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Facebook Now Allows You To “Download Your Information”

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Re: Facebook Now Allows You To “Download Your Information”

#11

Post by avar »

frisco wrote: post #7

People seem to be intepreting this as "OMG now we can build a new social network and convert users easily!" Users still aren't going to leave Facebook. Facebook realizes this, which is why they can do this now. Your mother's cousin is on Facebook. She won't be on Diaspora or (X). That said, this is pretty cool for its own reasons. Like waterlesscloud said, it looks like they "want to be the source of all social inter…

They might leave Facebook if something comes along that's much better, and importing your data is one click away.

The biggest advantage Facebook has is that it has your data, being able to export it changes the game.

Re: Facebook Now Allows You To “Download Your Information”

#14

Post by mechanical_fish »

jmathai wrote: post #2

I'm curious what exactly this means. Are they going to be exposing this via the graph API so that the data can be programatically used to port from one network to another? If not then I don't really see the value of this except for marketing and goodwill. If they do expose it via the graph API then that truly is a big deal :).

I don't really see the value of this except for marketing and goodwill.

Don't underestimate the power of marketing and goodwill.

More specifically: This feature may make it really hard to sell the average Facebook user on the value of a "more open" system. It will appear to solve 80% of the problem and the other 20% is hard for nonprogrammers to understand.

GEEK: "Come use our Facebook alternative! It's open, and all your data belongs to you!"

USER: "But Facebook is a platform for sending stuff to my friends. It's for things I want to share, not things I want to keep for myself."

GEEK: "But what if Facebook crashes and all your data is lost? Or what if you want to get all those photos back out of Facebook and stuff them into your new photo frame, or something?"

USER: "No problem, I'll use Facebook's download feature. In fact, I stuffed a downloaded copy into Dropbox just last week. [1]"

GEEK: "But Facebook's download feature doesn't include social graph metadata, so you can never put the links all back together again."

USER: "Wait, what did you just say? It sounded like TECH TECH TECH TECH to me."

I'm guessing that, no matter what this feature really is, it will probably accomplish my real-life use case: "My wife uploaded all her photos to Facebook and now I want them back." That's a nice win.

---

[1] Note that I posited a really sophisticated Facebook user who understands the value of periodic offsite backups. Because even that user probably doesn't know what a "social graph" is.

Re: Facebook Now Allows You To “Download Your Information”

#16

Post by zipdog »

frisco wrote: post #7

People seem to be intepreting this as "OMG now we can build a new social network and convert users easily!" Users still aren't going to leave Facebook. Facebook realizes this, which is why they can do this now. Your mother's cousin is on Facebook. She won't be on Diaspora or (X). That said, this is pretty cool for its own reasons. Like waterlesscloud said, it looks like they "want to be the source of all social inter…

This is what I was thinking. FB has reached the marketshare where it's fairly safe for them to relax the control they hold, because even if a variety of open rivals appear, using the data that FB releases, FB will still be the centre of the action.

Alternatively, there may be a parallel to IBM giving away the PC specs, inadvertently pushing the monopoly down to the OS and weakening their market position (though creating a tech boon for everyone that made the market so much bigger).

Re: Facebook Now Allows You To “Download Your Information”

#17

Post by [deleted] »

avar wrote: post #11
frisco wrote: post #7

People seem to be intepreting this as "OMG now we can build a new social network and convert users easily!" Users still aren't going to leave Facebook. Facebook realizes this, which is why they can do this now. Your mother's cousin is on Facebook. She won't be on Diaspora or (X). That said, this is pretty cool for its own reasons. Like waterlesscloud said, it looks like they "want to be the source of all social inter…

They might leave Facebook if something comes along that's much better, and importing your data is one click away. The biggest advantage Facebook has is that it has your data, being able to export it changes the game.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook Now Allows You To “Download Your Information”

#19

Post by ugh »

avar wrote: post #11
frisco wrote: post #7

People seem to be intepreting this as "OMG now we can build a new social network and convert users easily!" Users still aren't going to leave Facebook. Facebook realizes this, which is why they can do this now. Your mother's cousin is on Facebook. She won't be on Diaspora or (X). That said, this is pretty cool for its own reasons. Like waterlesscloud said, it looks like they "want to be the source of all social inter…

They might leave Facebook if something comes along that's much better, and importing your data is one click away. The biggest advantage Facebook has is that it has your data, being able to export it changes the game.

You’ve got it backwards.

The biggest advantage Facebook has is that 500 million people have an account. Facebook would be utterly useless if nobody was using it. Network effects make Facebook hard to beat, not your data. They need your data only to make money but they get your data because you and your mom and everyone else have an account.

Re: Facebook Now Allows You To “Download Your Information”

#20

Post by Jun8 »

frisco wrote: post #7

People seem to be intepreting this as "OMG now we can build a new social network and convert users easily!" Users still aren't going to leave Facebook. Facebook realizes this, which is why they can do this now. Your mother's cousin is on Facebook. She won't be on Diaspora or (X). That said, this is pretty cool for its own reasons. Like waterlesscloud said, it looks like they "want to be the source of all social inter…

frisco, very well put! "Wind makes a small fire expire but makes a large one bigger", as you state, I guess FB now feels they're pretty much invincible in their user stickiness, so they don't feel threatened. In fact, as people build other services off this data, they'll have even more visibility (if that's possible).
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