Free social networks

If we talk about social networks, we talk about privacy and neutrality. On the one hand, no one guarantees that your data will remain anonymous, and no one guarantees that this social network will not try to force or “suggest” you to use the tools of this or that company. The solution is not to eliminate them, but to use "free social networks".

gNewBook

As the name implies, it is an alternative to the malevolent and omnipresent Facebook. The functions are practically the same, but using gNewBook ​​does not make you dependent on a company and its commercial whims.

Not only is it free (because of the CMS -the content manager- that it uses or because it is promoted by people and non-profit associations), but your privacy is guaranteed: there is no one doing business with user data or censoring subversive groups ... and of course, they won't delete your profile for calling you "Kate Middleton." 🙂

Diaspora

Diaspora came from the minds of 4 students who had the idea of ​​creating an alternative social network to Facebook. A priori we observe that the interface is similar to that of its main rival, in the upper area we have a panel where we can search for other users on the network using their Diaspora * address, attend to the notifications or messages received, and move between the different "Aspects".

Here, aspects are called personal groups of users that we can organize as we please. We start with the basics Family and Work when we are older, we can add our own aspects to our profile. It is an interesting option, for example, being able to send messages to specific aspects instead of to everyone.

Why try Diaspora? Because the material you share will continue to belong to you entirely. You will not transfer it to third parties, nor the property, nor the exploitation rights. Because Diaspora integrates existing services and ensures direct connectivity with Twitter, Facebook, RSS and Flickr (and can be extended to other important social networks in the future), without resorting to third-party applications. And, thirdly, because its conception is like that of free software: the network will be hosted on different servers, and if you know how to program, you will be able to create your own server and join the network, a concept that reminds us of initiatives such as OpenId .

Halfgoblin

Mediaglobin is an interesting alternative to Flickr that will allow you to store photos and designs in this image storage and publication service that wants to compare itself with the greats in the sector (Flickr, DeviantArt, SmugMug, Picasa, etc.), but it could also go further to also serve as a music storage service , video and files in general.

In fact, the idea is that each user can set up their own decentralized node with their images on their hosting server, an increasingly widespread idea in this type of project.

Identi.ca

Identi.ca is focused on those who do not like the social roll too much, and it is that Twitter it is very boring compared to Identi.ca, where news of all kinds related to Linux and free software in general is the order of the day. The system itself is made with free software, but all the formats it uses are also free, in addition to the protocols.

Both on Twitter and Identi.ca you can do practically the same things: say what you want in 140 characters, follow people, etc. But, with all due respect, many of us are not interested in whether Fulanito goes to the cinema to see a movie or if Menganito is going to eat a chorizo ​​sandwich, and on Twitter it is either all or nothing.

Therein lies the greatness of Identi.ca, not only because of its Open Source condition, especially because of its characteristic of groups, why not say it, a valuable source of information. There are groups of all kinds and you just have to subscribe to them to be aware of what is published. Thus, if Fulatino wants to publish that he is going to have dinner with friends, we don't see it (unless we want to), but if he marks a dent with! Linux, it will come to us (as long as we are subscribed to the Linux group).

Blip.tv

It is a very interesting alternative to Youtube. It is basically intended to help independent producers. Here there is no transfer of ownership when uploading the videos and, as if this were not enough, if you agree to include advertising in your videos, the profits will be shared between 50 and 50 between you and the people of blip.tv. For this reason, uploading third-party videos on blip.tv is strictly prohibited.

Blip.tv allows you to license your videos through copyright, the different forms of creative commons as well as make it available to the public domain.

In addition, they say they are working on supporting the free video format OGG and HTML 5.