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Ask HN: Do you think we'll see any Twitter/Facebook real-competitor?

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Re: Ask HN: Do you think we'll see any Twitter/Facebook real-competitor?

#31

Post by henriquea »

onion2k wrote: post #19

For a company to replace Facebook (or even scale to a point where they're a legitimate competitor) they would have to turn down offers from Facebook/MSFT/Apple/etc to buy them. If Facebook buys then they just stop being a competitor and become part of Facebook. If anyone else buys then they're unlikely to want to go up against Facebook consider Facebook's marketing power. That alone makes it highly unlikely. There is…

Good point! Feels like a lot of products start having the "quick exit" mindset, only a few are trying to build a product that last.

Re: Ask HN: Do you think we'll see any Twitter/Facebook real-competitor?

#32

Post by reitanqild »

jeletonskelly wrote: post #2

I think you already see that younger generations don't prefer (or simply don't at all) using those social apps. Instead they use several social apps for specific things: snapchat for pics/text, whatsapp for text, vine for video, tinder/grinder for dating, instagram for social and pics, and more that I'm probably just not aware of because I'm 30. I think you're less likely to see a replacement and more likely to see t…

We moved both my extended families to u .

That has been working extremely well. The only thing that I miss os the opportunity to go back to arbitrary points in time like I could on the old blog.

I find "social" in social network is a form of social that I am mostly not comfortable with.

Re: Ask HN: Do you think we'll see any Twitter/Facebook real-competitor?

#33

Post by Smirnoff »

I foresee Google being replaced by something else. As a search engine Google has been stagnant for a while.

I still cannot black- or whitelist websites that I want or don't want to show up in my results. Really, I want to control what I see!!!

When another search engine gives me the flexibility to control my results, I'll jump ship. But currently even with annoying results that I don't want to ever see again, google's results are still better than anything else.[1]

[1]- Although yandex is definitely better for search results in Russian.

Re: Ask HN: Do you think we'll see any Twitter/Facebook real-competitor?

#34

Post by nathankleyn »

onion2k wrote: post #19

For a company to replace Facebook (or even scale to a point where they're a legitimate competitor) they would have to turn down offers from Facebook/MSFT/Apple/etc to buy them. If Facebook buys then they just stop being a competitor and become part of Facebook. If anyone else buys then they're unlikely to want to go up against Facebook consider Facebook's marketing power. That alone makes it highly unlikely. There is…

I wonder if we'll see a fresh approach here with the new Alphabet organisational structure. Perhaps Google's finally structured in such a way to let such a company be separate from the rest of the products.

Re: Ask HN: Do you think we'll see any Twitter/Facebook real-competitor?

#35

Post by ebbv »

arethuza wrote: post #25
ebbv wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AOL is definitely the best comparison. AOL had a 10 year run of dominance much like Facebook has had. But we're already in a world where kids today see Facebook as something for their parents. And I know more and more people who (like myself) deleted their Facebook account years ago and don't miss it. Facebook is headed toward irrelevance. It will probably always hang on like AOL and Yahoo still do. But it won't be t…

I think Facebook is heading for the same kind of "irrelevance" as Microsoft or IBM. Which is to say that they are irrelevant to a lot of people, particularly "early adopters", but they'll be around and profitable for a long time.

Microsoft completely dominating the PC software industry for nearly 30 years, reaping insane profits for that entire time. In some ways they still do dominate it, certainly in terms of productivity software and business email.

Similarly, IBM was computers for 30 years.

Comparing them to simply the most popular social website for the past 10 years is not really fair. The fact that Facebooks value approaches those other two companies only shows how insane the current bubble is.

Re: Ask HN: Do you think we'll see any Twitter/Facebook real-competitor?

#36

Post by abalos »

anujdeshpande wrote: post #16

Reddit is making a lot of policy changes to bring in more users.

They might end up with more users, but I've noticed that the content on Reddit is consistently declining in quality. Kind of worrying to me. Smaller subreddits might be enough to save the site though.

Re: Ask HN: Do you think we'll see any Twitter/Facebook real-competitor?

#37

Post by rdancer »

Smirnoff wrote: post #33

I foresee Google being replaced by something else. As a search engine Google has been stagnant for a while. I still cannot black- or whitelist websites that I want or don't want to show up in my results. Really, I want to control what I see!!! When another search engine gives me the flexibility to control my results, I'll jump ship. But currently even with annoying results that I don't want to ever see again, google'…

That's what browser extensions are for. Google has had blacklisting for a spell (last year?), and whitelisting, but IMO it failed to pass the 80/20 threshold.

Re: Ask HN: Do you think we'll see any Twitter/Facebook real-competitor?

#38

Post by saberduck »

crazypyro wrote: post #20
spoiledtechie wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use the book of faces specifically for keeping in touch with family from a distance. I think it will be the same for kids when they grow up. They move away and they will join facebook.

Facebook is still used heavily by younger people, especially in their 20's and late teens. I see Twitter falling a lot harder in popularity than Facebook. At the end of the day, "everyone" has a facebook. Most of my friends don't have a twitter and only use it when linked to it from Reddit or some other site. Twitter does seem to be gaining in the international recognition, probably still residual effect stemming fro…

Twitter is for me unique that it is used a lot by opensource developers and more broadly IT envagelists/figures. It's a goto resource for news related to frameworks, dev conferences,... LinkedIn aspires also in this area, but it's not relevant yet.

Re: Ask HN: Do you think we'll see any Twitter/Facebook real-competitor?

#39

Post by Beltiras »

Yes, that is inevitable. Growth is slowing down for FB and the platform has grown to the size where it can't pivot hard. Any new player in the marketplace simply has to reject FBs success and present a wholly different way of interacting, free of the all-inclusive strategy employed by FB.

One thing we are seeing a bit and may see more of is microplatforms. They will focus on specific interactions instead of the generic type FB goes for (thinking bangwithfriends (some would even say Tinder is this type of SN), sector-specific Linkedin, regional social networks).

FB will be around for a long long while thou. It was a twist of genius implementing federated logins, in effect becoming your passport to the internet.

Re: Ask HN: Do you think we'll see any Twitter/Facebook real-competitor?

#40

Post by eloisant »

jballanc wrote: post #11

When AOL first entered the market, you could only send E-Mail to other AOL users. Eventually, faced with the potential of users leaving their platform for more interoperable (if less full-featured) alternatives, AOL relented and made their email system a proper, standards-based utility. Now, granted that scenario is not a great example as email existed as a standard long before AOL came into existence, but I do think…

Unfortunately, if we take instant messaging as an other example, the expected opening never happened in the 20 years that followed ICQ launch.

We've have multiple proprietary competitors, an open standard (XMPP), Google even embraced IM federation at some point but removed it later.

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