Google is sunsetting Google+ by August 2019.

Google is sunsetting Google+ by August 2019.
"sunsetting" - clarification: "no fucks were given about current users"

Edit: Sticky while the shock factor stirs duplicate posts.

Will Google make an alternative, or do we need to find an alternative?

Facebook is not an option for me, but there is a nice group of people in the "Delphi Developer" group there, if you can stand the platform and trust Zuck not to give away your info.

The Future? Time will tell. Until then, we remain open for discussion :P
https://www.blog.google/technology/safety-security/project-strobe/

Comments

  1. In FB, no zucks are given about any users.

    The California corps just do as they wish these days, with no regard to side effects. A lesson I'm afraid we need to relearn: Anything free is worth what you pay for it.

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  2. We need an alternative to google+. Google will don't make another failure social network.

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  3. "To give people a full opportunity to transition, we will implement this wind-down over a 10-month period, slated for completion by the end of next August. Over the coming months, we will provide consumers with additional information, including ways they can download and migrate their data."

    Transition and migrate to what?

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  4. Read the article quickly, and found no substance. Basically just a rationale for sunsetting, in the interests of protecting the user data which they have likely already harvested.

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  5. It was a nice platform, while it lasted. Not perfect, but very useful.

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  6. Bill Meyer My favorite flimsey bits: "Our review showed that our Google+ APIs, and the associated controls for consumers, are challenging to develop and maintain"

    Wait, software is hard and users are finicky? Who would ever have believed it!

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  7. Perhaps take a look at Diaspora? It is not as pretty as Google+ but it does allow a good degree of privacy control. I run a pod. Anyone can run a pod and there is plenty of time to start a group going and for the necessary federation to be in place.

    https://diasporafoundation.org/

    It's interesting to note that it is being closed down for consumers. Does that mean that they are considering something corporate that can be subscribed to? I wonder.

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  8. Martyn Spencer There is an "Enterprise" Google+ for their corporate platform.

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  9. You are our only hope, Obi- Vincent Parrett ;)

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  10. It would be well to remember that Google, despite the image they try to create, is a big business, not a charity, nor even a humanitarian organization. They do as they do because it brings profits. And sooner of later, they will cut away what is not profitable. Nothing wrong with that, but imagining it could be otherwise is fantasy.

    In the current case, they have used a "community" to help establish utility, prove concepts, and wring out bugs. That is done, and they have corporate customers who are willing to pay for it now.

    We are no longer needed.

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  11. I guess we'll end up in the Embarcadero forums again.

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  12. Jeroen Wiert Pluimers I've signed up too, but no joy so far.

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  13. Lars Fosdal I tried finding relevant apps: no cigar yet.

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  14. minds.com - Minds supports groups.

    Moving to another site is one thing. Losing all the content here is a big loss.

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  15. SO ANGRY RIGHT NOW. Haven't read other comments. Last thread of trust for Google's "consumer" products is broken.

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  16. Lars Fosdal Discourse is a popular forum platform, but one thing I hate about it is how it does pagination via infinite page scrolling/loading. This happens on the main topic listing page. You have no clue as to how many topics are listed as you scroll, and scroll, and scroll. Funny enough, they do have a mechanism when viewing an individual topic thread to inform you how many replies are in the thread and "where you are" within that thread as you scroll.

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  17. Lars Fosdal thanks for tagging me, I missed this announcement. My vote would be for discourse, as you know we switched our forums to discourse a few weeks back, and are very pleased with the result.
    forums.finalbuilder.com - VSoft Technologies Forums

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  18. FWIW I blogged about my experience with moving to discourse.
    finalbuilder.com - New VSoft Forums

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  19. What about Google Groups? (he said as he puts on his flameproof suit)...

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  20. This are shocking news! I'm also interested where you will move, as I'm looking for alternatives for the Free Pascal / Lazarus community, too.

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  21. For data durability I against any self-hosted forums - most probably they'll be vanished at the end with nothing left. On the other hand, Google Groups might be an option, and alternatively, we can just use the Facebook group, I don't put much personal data there so I'm not very much worried.

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  22. Richard Baroniunas I'm confused, first you say we should all take a step back, nothing happening till 2019, then you say we should all post on your forums?

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  23. Edwin Yip Whilst I do occasionally post on the delphi FB groups, I'm not a fan of FB for user group stuff. It's not a great user experience. I tend to use FB for personal stuff, G+ for work stuff, and I prefer to keep it that way. As for losing data from self hosted forums, it's trivial to take a backup of discourse and stand it up on another machine (that's how I did the migration from our old forums). Any self hosted forums would need to be managed by a community, and not 'owned' by 1 person.

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  24. Forums, IMHO, are not good, it should be something similar to Google+/Facebook, where content is way more visual and user friendly.

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  25. Tommi Prami have you seen discourse? It is much easier to navigate and keep track of multiple topics/discussions than any social media sites.

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  26. Vincent Parrett nope, but I have an feeling it is not traditional forum platform?

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  27. Tommi Prami Not at all a traditional forum. I posted a link to our forums earlier, take a look.

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  28. Vincent Parrett I've tried Delphi FB group, but on FB 2/3 of the screen is filled by unwanted informations, on G+ 3/4 of the screen display messages...that's why I use FB for personnal stuff and G+ for professional ones.
    I don't know where we can meet again, but not on mobilize.io for sure :)

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  29. Just to see what the plus crowd will be doing, I signed up for
    pluspora.com - Lars Fosdal

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  30. I've always preferred Facebook over Google+. Please no forum, the spam is either nightmare for Lars or for me.

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  31. Mike Versteeg - FYI, I am not on Facebook, and I intend for it to stay that way.

    I've self-hosted forums before, and it is not fun. I'd prefer a hosted, managed turnkey solution.

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  32. There is Google Groups, which also has an NNTP interface.

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  33. Lars Fosdal good luck finding anything that has nntp these days.

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  34. Lars Fosdal I know, and that's your choice. I trialled and used all solutions and chose what works best for a community, without (misguided) personal opinions.
    It was fun while it lasted. Thanks for your hard work and good luck with your future plans!

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  35. Lars Fosdal how long before google kill groups or nntp access?

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  36. Vincent Parrett It is far older than G+ (and I suspect it has more users - and spammers).

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  37. Lars Fosdal If you choose a place for us wisely (and do it 1/2 year in advance) then i suspect it will give every body time to adjust and follow you .
    Good luck

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  38. shlomo abuisak Right now, I have no plans and I'm just checking out alternative locations. For communities, minds.com - Minds is interesting - but I am not sure that I like the Etherum connection.

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  39. I never really got into G+, the concept was good but I find the ux horrible. That said it did seem to fit the bill nicely for this kind of group. The FB group is friendly but very focused on one or two primary users, and FB is also an awful ux. I have no useful suggestions for destinations, other than to say discourse is best of the forum software, but it's still a "forum" not "social media" per se. Be interested to know where you guys are going.

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  40. Testing - Minds is prolly the most G+ like #some out there.
    minds.com - Delphi Developers

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  41. Google Buzz, Google Wave, Orkut and now Google+... While I like G+, Google does not know how to manage social networks. It was a mistake to trust them in this matter.

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  42. Lars Fosdal just one question to ask. Who are those companies. And how long will they stay around before they will be sold or vanish.
    Tough to answer i know.

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  43. What about Reddit? Not the best replacement, but it carries a lot of the features G+ has.

    Personally I'm just disappointed in Google: shutting down a still used service and the only larger competition to Facebook. Not to mention the hypocrisy of not disclosing the privacy breach for more than half a year despite their own 90 days rule in project Zero for other companies.

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  44. In androidpit.com - Google+ shuts down after data leak is finally exposed | AndroidPIT it say

    "The service will stay online for enterprise customers and business networks that use Google+ software."

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  45. What dose this mean ? That we can make a google+ Delphi application that we ca all use?

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  46. The Minds and MeWe both look good. We have time to make the final choice.

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  47. FB does not get my vote, but something like WeMe would ! I don't use FB anymore because I am not a product !!

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  48. One important feature I'd look for in a G+ substitute is a mobile (Android) client that easily allows sharing. (But that's for my private use, not necessarily for this forum.)
    And no: Facebook is not an option at all.

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  49. Thomas Mueller Take a look at MeWe - it is very feature rich. Definitively the best option so far.

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  50. Sharing a link from Chrome on Android gives ample control over visibility.
    https://plus.google.com/photos/...

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  51. Thought: How difficult would it be to use WordPress and then some kind of social plugin to create a website just for Delphi Developers ! I for one would contribute !

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  52. Don't forget GDPR if you want to create your own. It's probably a pain in the lower back.

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  53. Tony Danby My site is WordPress and was hacked a few times.
    Unless i had someone maintaining constantly i was in trouble

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  54. shlomo abuisak Yeah there is that ! WP is a hacking nightmare. I have nothing on mine, but still the attempts come !! I have looked at Discourse and it can be hosted on Azure or plenty of other hosting places. So it gets my vote. It looks pretty decent too !

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  55. Tony Danby Azure hosting is far from free. IMO, we would be looking at between $100 and $300 per month, at least.

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  56. Lars Fosdal there are other hosting sites for flat fees of 20 dollars

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  57. Tony Danby Show me one that can handle discourse?

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  58. I just typed "Discourse hosting" into Google.

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  59. 5Gb won't last long, I fear. $40/month is still a significant cost.

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  60. Yeah, but still better than $100 to $300 so far

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  61. Tony Danby True, but I wonder why there were no traffic clause.

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  62. I like shlomo abuisak s idea to invent something and implement it in Delphi. I bet the only thing missing everyone of us is time however...

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  63. Roland Kossow I personally am a reuse or buy before build kind of guy :)

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  64. It's a bit strange to me why nobody mentioned Slack. It's probably mostly used communication tool for software developers.

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  65. Don't know if anyone mentioned (I haven't read the 80+comments) Diaspora already

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  66. Roland Kossow hard to imagine that Delphi would be a good choice!

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  67. Linas Naginionis How would you imagine the mechanics of this community operating on Slack.

    It seems to me that many people are suggesting services that don't actually meet the requirement.

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  68. David Heffernan Well ... not hard to imagine for me. Delphi, SQL, JS, HTML. I would choose Go, but my lifecycle experience with inventions surrounding Google is just too bad. Seriously ... why should Delphi not be suitable for the backend development?

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  69. Typical of google these days. You basically can’t invest time into their products and services because abandon them too often. Same can be said for facebook’s acquisitions.

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  70. I think the fundamental problem with relying on any social media platform is no matter what they say now, you have zero control over what happens in the future, be that privacy issues or just the shutdown of the platform. I won't be signing up to any other social media platforms.

    Forums imho are just a better vehicle for a user group, where the primary uses are :
    a) Ask and Answer Questions
    b) Discuss the product (delphi etc)
    c) Share product info, links to open source projects etc.

    What I won't miss from G+ (or any other social media), is people posting memes, cat videos etc

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  71. There are Delphi forums here if anyone wants to start to use them. Indy and other things are the same place.

    atozed.com - Atozed Forums - Delphi

    We can get a separate domain name if needed, or even use the Delphi Third Party Alliance domain that already exists from a group of vendors.

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  72. I may have skipped some comments and I am not sure if you have already mentioned it but there is www.xenforo.com! Xenforo is a professional forum software that is very widely used (do a quick check in google), it would be a good option
    xenforo.com - XenForo.com

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  73. Looks like MeWe is getting (personal?) public posting in November. That can make your posts searchable, if you want them to.

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  74. The owner of the German Delphi Praxis community board (www.delphipraxis.net) is thinking about adding an English board (separate but similar). Since Delphi Praxis has been in existence a long time this might be a better option than somebody without much experience starting a new board.

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  75. Thomas Mueller I think that delphipraxis probably would be the best home we could hope for!

    It is well established, well managed, and the more people that use it, the better!

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  76. On a personal level, I really like MeWe - and it is a decent substitute for G+ for self publishing, but it leaves much to be desired when it comes to creating a focused forum for devs.

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  77. Thomas Mueller that's cool! Any URL to that? Does Delphi Praxis allow RSS for notification?

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  78. Thomas Mueller like the mastodon idea

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  79. Jeroen Wiert Pluimers
    delphipraxis.net - Gibt es eine internationale/englische Delphi "Community"? - Seite 3 - Delphi-PRAXiS
    here is the thread. And yes, if I remember correctly, there is RSS notification. But I don't remember the link for that.

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  80. Maybe I am too optimistic, but Embarcadero is currently in the process of overhauling their Community Portal. If all goes well...

    community.embarcadero.com - General Manager Update for September 2018

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  81. Thomas Mueller https://www.delphipraxis.net/external.php?type=RSS2

    Personally, I am impressed by the efficiency of the mORMot forum https://synopse.info/forum/index.php , it is always available and is very fast. Why not ask A. Bouchez to create a separate group for us? :-)

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  82. Dalija Prasnikar Embarcadero have this great history of keeping infrastructure up and running for a long time, haven't they? embarcaderomonitoring.wiert.me - {{ }} Subscribe Subscribe to this page Get notified about ...

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  83. Jeroen Wiert Pluimers I said I am maybe too optimistic ;)

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  84. Dalija Prasnikar It would be great if EMBT came up with something good, but I am not overly optimistic.

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  85. BTW, found out that MeWe actually has code formatting - but it is currently broken.

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  86. T n T This is true for the moment - an english-speaking installation will be based on another technical background and will provide a mobile interface.

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  87. Daniel Wolf one of the really cool things about DelphiPraxis is the uptime and history. Thank you for that!

    Heck even the very first forum post is still there: delphipraxis.net - Delphi Dialog minimiert sich nicht - Delphi-PRAXiS

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  88. Lars Fosdal At $3.99/month/user, that's a pricey solution. 9.842 * $3.99 = $39,269.58!!!

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  89. Bill Meyer I would probably be willing to pay $40/year for access to a spam free set of communities, but many would not.

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  90. Lars Fosdal I was thinking that although there are 9.8K members here, we could reasonably expect far fewer with a $40 per annum fee.

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  91. Mastodon, Reddit, XenForo, and Delphi Praxis (which runs vBulletin) are all good solutions.

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  92. Eli M Mastodon is horrific. A tweet deck clone.

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  93. Lars Fosdal Maybe but the ActivityPub federation feels attractive. Though why that is any better than NNTP nobody knows.

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  94. Lars Fosdal I've tried to register on MeWe two days ago, but the confirmation email doesn't reach me (tried to resend several times). Not a good first impression.

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  95. Achim Kalwa Another plusser waited three days to get in. Huge growth over there.

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  96. Achim Kalwa they have a throttle on new users, likely to they can handle growth for instance by better knowing how fast to scale.

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  97. Eli M I think Reddit would be good choice. If you stay away from the political stuff, Reddit can be a really good community.

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  98. Just signed up to Reddit for another group. It seems fine ?

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  99. Lars Fosdal now lets keep fingers crossed to see if ever they are making public really public.

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  100. Achim Kalwa Just singed up now, and got confirmation email immediately.

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  101. Lars Fosdal , MeWe looking good on desktop browser, but horrible on mobile :-/.

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  102. Work in progress, and definitively room for improvement. Send feedback!

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  103. Mohammed Nasman still got no confirmation email. Unfortunately the website does not contain any contact information, so I can't rattle the cage.

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  104. Микола Петрівський It is a replacement for G+. However, there may be another option on the horizon - but it is not ready yet (a forum, not a social media site). Since the spam scourge on G+ seems to becoming worse, MeWe is our place to flee to if necessary.

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  105. Lars Fosdal Success; but only by re-registering. My first registration never completes because I did not receive any confirmation emails. Possible because it was .

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  106. Achim Kalwa no, MeWe accepts mewe@... just fine.

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  107. ahmed altayib ahmed I second Reddit. No reason to re-invent the wheel, plus it would give Delphi higher visibility to the world.

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