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Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Globloc social media company idea

Found myself thinking a few hours ago about how many social media companies I use, and then started wondering what kind of social media company I might create, and then brainstormed for an hour or so and decided, why not do a post? So here are some quick thoughts on a framework for a social media company built on a global-local focus, which I call Globloc for short. So I'm just idly speculating and tossing something out to finish out the year, so criticism of it is boring. Just going to start typing now and worry about editing it later.

There is an oddity to social media to me in that it's not like when you pick up a phone as you can assume some social media company has to receive your data but Globloc would give you a key certificate, allowing you to connect to other Globloc clients on other people's computing devices. Then information, including files, would be shared by bittorrent.

Globloc would maintain a global list of users though, but wouldn't care what people shared privately, unless law enforcement came knocking of course. But even then Globloc wouldn't have any information about what was shared, only whether or not a user was valid on the system, oh and be able to offer de-encryption keys, but getting ahead of myself.

Globloc users would, could share with an expectation of privacy, like phone users already have, so nothing new in that sense, and shared data would be encrypted on their device's storage, using what I call DMESE as I may as well use my ideas, in a Possibly Public space. But you'd only have the full thing, like a picture, if requested, as otherwise you'd get a digest version in the stream.

So digest version would be by default. If you, say, clicked on something interesting to you, the request would go to the device of the originator which would serve it to you by bittorrent. Then if the originator had given permission you could save to your device, in case you wanted to see it later, but it would be encrypted. To leave the Globloc system, the item would have to be tagged as exportable, and you'd have to export, like to get a JPEG file if it were a picture. That would trigger a log back to the originator as an exceptional use. Favoriting the item or simply viewing it would not, as considered expected--as putting it out there in the digest you expect people to look at it.

Oh yeah, so clearing a lot of privacy concerns with these notions. People could share with a private network on the local aspect of the Globloc system, and even then some information wouldn't automatically be shared, while giving maximum flexibility, so like they wouldn't have to keep serving the same data over and over again if they wanted to let their friends store locally. But even then it's encrypted, and they get notified if the data is exported out.

Globally people could publish to the Globloc public stream, which is where it looks like other social media companies, except I'd give the option of follow without broadcast, where you can get public posts from anyone public without giving out who you are. Or follow broadcast, where you'd be seen as a follower. But there would be a count of you if you followed without broadcast, so that user might have a million followers, but only twenty thousand broadcast their identity.

The data meant to be broadcast public would be kept on Globloc servers. Everything else is being traded by users locally. So that's the global-local characteristic.

Even locally though the Globloc app would imprint requesting user information on data which I call IDDI in various ways, including ways on photographs meant to be invisible to users but detectable by machines.

Oh yeah, almost forgot--system would try to eliminate use of passwords, and at least between Globloc globally and the local client would use one of my favorite ideas. Hmmm...looks like I never named that idea. But that's where the key server would come into things, which is what would keep up with the user key certificates.

So Globloc could yank your keys, eliminating your ability to talk to other Globloc clients, if you did something really bad, like violating the rules or something.

And I'm starting to run out here...hmmm...seem to think there were some other things when I was brainstorming earlier, but maybe I lost them. That's the trouble if you don't write things down.

Oh yeah! Not thinking a lot about legal things. This idea is free and open source and I make no pretension of having even begun to handle legal issues. The "Globloc" mentioned above is a hypothetical notion for a possible company which someone may or may not implement in the future.

If you like these ideas, steal them!!! I don't care.

Actually, it wouldn't really be stealing as I'm giving them away.

But regardless I might conceivably build this company myself, if I could get some help. There is SO MUCH left that would have to be done, like designing the user interface, actually implementing concrete examples of things quickly mentioned here which could be major coding challenges. And people would have to go for it.

Why might they?

Well I like the idea of not just assuming some company is looking over everything I send, with the same expectation as with a phone call, which is how I grew up. And I like local encryption protecting the data from being illegally shared, as well as the methods to catch people if they share without permission.

And I like the idea of having most of the data shared locally so the company at the top level deals has far less data than social media companies today, which also could protect from, um, certain folks pushing national security down your throat as they routinely raid, hack or otherwise try to get inside your tech company so they can SPY all data...um, ranting now.

Maybe I should stop there. Wonder if I'll keep this thing up! Wonder if I'll post it. Yeah, I'll post it. Going to post now.

And coming back, found I did limited editing, as kind of intrigued at this thing being mostly a stream of ideas as more of just a brainstorm post without me worrying about making it pretty. Maybe will think later tomorrow, but that's another year. Time to push away from the keyboard. To next year.


James Harris

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