Small versions of Facebook or Twitter
by Dave Winer Wednesday, October 19, 2016

In the old days Steve Jobs used to talk about personal computers being like fractional horsepower motors. 

The kind of thing you'd use to create an air conditioner or lawn mower, for example. A Mac was like that, but for computers.

We had much success a few years back with the idea of a fractional horsepower HTTP server.

And we can do the same for social media server.

They're interesting things!

I'm playing around with one such community at screen2.io. Join us there at 9PM Eastern tonight to watch the final presidential debate, share your observations in real time.

The technology is nothing revolutionary, but it is easy, both to use and to set up as a server. It may not be the final toolkit, but it's on the path. If there's a next one it will be even easier. 

Facebook doesn't have an exclusive on easy-to-author content management. And the cool thing is, if I create my own we don't need to accept their limits on what we can do with it. I'm thinking of the basics of the web -- linking, styles, titles and podcasts. Essential features that Facebook refuses to support for users. Unacceptable.

And Twitter? Well the 140-char limit is, for me, also unacceptable. There are so many things I can't post to Twitter because I won't hack up my writing to fit into such a small space. You may be a better writer than I am, but I am me, and ideas coming out of my head have to flow through my writing interface. So I'm experiencing a long-term inability to communicate, thanks to Twitter. Again, unacceptable. Finally it's time to do something about it. 

As I like to say..

Still diggin!

I'm trying to think but nothing happens!

Dave

PS: Summary: 9PM Eastern, screen2.io, debate watch party.