Facebook has a large user base, other than that, it’s been time to say goodbye for quite some time. Here are a few lesser known alternatives to Facebook.

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Diaspora

Let’s face it, Facebook is not a platform we want to use if we want to maintain our privacy. It as horrible privacy policies and the NSA has even tried to use its massive data store of information. For those who want to take control of their personal information Diaspora is a potential option. Diaspora is a decentralized social networking suite. The system is broken up into individual servers called pods. Pods handle social networking information much the same way that standard web servers handle webpage data. The data itself is stored on a local server and the webmaster has control over the data. Given that anyone with ample skills can set up his or her own pod and connect it to the Diaspora network means that we finally have control over our own data again.

Joining a Pod

Now not everyone is tech savvy enough to set up their own pod, but that’s okay. There are already plenty of existing pods available, and with coming updates, people will be able to transfer their data from one pod to another, meaning that you can set up an account on an existing pod, and eventually move it to your own personal pod in the future. The only downside as of now regarding Diaspora is the lack of people utilizing the system. As much as Facebook and other giants continue to abuse their users, the users are unwilling to leave due to the time that they have invested already.

The primary pod can be found at: https://joindiaspora.com/

We did create a test account and Diaspora is certainly an interesting idea. Currently the account is on a pod that can be found here: https://wk3.org

There are other pods available as well, and in time Politicoid may start its own pod if there is enough interest from the reader base. In the future, we also plans on releasing a linux distribution designed for privacy in mind and it may include a Diaspora pod server.

tsū

Let’s say that privacy is not your main concern. Instead you want to monetize your posts. Of course this can be done on Facebook by linking to your own content. But tsū gives an alternative option: get paid to post! It does this by returning part of its ad revenue to users who generate interactions. This is pretty much the opposite of Facebook where I have found that unless you pay for ads, your page is going to have a really hard time getting any interactions. I’m sure that’s entirely coincidental.

MLM??

In order to calculate how much a person gets paid, tsū focuses on the concept of a genealogy.  This certainly sounds like an MLM and while I happen to find the MLM system a reasonable business model, I do not consider tsū to be one. Why not? The core feature of an MLM is that you are a distributor of someone else’s product. With tsū, you are “selling” your own product. Sell isn’t exactly a great word for it. You’re doing what you would normally do on Facebook anyway: post things and hope that someone responds. So while it is multi level, it is in no way marketing.

That being said, tsū should not be thought of as a get rich quick plan, or even a get rich slow plan. It’s giving 90% of its revenue back to the users in order to get them to join. It will not be able to maintain that forever. At what percentage will it settle? I don’t know. It will be small: probably under ten percent. But once it’s gotten that large, you will have a social network that more or less rivals Facebook anyway, and people are willing to use Facebook without ANY money back, simply because it does have a large user base. Essentially tsū has found a way to beat the one issue that all new social networking sites have: how to get enough users to be a worthwhile social networking site!

Joining

Since tsū relies on a concept of geneology, in order to join you must use an existing member’s shortcode as a referral. You can find shortcodes posted on various sites. However, try to find someone who is already a member whose content you think you would like. Remember, this is still a social media site. If you don’t want to see posts by a certain person, using them as your referral would be quite silly.

If you have an account already, you can follow our posts (which should start becoming more frequent) at http://tsu.co/politicoid. If you do not have an account, the link will use our shortcode by default. Again, only use this shortcode if you feel that you would enjoy reading our content. (Since you’re reading this, we hope that you do.)

Others

I focused on two unique options for social networking. There are so many other options that it’s difficult to list them all. Even the Wikipedia entry on the topic fails to address all of them, and even misses tsū.