BlueHour #BlueHourSky
Last night I woke at 3:45 and just caught the last of the blood moon eclipse but I wasn't able to take any photos. The moon looked quite pink, unlike the one here.
I took this image during my participation in the #GooglePlus Mentorship Program for Photographers led by Robin Griggs Wood. What a great experience that was! This was my comment about the photograph and the mentorship then:
"Like this moon ...I feel that I have been told "just rest here for a few minutes, and look around you. We are all here to support and help you define yourself."
(Sigh.)
This is also my favourite tree which I featured recently.
I hope you have a great Friday, all my Pixl- and Fedi-friends.
#EllieKPosts #moon #FullMoon #Sunset #Trees #BlueHour #BlueHourSky
I wrote about SPECT a long time ago when I was doing #SciCom on #GooglePlus, which I converted to a blog.
https://medicalimaging.imagedistillary.com/2014/10/26/medical-imaging-101-pt-7-spect/
It's been a while since I saw a #GooglePlus logo!
I always wore looked that service - the concept of circles was really nicely done I thought - but I guess not enough people felt the same way at the time ...
@mattgrayyes #Friendica (which has a shared ancestor with #Streams) can also be worth looking into. It's a bit more #Diaspora* / #GooglePlus / Facebook-like.
It has some media type filters available, as well as more fine-grained contact type filters, and supposedly can also have multiple profiles per account, though I couldn't quickly figure that out in my old test account.
#Hubzilla is also quite elaborate, but I never really got into it for the same reason Friendica never fully grabbed me; it felt too clunky and too unfocused in its features. That's what eventually made Mastodon my primary social media account after Google+ shut down; it was the most polished one, and had a more streamlined focus, as well as the more active mobile app ecosystem. I eventually settled on a #GlitchSoc fork instance because of its additional features such as formatting and longer post lengths, though nowadays I would also consider #Hometown because of its Article support.
@prex Sit down, get a snack and a drink, for this will be long.
"The federated G+" was literally made before Google+ itself.
Have you ever heard of diaspora*?
If not, let me take you back to 2010. Back then, it first came out that Facebook was spying on its users and selling their private data. In spring, four students asked for $12,000 of crowdfunding for an ambitious project: a free, open-source, non-commercial, non-corporate, decentralised alternative to Facebook named diaspora*.
The word spread like wild fire. Tech media jumped upon it. Non-tech mass media jumped upon it. These four guys were about to develop a Facebook killer! Of the requested $12,000, they got over $200,000.
They started working in May, 2010. In October, they presented a first very early alpha version of diaspora* that could only run on Macs as servers. It would take the likely suicide of the project founder, the replacement of the whole development team and several years to even release a first beta. To this day, diaspora* did not have a 1.0 stable release.
In general, diaspora* did not become the huge, super-popular Facebook killer. It always remained obscure.
Then came Google. They saw that people wanted to move away from Facebook, but they thought they had nowhere to go. And Google wanted to exploit the self-same source of income as Facebook. So they launched Google+.
Google+ was a blatant, full-on, all-out rip-off of diaspora*. The circles that almost everyone "knows" were invented by Google? diaspora*'s aspects, stolen by Google. Google's entire new corporate UI design with the black navigation bar at the top? diaspora*'s design.
Again: diaspora* had Google+'s circles before Google+ had circles. diaspora* has aspects, and Google stole them and named them circles.
Google got away with it easily. Nobody knew diaspora*. Nobody knew what diaspora* looks like. And diaspora* itself had other things to take care of than a multi-billion-dollar lawsuit against a power-mongering Silicon Valley teracorporation or even a C&D against Google.
But seriously, diaspora* isn't worth looking at nowadays. It may have released a 0.9 beta last year, skipping 0.8 altogether. But it's withering away.
Shortly before New Year's Eve 2024, three major diaspora* pods shut down. According to one statistics website, diaspora* lost more than half its user accounts within three days. For April 1st, 2025, the shutdown of diasp.org, one of the biggest and most important pods, has been announced. JoinDiaspora, the old lighthouse pod, has been gone for quite a while now.
But diaspora*'s issues lie not only in its slow development, but also in its design decisions. It's beautiful, but it's minimalist to the point of being lack-lustre. Also, diaspora* does not support ActivityPub and never will. It only supports its own protocol. The developers have explicitly decided against supporting ActivityPub because Fediverse projects don't "implement ActivityPub", they "implement Mastodon". This, however, also means that diaspora* cannot connect to most of the Fediverse by far.
But: There's even better than diaspora* and Google+ that's free, open-source, decentralised and federated. And it was there before Google+. I'm not kidding.
Remember, it took four students, $200,000 of crowd-funding and five months (May to October, 2010) to create a first, very unfinished preview of diaspora*.
But the same year, it took one developer and protocol designer with some three decades of experience (@Mike Macgirvin 🖥️), zero crowd-funding and only four months (March to July, 2010) to create a first, very fleshed-out and useable release of something initially called Mistpark.
At this point, when the four diaspora* creators were still tinkering, Mistpark was already more powerful than both diaspora* and Mastodon are today. It already had everything a social network needs. It had diaspora*'s aspects before diaspora* had aspects and long before Google+ had circles; only it called them lists. And Mistpark's lists were diaspora*'s aspects and Google+'s circles on coke.
Since early 2012, Mistpark has been known as Friendica (official website). Since mid-January, 2025, it is the primary go-to alternative to Facebook in the Fediverse. And it has continuously been fully federated with Mastodon for as long as Mastodon has been around. Since January, 2016. Again, I'm not kidding.
But Mike didn't stop there. He went on and improved the same concept further and further by forking his own creations and advancing them technologically.
In 2011, he invented the concept of nomadic identity (something that Bluesky claims to have invented much later, but has yet to prove to be functional) to make identites more resilient against server shutdown, and he created another all-new communication protocol named Zot (today known as Nomad) for that purpose.
In 2012, he handed Friendica over to the community and forked it into something called Red, later the Red Matrix. It was the first not only decentralised, but nomadic social server application in the world. In 2015, it was redesigned, vastly expanded in features and renamed Hubzilla (official website).
To this day, Hubzilla is the one most powerful and feature-rich Fediverse server application. It is not a vague concept or in early development; instead, it has been a rock-solid multi-purpose daily driver for longer than Mastodon has been around.
Another one of its key features is what's the second-most advanced and fine-grained permissions system in the Fediverse, something that Mastodon doesn't have at all. Its privacy groups are diaspora*'s aspects or Google+'s circles on coke and 'roids because you can do things with them that are impossible even on Friendica, much less diaspora* or Google+, not to mention what Mastodon calls lists. They aren't called privacy groups for nothing.
In 2018, Mike handed the development of Hubzilla over to the community to concentrate on the further advancement of Zot. This led to:
Except for the first Osada, all of them were or still are nomadic. Except for Zap until some point in 2019, all of them supported or still support ActivityPub. And they all had or still have an advanced permissions system which, at least on (streams) and Forte, even slightly surpasses Hubzilla's. Their access lists are at least on par with Hubzilla's privacy groups.
If you're looking for a decentralised Google+ drop-in replacement, that'd be diaspora*. But diaspora* is dying, and it will never federate with Mastodon.
If you're also interested in something that's even better than Google+, check Friendica, Hubzilla and (streams).
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Google+ #GooglePlus #diaspora* #Mistpark #Friendika #Friendica #RedMatrix #Hubzilla #Osada #Zap #Mistpark2020 #Misty #Redmatrix2020 #Roadhouse #Streams #(streams) #Forte #Lists #Aspects #Circles #PrivacyGroups #AccessLists
I wish someone made the federated G+
"The federated G+" was literally made before Google+ itself.
diaspora*
Have you ever heard of diaspora*?
If not, let me take you back to 2010. Back then, it first came out that Facebook was spying on its users and selling their private data. In spring, four students asked for $12,000 of crowdfunding for an ambitious project: a free, open-source, non-commercial, non-corporate, decentralised alternative to Facebook named diaspora*.
The word spread like wild fire. Tech media jumped upon it. Non-tech mass media jumped upon it. These four guys were about to develop a Facebook killer! Of the requested $12,000, they got over $200,000.
They started working in May, 2010. In October, they presented a first very early alpha version of diaspora* that could only run on Macs as servers. It would take the likely suicide of the project founder, the replacement of the whole development team and several years to even release a first beta. To this day, diaspora* did not have a 1.0 stable release.
In general, diaspora* did not become the huge, super-popular Facebook killer. It always remained obscure.
Google+
Then came Google. They saw that people wanted to move away from Facebook, but they thought they had nowhere to go. And Google wanted to exploit the self-same source of income as Facebook. So they launched Google+.
Google+ was a blatant, full-on, all-out rip-off of diaspora*. The circles that almost everyone "knows" were invented by Google? diaspora*'s aspects, stolen by Google. Google's entire new corporate UI design with the black navigation bar at the top? diaspora*'s design.
Like, cirlces? So ahead of its times!
Again: diaspora* had Google+'s circles before Google+ had circles. diaspora* has aspects, and Google stole them and named them circles.
Google got away with it easily. Nobody knew diaspora*. Nobody knew what diaspora* looks like. And diaspora* itself had other things to take care of than a multi-billion-dollar lawsuit against a power-mongering Silicon Valley teracorporation or even a C&D against Google.
The slow death of diaspora*
But seriously, diaspora* isn't worth looking at nowadays. It may have released a 0.9 beta last year, skipping 0.8 altogether. But it's withering away.
Shortly before New Year's Eve 2024, three major diaspora* pods shut down. According to one statistics website, diaspora* lost more than half its user accounts within three days. For April 1st, 2025, the shutdown of diasp.org, one of the biggest and most important pods, has been announced. JoinDiaspora, the old lighthouse pod, has been gone for quite a while now.
But diaspora*'s issues lie not only in its slow development, but also in its design decisions. It's beautiful, but it's minimalist to the point of being lack-lustre. Also, diaspora* does not support ActivityPub and never will. It only supports its own protocol. The developers have explicitly decided against supporting ActivityPub because Fediverse projects don't "implement ActivityPub", they "implement Mastodon". This, however, also means that diaspora* cannot connect to most of the Fediverse by far.
Friendica
But: There's even better than diaspora* and Google+ that's free, open-source, decentralised and federated. And it was there before Google+. I'm not kidding.
Remember, it took four students, $200,000 of crowd-funding and five months (May to October, 2010) to create a first, very unfinished preview of diaspora*.
But the same year, it took one developer and protocol designer with some three decades of experience (@Mike Macgirvin 🖥️), zero crowd-funding and only four months (March to July, 2010) to create a first, very fleshed-out and useable release of something initially called Mistpark.
At this point, when the four diaspora* creators were still tinkering, Mistpark was already more powerful than both diaspora* and Mastodon are today. It already had everything a social network needs. It had diaspora*'s aspects before diaspora* had aspects and long before Google+ had circles; only it called them lists. And Mistpark's lists were diaspora*'s aspects and Google+'s circles on coke.
Since early 2012, Mistpark has been known as Friendica (official website). Since mid-January, 2025, it is the primary go-to alternative to Facebook in the Fediverse. And it has continuously been fully federated with Mastodon for as long as Mastodon has been around. Since January, 2016. Again, I'm not kidding.
Friendica's descendants
But Mike didn't stop there. He went on and improved the same concept further and further by forking his own creations and advancing them technologically.
In 2011, he invented the concept of nomadic identity (something that Bluesky claims to have invented much later, but has yet to prove to be functional) to make identites more resilient against server shutdown, and he created another all-new communication protocol named Zot (today known as Nomad) for that purpose.
In 2012, he handed Friendica over to the community and forked it into something called Red, later the Red Matrix. It was the first not only decentralised, but nomadic social server application in the world. In 2015, it was redesigned, vastly expanded in features and renamed Hubzilla (official website).
To this day, Hubzilla is the one most powerful and feature-rich Fediverse server application. It is not a vague concept or in early development; instead, it has been a rock-solid multi-purpose daily driver for longer than Mastodon has been around.
Another one of its key features is what's the second-most advanced and fine-grained permissions system in the Fediverse, something that Mastodon doesn't have at all. Its privacy groups are diaspora*'s aspects or Google+'s circles on coke and 'roids because you can do things with them that are impossible even on Friendica, much less diaspora* or Google+, not to mention what Mastodon calls lists. They aren't called privacy groups for nothing.
In 2018, Mike handed the development of Hubzilla over to the community to concentrate on the further advancement of Zot. This led to:
- Osada (2018, discontinued in 2019)
- Zap (2018, discontinued in 2022)
- another Osada (2019, discontinued later in 2019)
- yet another Osada (2020, discontinued in 2022)
- Redmatrix 2020 (2020, discontinued in 2022)
- Mistpark 2020 a.k.a. Misty (2020, discontinued in 2022)
- Roadhouse (2021, discontinued in 2022)
- (streams) (code repository, 2021)
- Forte (code repository, 2024)
Except for the first Osada, all of them were or still are nomadic. Except for Zap until some point in 2019, all of them supported or still support ActivityPub. And they all had or still have an advanced permissions system which, at least on (streams) and Forte, even slightly surpasses Hubzilla's. Their access lists are at least on par with Hubzilla's privacy groups.
Finally
If you're looking for a decentralised Google+ drop-in replacement, that'd be diaspora*. But diaspora* is dying, and it will never federate with Mastodon.
If you're also interested in something that's even better than Google+, check Friendica, Hubzilla and (streams).
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Google+ #GooglePlus #diaspora* #Mistpark #Friendika #Friendica #RedMatrix #Hubzilla #Osada #Zap #Mistpark2020 #Misty #Redmatrix2020 #Roadhouse #Streams #(streams) #Forte #Lists #Aspects #Circles #PrivacyGroups #AccessLists
Still missing #GooglePlus's #Collections :(
@CyberpunkLibrarian that still exists? I remember it was an alternative being built during the demise of #GooglePlus, and IIRC it was drawing too many right-wingers for my liking, though I could be misremembering.
You know what is another thing I miss from #GooglePlus?
Being able to preview the snippet for links before posting, and the ability to select which of the page images to accompany the snippet. Especially if it would be combined with an optional alt text for the snippet media.
Yes, I know I could also just upload a screenshot or manually download and attach the relevant image, but this would feel a lot more streamlined.
#mastoDev #mastodon
Blast from the past. Found my old Google+ hoodie in the closet. Man, back in 2010-11 Google+ had so much promise. But Google killed it. Ugh.
This is even the original logo for G+.
#GooglePlus #Google #SocialMedia #LegacySocialMedia #BlastFromThePast
This is even the original logo for G+.
#GooglePlus #Google #SocialMedia #LegacySocialMedia #BlastFromThePast
im absolutely convinced that creating a googleplus alternative in the fediverse would have an insane potential. I would totally love to design and iterate on it, I would just need frontend & backend devs 🙌
if you wanna talk abt that, please reply to this post or email me at contact@matlfb.com
boost appreciated 🚀
#fediverse #googleplus #fullstack #fullstackdevelopment #fullstackdeveloper
Does anyone else miss Google+ ?
かつての #GooglePlus のサークルっていう概念は今考えても良い機能だったと思う。自分専用のフォロワーグループみたいな機能で、特定のサークルにだけ見えるポストとか、公開範囲を柔軟に設定できた。
#mixi2 もリリースされたし #GooglePlus2 とかこないかな（こない :mastodance:
Now that #Google as #googleplus, what will happen to #orkut?
I am in love with #Googleplus already and I just started 5 mins ago. It's a #Facebook do-over of the term #friend. Thx @l0lrus!
Client Info
Server: https://mastodon.social
Version: 2025.04
Repository: https://github.com/cyevgeniy/lmst