-Mistpark Server
-Distributed Social Network
+ *********
+ Friendika
+ *********
+
+ Distributed Social Network
+
+ http://friendika.com
+
+
+ Since the dawn of the world-wide-web, the internet has been a battleground
+between the "big boys" with all their resources, and a bunch of upstarts whose
+goal is to topple the status quo - and bring the same powers of global reach
+to anybody with a computer and an internet connection.
+
+ The latest battleground is social networking. Many of your friends would
+have you believe that the world (and all the information in it) belongs to
+Facebook.
+
+ Friendika is here to rock that boat.
+
+ Granted, all your friends aren't here - yet. The people who made fun of you
+in high school (yet curiously wanted to be friends with you now) are still
+"poking" each other and managing their virtual farms and telling you all about
+their virtual gang wars. Would you miss them?
+
+ I wouldn't.
+
+ You probably have a handful of friends that are truly special. Tell those
+friends that the world has changed - because it has. It's time to move on. A
+year ago, if you had left Facebook, there was no place to go - at least a
+place which offered the same kind of social interaction (and wasn't just
+another huge company trying to make money off of all of your private
+information).
+
+ Today you have options.
+
+ What if there was a social network which provided some of the same
+interaction you've grown to love, *and* was free to use, *and* was open source,
+*and* where your privacy is always under your control?
+
+ And what if this social network could scale to encompass the entire
+internet, and *not* require a central organisation to provide servers (in
+exchange for selling your private information; and everything else they can
+find out about you - from logging all of your online activities and
+conversations)?
+
+ Look no further.
+
+ Friendika is a social network without boundaries, and without ownership.
+Friendika installations can link together into a global social network which
+is free from central control. Besides the Friendika network (which is privacy
+enhanced); you can also connect with and communicate with friends on identi.ca,
+Status.Net and many other sites and social networks *today*.
+
+ Welcome to the federated social web. If you choose not to use Friendika
+(though we think you'd be foolish not to), you can choose any of 20-30 other
+providers of federated social networking software and still be a part of this
+vast new social network. This is going to be bigger than Facebook.
+
+ Much bigger.
+
+ We are currently developing connectors to seamlessly communicate with many
+other open social networks and providers - like Diaspora, GNU-Social,
+OneSocialWeb, and even some of the larger closed services such as Facebook and
+Twitter.
+
+ Over the coming months, the boundaries between these networks will start
+to become indistinguishable as they all become part of your social circle.
+
+ Our core belief is that your personal thoughts and conversations belong to
+you - and are only meant to be shared with those you wish to share them with.
+
+ Period.
+
+ Friendika is secure, and as private as you wish it to be. Our privacy
+settings are straight-forward and simple, because we know that relationships
+rarely are (straight-forward and simple). Whether you're communicating with
+drinking buddies or potential employers, you can rest assured that each is
+only able to see the side of you that you wish to present. If you send a
+private message to your aunt Mary, we will encrypt it with military grade
+encryption.
+
+ Other distributed social network projects talk about privacy and offering
+a feature-rich social networking alternative, but all they can deliver is
+vapour and vague promises. Things like "Private mail will be in the next
+release".
+
+ Friendika delivers. We've got an incredibly rich social communications
+interface you can make use of *right now*.
+
+ And lest you think we're just trying to copy Facebook feature-for-feature,
+you couldn't be further from the truth. We like the conversational style
+because it feels natural, and that's why Facebook grew to be what it is today.
+But we're creating something completely different.
+
+ Something better.
+
+ A single instance of Friendika can easily support hundreds of (and up to
+several thousand) people using commodity hosting hardware. You could even run
+Friendika on an old PC in your closet or garage. Each of these people are able
+to connect with potentially hundreds or thousands of friends and associates
+on any other supported network anywhere in the world and share photos, links,
+status updates, etc.
-IMPORTANT: Please see the file INSTALL for system requirements.
-
-Mistpark is a social network without boundaries. Mistpark installations can
-all link together into a global social network which is free from central
-control. We are also developing connectors to seamlessly communicate with many
-other open social networks and providers - GNU-social, Diaspora, Status.net,
-and even the larger closed services such as Facebook and Twitter.
-
-Over the coming months, the boundaries between these networks will start to
-become indistinguishable as they all become part of your social circle.
+ But maybe you don't want to be connected to the world... and that's OK
+too. Friendika may be closed off from the global community and used to support
+social networking amongst corporate, educational, religious, and other private
+communities. This makes it an excellent choice for the social networking needs
+of young teenagers and especially k-12 organisations.
-Your personal thoughts and conversations belong to you - and are shared with
-those you wish to share them with.
+ Every person on Friendika has unlimited profiles available to them. There
+is a "public profile" which can be seen by anybody. Additional profiles may be
+tailored to specific groups or individuals. Try doing that on Twitter.
-Period.
+ Groups may be created and used for closed conversations. In this way your
+conversations with one group of friends is completely isolated from other
+friends or groups of friends.
-Mistpark is secure and as private as you wish it to be. Privacy settings are
-straight-forward and simple, because we know that relationships rarely are
-(straight-forward and simple). Whether you're communicating with drinking
-buddies or potential employers, you can rest assured that each can only see
-the side of you that you wish to present.
+ You may also create interactive band/celebrity pages, special interest
+groups, and even organisational 'soapboxes' - for social communications that
+require the ability to scale to global levels. Friendika provides for automatic
+relationship management in these extreme cases so that you can concentrate on
+your message and public persona - and not worry about being swamped by friend
+requests. You can even maintain private social contact with your closest
+friends and public updates to your hordes of fans - using the same interface.
-A single instance of Mistpark Server supports up to several hundred people
-using commodity hosting hardware. Each of these people can connect with any
-other supported network anywhere in the world and share photos, links,
-status updates, whatever.
+ No other social network offers this ability.
-But maybe you don't want to be connect to the world. That's OK too. Mistpark
-may also be closed off from the global community and used to support
-social networking amongst corporate, educational, religious, and other private
-communities. This makes it an excellent choice for the social networking needs
-of young teenagers. Their network can grow to global scope as their maturity
-increases - and can be made available only to their known friends until then.
-Every person on Mistpark has unlimited profiles available to them. There is a
-"public profile" which can be seen by anybody. Additional profiles may be
-tailored to specific groups or individuals.
+ Join us.
-Groups may be setup for closed conversations. In this way your conversations
-with one group of friends is completely isolated from other friends or groups
-of friends.
+ *******************
+ Friendika Demo Site
+ *******************
-Please see http://mistpark.com for more information.
+ http://demo.friendika.com
-At the present time, you may contact the author and raise issues via
-the source code repository on github.com.
+ *******************
+ Friendika Downloads
+ *******************
-http://github.com/macgirvin/mistpark
+ http://github.com/friendika/friendika/tarball/master
-It's your network now. If social networking isn't what you thought it would
-be, help us to make it better.
-Please support mistpark with a donation.
projects / friendica.git / blobdiff