Laconica, the Twitter clone software, is one step closer to the version 1.0

http://www.mytestbox.com/news/laconica-twitter-clone-open-source-microblogging-software-version-073/

by mg1313 • 17 years ago

32 45 17 years ago

mytestbox.com

swood3• 17 years ago

This seem to be the most complex Twitter clone out there. I'm talking about an open source one...

jonknee• 17 years ago

Laconica is open source...

swood3• 17 years ago

Yes, that's what I said. Because there's Revou which is another clone but it is commercial and I don't know how complex it is.

And I think Jaiku went open source (maybe under another name?), but I am not sure...

modoc2• 17 years ago

I'm curious as to the point of building a Twitter clone (other than because you can). It seems that Twitter has really captured the market for 140 char messages.

What is the differentiator here?

jdbeast00• 17 years ago

enterprise microblogging?

mg13136• 17 years ago

Exactly...Yammer does that.

mg13136• 17 years ago

I guess this resembles the case of the social networks out there. There are some general leaders (Facebook, Myspace, Hi5) and some niche leaders (Linkedin and other dozen of niche social networks).

And a bit resembles also with the search engine situation: Google is the leader but that doesn't stop entrepreneurs to build niche search engines or even take on Google directly.

Twitter is the leader, no doubt. But a Twitter clone could have a specific niche (Yammer, for example, is much more oriented to enterprise "twittering").

Laconica just offers you, free, the mean to build such a niche service without being necessary to hire developers. Like there are lots of social networking software...or video sharing software (Youtube clones).

ttacor• 17 years ago

Interesting...I used a Youtube clone software to build a niche video sharing service. Of course, I never hope to reach Youtube mass...and I don't intent to.

TomOfTTB• 17 years ago

I'm not a Twitter devotee personally but if they're right and Twitter keeps growing eventually competition is going to spring up. I mean, imagine a company having a monopoly on e-mail and having to build a system robust enough to handle every e-mail sent worldwide. It wouldn't be possible.

Given that it makes a certain amount of sense to start working on an open source protocol now so that it's mature when/if Twitter competition starts to spring up.

jbrun• 17 years ago

These guys are based at the same co-working station as us, Station-C in Montreal, and they seem to have an idea of what they are doing.

Following the linux model. They install micro-blogging on companies intranets and then do service for them. Not a bad idea, won't be the next google, but it is a niche market that seems ripe for the taking. A lot of companies want to use twitter like services, but are not comfortable going online.

mg13136• 17 years ago

A good way to make money for those guys...intranet microblogging.

riffic• 17 years ago

One problem with twitter is you can't control the namespace.

nir• 17 years ago

Having it available as open source can prove a significant advantage - they might become the Wordpress of microblogging, so to speak.

As for Twitter capturing the microblogging market, with ~6 million users I doubt this is the case. Either what we've seen so far is the tip of the iceberg, or there is very little real demand for microblogging. Twitter seems to be very focused on a certain market and certain set of features, so there's definitely room for other players.

dagobart• 17 years ago

I think the laconi.ca folks could gain a significant share of the market if they indeed would make it possible for their users to have the same username for all identi.ca installations in the world, just as it is possible for wordpress users to comment on every wordpress blog using the same wordpress identity.

A while back, I reasoned on Twitter vs identi.ca. -- Here's the bit on roaming micro-blogging services: http://is.gd/sJtL

warp• 17 years ago

Twitter is a walled garden. Laconi.ca isn't, you can subscribe and respond to users on laconi.ca installations on other domains. It doesn't even have to be running the laconi.ca software, you can communicate with any domain which adheres to the OpenMicroBlogging protocol (there is atleast one other implementation out there).

zandorg• 17 years ago

Isn't Twitter's role to do with subsidising the cost of sending thousands of SMS messages? Rather than the actual software that sends them...

swood3• 17 years ago

Yeah, I think Twitter is subsidizing the SMS (text messages) sent to the mobile phones...I read somewhere that they stopped to do this in China or another asian country because it was just too expensive...

aidanf• 17 years ago

"Laconica is built on PHP/MySQL open source software."

Given all the hullabaloo about twiter scaling, rewrites, etc, I thought it would be clear by now that a database driven website is not a good architecture for twitter-like messaging system.

wmf2• 17 years ago

A single instance of Laconica probably won't support millions of users, but the whole point IMO is to federate smaller Laconica sites rather than building a huge centralized monopoly.

mg13136• 17 years ago

That's an idea, in fact. Aggregate all those small players into a big one...and other new small players can join to the federation...

moe7• 17 years ago

Can you say XMMP...

Those who don't understand are doomed to re-invent. Poorly.

ldeva• 17 years ago

Then what would be a good architecture for such a service?

twopoint718• 17 years ago

Here is a podcast interview with the Laconica creator that cleared a lot of things up for me: http://www.twit.tv/floss37

mg13136• 17 years ago

Thanks for the link. The more details we get the better we understand...

Laconica, the Twitter clone software, is one step closer to the version 1.0

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