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The sad truth about Facebook

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Re: The sad truth about Facebook

#81

Post by rbanffy »

It's kind of amusing to watch the ad-hominem arguments take flight.

While it's true Daniel Lyons is Fake Steve Jobs and that Nathan Myhrvold runs a company focused on thinking up ideas that could lead to products after some research and patent them before spending a dime making any real progress beyond writing them down, while at the same time extorting those who do, the argument against companies like Facebook or Zynga stand: what are they doing to improve the human condition? Are they doing more or less than companies like HP, Intel, Cisco, Apple and Google?

Re: The sad truth about Facebook

#82

Post by rbanffy »

mechanical_fish wrote: post #56

This article is full of it, but for more reasons than have been articulated so far. One problem is that the article mistakes light for heat. Just because they get less press than Facebook doesn't mean that old-school high-tech engineering startups don't exist. Facebook et al are focused like a laser on getting their names out. That is what social networking is : word-of-mouth viral publicity. Whereas most hardware st…

> If the USA is not investing enough resources in "alternative energy, better batteries, and nanotechnology"

It's not the government's primary job to fund innovation. What we are seeing is that innovation is unable to sustain itself without government money.

There is a marketplace for alternative energy, better batteries and nanotechnology. This reminds me of AI. AI is all around us, yet, we don't call it AI anymore except for marketing purposes. So will AE, batteries and nanotech.

Re: The sad truth about Facebook

#83

Post by rahooligan »

nkohari wrote: post #57
rahooligan wrote: post #22

I think Twitter has immense value. And I would be happy to see it go public and achieve $billions in market cap. Cant say the same thing about facebook or zynga. sometimes i feel like facebook is that waste-of-my-time show that i get pulled into when i switch on my tv. it sucks up time from my life i will never get back.

Twitter has a strong impact on our culture, but without a rational business model, and several quarters of profitable growth, an IPO will never happen. I certainly wouldn't buy stock in a company which doesn't know how to make money, no matter how impactful their product is.

my bet is twitter will figure out monetization. im sure they have something in the works. look at ad.ly for instance - instream advertising. they seem to be doing well.

Re: The sad truth about Facebook

#84

Post by rahooligan »

zaidf wrote: post #37
rahooligan wrote: post #22

I think Twitter has immense value. And I would be happy to see it go public and achieve $billions in market cap. Cant say the same thing about facebook or zynga. sometimes i feel like facebook is that waste-of-my-time show that i get pulled into when i switch on my tv. it sucks up time from my life i will never get back.

it sucks up time from my life i will never get back. You could be talking about the entertainment industry. They seem to be doing ok in the market.

yeah they do very well. check out http://www.americaisretarded.com/. it is possible to make money without generating much value (like 'the situation' from jersey shore). facebook has a big market cap but imo it doesnt have much value.

Re: The sad truth about Facebook

#85

Post by ellyagg »

jacquesm wrote: post #70
mechanical_fish wrote: post #56

This article is full of it, but for more reasons than have been articulated so far. One problem is that the article mistakes light for heat. Just because they get less press than Facebook doesn't mean that old-school high-tech engineering startups don't exist. Facebook et al are focused like a laser on getting their names out. That is what social networking is : word-of-mouth viral publicity. Whereas most hardware st…

Would the person that thought this fit for downmodding please explain why?

Well, one reason could be suggesting that government spending is the necessary ingredient for innovation, which is faintly preposterous. The government spends a huge proportion of the economy's earned wealth, so, yes, it's going to be involved in a lot of innovation. There are no controlled studies showing that as much or more innovation would not have happened regardless. Moreover, innovation is proceeding apace even thought some folks seem to think the government isn't spending enough.

Re: The sad truth about Facebook

#86

Post by WalterBright »

mechanical_fish wrote: post #56

This article is full of it, but for more reasons than have been articulated so far. One problem is that the article mistakes light for heat. Just because they get less press than Facebook doesn't mean that old-school high-tech engineering startups don't exist. Facebook et al are focused like a laser on getting their names out. That is what social networking is : word-of-mouth viral publicity. Whereas most hardware st…

Both the US and German rocket programs were started by privately funded researchers. The governments only got interested when they saw working equipment.

The same was true of jet engine. Neither the German nor British governments had the slightest interest in it until they were shown flying jet powered aircraft. The US government specifically told Lockheed to stop work on jet engines and concentrate on war production.

A number of privately developed computer networks existed before the internet. Heck, anyone with two computers tried to connect them together.

Re: The sad truth about Facebook

#87

Post by mlinsey »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #58

Two things. One positive and one negative. Positive. The author understands the gist of what's going on. Places like YC focus on Minimum Viable Product and doing just one thing that people want. These are great and wise strategies for both investors and entrepreneurs, but there's also another term for it that's not as flattering: bottom-feeding. Going after the little bits of value here and there, not being a hunter,…

What constitutes a minimum viable product depends on the space. You still have a MVP even if you are in an ambitious space and building something with deep technology. Clustrix is a YC company and I assume they don't qualify as a bottom-feeder.

Re: The sad truth about Facebook

#88

Post by poet »

rbanffy wrote: post #82
mechanical_fish wrote: post #56

This article is full of it, but for more reasons than have been articulated so far. One problem is that the article mistakes light for heat. Just because they get less press than Facebook doesn't mean that old-school high-tech engineering startups don't exist. Facebook et al are focused like a laser on getting their names out. That is what social networking is : word-of-mouth viral publicity. Whereas most hardware st…

> If the USA is not investing enough resources in "alternative energy, better batteries, and nanotechnology" It's not the government's primary job to fund innovation. What we are seeing is that innovation is unable to sustain itself without government money. There is a marketplace for alternative energy, better batteries and nanotechnology. This reminds me of AI. AI is all around us, yet, we don't call it AI anymore…

It's not the government's primary job to fund innovation. What we are seeing is that innovation is unable to sustain itself without government money.

You've got this backwards. It is specifically the government's job to fund innovation is currently is commercially untenable. Otherwise, who else would do it? Often times after the government's grant expires, the innovation is still commercially untenable. This makes sense because the research is exclusively targeting projects whose commercial viability is unclear. But other times we get things like the Internet, GPS, etc.

Now we can have a long and interesting discussion about specifies; i.e., whether said research is worth it in the long run, how soon should certain technologies be cut off, etc. But the fact that the government is funding technology that isn't able to sustain itself without government money is not a negative thing; that's exactly what the government is meant to do.

Re: The sad truth about Facebook

#89

Post by gaius »

mr_luc wrote: post #51

Not only is the author a troll -- as pointed out, he runs the Fake Steve Jobs blog -- his primary source, Nathan Myhyrvhvhlodold, is a troll. Let me clarify: Nathan might be a genius, but he's a genius whose words we can't ever risk taking seriously because of the raging conflicts of interest that imbue his every interaction with the press or social media. His company: > "Intellectual Ventures is a private company cl…

But you can't patent an idea - you have to have an implementation!

Srsly - you have fundamentally misunderstood what a patent is. If it's "a method for mangling widgets" then you have to have built a real, working widget mangler too, and include the blueprints in the patent application.

Re: The sad truth about Facebook

#90

Post by anigbrowl »

dillydally wrote: post #47
anigbrowl wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter...invented an entirely new communications protocol Um... Zynga...bigger economy than many developing nations Possibly true. I admire the business acumen of both firms and think they have scaled their services quite effectively. But how productive are they? I mean, I remember seeing stockbrokers and lawyers standing in line at 8am to buy limited edition Beanie Babies because they were considered a smart invest…

How "productive" was Electronic Arts? It's from the same class as Adobe, etc. Computers aren't just for spreadsheets.

"We're boring people to death and making games that are harder and harder to play. For the most part, the industry has been rinse-and-repeat. There's been lots of product that looked like last year's product, that looked a lot like the year before."

- EA CEO John Ritticello, 2009 http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=26508

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