Ignore the clickbaity headline and have a read of Whitney Kimball’s obituaries of Friendster, MySpace, Bebo, OpenSocial, ConnectU, Tribe.net, Path, Yik Yak, Ello, Orkut, Google+, and Vine.
I’m sure your content on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram is perfectly safe.
This is a great how-to from Darius Kazemi!
The main reason to run a small social network site is that you can create an online environment tailored to the needs of your community in a way that a big corporation like Facebook or Twitter never could. Yes, you can always start a Facebook Group for your community and moderate that how you like, but only within certain bounds set by Facebook. If you (or your community) run the whole site, then you are ultimately the boss of what goes on. It is harder work than letting Facebook or Twitter or Slack or Basecamp or whoever else take care of everything, but I believe it’s worth it.
There’s a lot of good advice for community management and the whole thing is a lesson in writing excellent documentation.
Petra has always been the strong one. She was the best friend that Chloe could have possibly had. Little wonder then that Chloe’s death continues to hit her so hard.
I still can’t fully comprehend it all nor do I have any idea how to learn to move on. All I know is that ever since the day I found out, I’ve been on an emotional rollercoaster. I go from being in shock, to being sad and angry, or completely numb.
Petra is getting help now. That’s good. She’s also writing about what she has been going through. That’s brave. Very brave.
She is one of the best human beings I know.
This beautiful piece of writing from Steph is making me hungry.
Pictures from the photo booth at Jeffrey’s Hall of Fame celebration party on the last night of South by Southwest.
Douglas Rushkoff on the repeating circle of life that all big online companies live through.
I've been comicified (again), this time with my HTML5 Super Friends.
My buddies and I express our support for HTML5 ...with caveats ...and unicorns.
danah boyd addresses the Microsoft Research Tech Fest.
A lovely article from Anna on friendship and the internet.
Now this is how to do the "find your friends" trick. For GMail, Yahoo Mail, and Hotmail, Flickr never once asks for your password. Bravo!
Ben Brown outlines the reasons why he left Facebook: "I think it is important to note that Facebook, though they claim to be a tool for staying connected, is actually a software tool designed *primarily* to deliver marketing messages to its audience."
Paul's book will be out in a few weeks. Looks like it'll be a good one.
Danah Boyd writes an essay that would've been a blog post but it got too long.