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Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users

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Re: Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users

#191

Post by rdslw »

1812Overture wrote: post #157
diabeetusman wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

World Cup 2014 probably beats July 20, 1969 as far as pure viewership numbers go Edit: 600 million watched the moon landing [1], 3.2 billion watched the World Cup [2] [1]: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/5852237/Apollo... [2]: http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/news/y=2015/m=12/news=2014-fifa...

Amazing to me that 3.2 billion people could be watching the same thing at once while I have no awareness at all that it's happening.

Let me rephrase it: amazingly there is (at least) 3.2 billion people having no awareness of you ;)

Re: Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users

#192

Post by racl101 »

labster wrote: post #165
simonswords82 wrote: post #159

As insane as this number is, and it really is an incredible achievement, I'm left feeling Facebook hasn't delivered much real net positive value to the world just yet. Politics are in disarray. More people are "connected" online but more people than ever feel isolated in some way and mental health issues are on the rise. Highlight reels of your friends living a seemingly amazing life leave people feeling like they've…

I assume the point is Mark Zuckerburg's three cubic acres of money.

That's exactly what I was thinking.

And you know what? That's good enough. Money and power. Pretty much sums up why most big companies exist.

The part about making the world a better place I'm sure it's on their: "a nice to have" pile.

Re: Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users

#193

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

coldtea wrote: post #79
loeg wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook is a platform. They don't do a lot of attempting to influence, as far as I can tell. Consider Google as well, which probably reaches even more of the world's population. Or Microsoft. Apple might be getting close, too. Or plenty of non-tech companies, as the sibling commenter points out. Coke, Samsung, Frito-Lay, etc.

> Facebook is a platform. They don't do a lot of attempting to influence, as far as I can tell. It's a platform that has algorithms to pick what news 1/4th of the world reads. And who has access to the personal data of 1/4 of the world. > Consider Google as well, which probably reaches even more of the world's population. Or Microsoft. Apple might be getting close, too. Yes, but Apple just makes devices. Their Cloud…

Microsoft has Bing, though they're obviously less influential than Google there.

Re: Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users

#194

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #139
ProfessorLayton wrote: post #32

It is both amazing and deeply concerning that one corporation has influence over 1/4 of the world's population. It is even more concerning when you consider the outsized voting power of 1 person at that company.

I think it is an overreach to go from 'access to' to 'influence over'. Facebook has access to 1/4 of the worlds population but having access does not imply influence. Only that you can reach them. It is remarkable that one corporation owns the infrastructure on which 1/4 of the world's population communicates. That makes it an exceptionally good platform for surveillance because even people who are good at keeping th…

> I think it is an overreach to go from 'access to' to 'influence over'

Facebook is a lot of people's primary source of news or even communication.

Humans are a social species and massively influenced by what they hear from others.

Re: Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users

#195

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

axaxs wrote: post #148

So, not to discredit this number, but here are some things to consider - 1 - Bots. Lots of bots. 2 - Multiple accounts. I've seen people with as many as 4 accounts, used for different purposes(friend groups). 3 - 'Facebook is the internet'. Facebook is free(ie not charged as data usage), and therefore, 'the internet', in many poor nations. I'm not actually sure if this is Facebook's doing, a carrier agreement, etc, b…

> I'm not actually sure if this is Facebook's doing, a carrier agreement, etc

This is absolutely in part Facebook's doing. They've struck numerous deals.

Re: Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users

#196

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

yoran wrote: post #152

Dangerously approaching 2,147,483,647. Let's hope their user ID's are not 32-bit integers :-)

If they're using auto-incrementing IDs, they will have broke past that number some time ago. 2bn is monthly active users, which implies there's many dead or inactive accounts.

Re: Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users

#197

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

lucb1e wrote: post #173
yoran wrote: post #152

Dangerously approaching 2,147,483,647. Let's hope their user ID's are not 32-bit integers :-)

PHP uses 64-bit integers on 64-bit systems. Of course they have some compiled variant of PHP which might do anything...

They scrapped the compiling to C++ part long ago, HipHop is now HHVM.

Re: Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users

#198

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

netaddict wrote: post #112
samstave wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please share all your FB entries to block

127.0.0.1 facebook.com 127.0.0.1 www.facebook.com 127.0.0.1 static.ak.fbcdn.net 127.0.0.1 www.static.ak.fbcdn.net 127.0.0.1 login.facebook.com 127.0.0.1 www.login.facebook.com 127.0.0.1 fbcdn.net 127.0.0.1 www.fbcdn.net 127.0.0.1 fbcdn.com 127.0.0.1 www.fbcdn.com 127.0.0.1 static.ak.connect.facebook.com 127.0.0.1 www.static.ak.connect.facebook.com

0.0.0.0 is a better target than localhost, because it means the connection fails immediately rather than possibly timing out, and it won't accidentally succeed if you're running a local server.

The IPv6 variant (two colons, ::) is shorter still.

Re: Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users

#199

Post by deevolution »

simonswords82 wrote: post #159

As insane as this number is, and it really is an incredible achievement, I'm left feeling Facebook hasn't delivered much real net positive value to the world just yet. Politics are in disarray. More people are "connected" online but more people than ever feel isolated in some way and mental health issues are on the rise. Highlight reels of your friends living a seemingly amazing life leave people feeling like they've…

I dont know about society as a whole, but it certainly improves the lives of those who work for facebook.

Re: Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users

#200

Post by Theodores »

twsted wrote: post #102

Tragic. Every new user is a potential loss for the open web.

Precisely. Facebook is a black hole, nothing comes out of it and onto the wider web. We are all familiar with people moaning about articles being posted on HN from paywalled sites, but when was the last time you saw an article on HN that originated on Facebook? (With people moaning about it).

Sometimes you will get a Facebook 'tech' story posted, e.g. that compiled PHP thing they did or how 'fake news' is to be dealt with, but these stories - if they make it to HN - will be Facebook's own pages, not Facebook user 'pages'.

I don't know why this is, Twitter stories make it into 'journalism' all the time, Facebook? Never!

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