Early thoughts on Google+ users moving to Pluspora and MeWe social networks (they're not going to Facebook I hear)
I see a lot of users already gravitating towards these two networks. Both are built on excellent principles based on preserving privacy, no selling users data, being free to use, no adverts, no spyware, etc. To be honest, I can't dive into either fully yet, mostly because I need to replicate my posts across a few networks and my RSS feed and believe it or not, this is one thing that neither of these two do! But let me just highlight a few observations that clarify where they are different too:
MeWe:
1. The prettier of the two with a better mobile app.
2. Has more of a Facebook feel but without all the clutter, privacy issues, etc of Facebook.
3. Strong statements around privacy and has Sir Tim Berners-Lee on their advisory board.
4. Centrally run so all contacts, posts etc on one server. Does mean if that closes down it all dies.
5. 8GB of free cloud storage for posted photos, files, videos, etc.
6. Has chats, voting polls, events, hashtags, group discussions (with quite a few for ex-Google+ users). A Group would be like a Google+ Community.
7. There are a lot of diverse group most with 100's of users but I see quite a few with over 1,000 users.
8. Regarding Google+ Collections I see their Groups can be created as Public access but can also choose to allow followers to post, limited post with approval, or comment/chat only. This is very interesting as it is very much like Collections. If I could push my posts out from here this could be my new home! For example here is a link to my Green Tech Group at https://mewe.com/join/green_tech.
9. Looks most similar to Google+.
10. Don't see any way of pushing your posts out elsewhere from here, or any way to import posts from RSS, Twitter or another service = walled garden.
11. Has photo albums.
Pluspora:
1. Has its own web app but no push notifications. Dandelion is a 3rd party app that is pretty usable.
2. Slightly older interface than MeWe but a solid service that has been running for years.
3. Also strong on privacy but it consists of many decentralised hubs/pods, each of which can operate on its own having its own set of rules, but where users can follow users on other pods or even on services like Friendica, Hubzilla, etc. It's a federated approach where you live on one pod but follow anyone anywhere else. There is no mother ship that can die and kill off the service.
4. It is, therefore, a bit more difficult to find people on other pods.
5. It can export account data but I still don't see a way of importing it elsewhere (unlike Friendica that will let you literally move to another pod).
6. Diaspora is the name of the federated service with Pluspora being created as a pod for ex-Plussers I gather.
7. Diaspora/Pluspora has photos but not in albums.
8. No events, but it has hashtags and voting polls.
9. It does have an Atom RSS feed that people can use to follow your posts from outside Diaspora eg. mine at https://diasp.org/public/danie.atom.
10. For each post (if you have linked your Twitter and/or Tumblr profiles) you can click to also share the pot out to those social networks.
11. It has Aspects that you can create and for each post you can select what aspects it will be visible in (one, many or all where Google+ only had one). But either no-one is using Aspects or I'm not seeing how to just see someone else's aspects in my feed.
Whilst Diaspora/Pluspora at least follows a federated model its interface and features are behind MeWe, but honestly both need to open up more on allowing external follows, and being able to follow some other external networks too. Diaspora/Pluspora does at least have an RSS feed so you can post there and use RSS to replicate elsewhere. For many though MeWe may be the slightly better choice right now depending on what you want to use and connect with.
Details on MeWe at https://mewe.com/faq
Details on Diaspora at https://diasporafoundation.org/ and Pluspora can be found at https://pluspora.com/
Disclaimer: I've based the Pluspora above on Diaspora which I belong to, please let me know if Pluspora itself does carry any additional functionality of its own that I missed.
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MeWe: The best chat & group app with privacy you trust. Brilliant features with no BS. No Ads. No Spyware. MeWe is the Next-Gen Social Network. |