Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Facebook hype will fade

cnn.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 126 posts

Re: Facebook hype will fade

#31

Post by michaelchisari »

glhaynes wrote: post #27
michaelchisari wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is my Appleseed friends list: http://developer.appleseedproject.org/profile/michael.chisar... Keep in mind, this is beta software in active development, so you'll notice a few bugs here and there (and the live server is missing a major update I'm running locally).

Thanks! I'm interested specifically in the day-to-day usage: the situations of signing up, finding/adding my friends, posting statuses, reading and commenting on other peoples', sharing media like photos, etc etc. So to start with a simple one: how does one add somebody else? Can you just search by name? I'm just having a bit of difficulty imagining how that sort of thing would work well in a truly distributed, feder…

If you'd like, you can get an Appleseed invite. Send an email to invite@appleseedproject.org and I'll send you one back right away (this is open to anyone, by the way). You can sign up for the main beta test site (currently around 500 users).

Searching is being worked on, that's coming in the next update, but yes, you just search by name (or other attributes). Distributed search is difficult, but only on the backend, on the frontend, it's similar to what you're used to. Only caveat is that it is not exactly real-time, and is more like a P2P search than a google search.

Once you find someone you're looking for, you identify yourself to their site by remotely logging in. This is as simple as giving your ID, which looks like an email address (username@domain). Then you click "Add as friend", and they're sent a friend request. When they approve it, you are mutual friends.

You can post stuff to your "page" (what appleseed calls your wall), and an update will be sent to your friends list. You upload a photo, and an update shows up in your friends lists newsfeeds. They click on the thumbnail and it takes them to your photo album on your home node, etc.

Some other distributed social networking sites are breaking from convention in a lot of ways, but Appleseed's goal is to try and make it work as much like the current systems people are used to as possible. Certain growing pains are inevitable, but so far it's pretty similar after the first couple minutes.

Re: Facebook hype will fade

#32

Post by wyclif »

michaelchisari wrote: post #17
glhaynes wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It continues to be hard for me to envision what that would really look like in practice. I don't mean from a network typology standpoint; I mean how would it look in my browser?

Here is my Appleseed friends list: http://developer.appleseedproject.org/profile/michael.chisar... Keep in mind, this is beta software in active development, so you'll notice a few bugs here and there (and the live server is missing a major update I'm running locally).

I'm glad to see that it's under the GNU license, are there invites?

Re: Facebook hype will fade

#33

Post by kin »

lotusleaf1987 wrote: post #16
klochner wrote: post #5

facebook growth went something like this: college --> high school --> young adults --> everyone Trendy stuff generally follows the same cascade, more or less, where you don't see college students emulating the dress habits of the elderly. facebook's biggest potential for failure is in not capturing the next generation of young users. The young users pick up some other social network, everyone else follows suit, and f…

I got my Facebook account in 2005 when I was a college freshman. At first it was amazing, then they opened it up to high schoolers which was okay, but not really what I wanted from Facebook. Then they added things like the Friend Feed which bombarded you with "Your friend [name you know] just added [someone you don't know or care about}." Which was okay, but then they opened the gates and suddenly all your coworkers…

I have the exact same feeling about Facebook. I was appalled when they originally let high school students into the gates. The exclusivity was what made it so cool to be a part of. However, I never felt that it has become less useful, it just took a second to adapt to the new environment that it periodically throws at you. Perhaps if you do the same (take advantage of group privacy settings) you can weed out the junk and use it as it used to be?

Re: Facebook hype will fade

#34

Post by cookiecaper »

kprobst wrote: post #29

"We will move on, just as we did from the chat rooms of AOL, without even looking back. When the place is as ethereal as a website, our allegiance is much more abstract than it is to a local pub or gym." I disagree with this, simply because grandma wasn't on any AOL chat rooms, but she _is_ on Facebook. The only reason I'm on FB is because Aunt Tilly and Uncle Bob and grandma are also on there, and I can connect with…

This isn't really unique to Facebook. It's called lock-in and it's the desire of every service provider and software maker; they want you to be held hostage to their network, so that even if you want to leave, you can't without potentially serious ramifications (like losing contact with your grandma, or losing access to your documents).

Facebook has reached a level that had never been reached by any social network before it. Did your grandma use MySpace or LiveJournal? Once something crosses the threshold of youth and tech-savvy and "regular people" or even old people start using it, you have a much less transient userbase. Look at Microsoft -- the young and tech-savvy are happy to use Apple products over MS, but MS is king and will remain king at least until anyone born before 1975 is well into retirement. Once these things reach a certain level, they become generational standards, and then only minimal effort is needed on the part of the vendor.

I know old people that still use AOL. Most old people never would have left AOL in the first place if they'd come up with something sensible for broadband. Perhaps Facebook will come upon a stumbling block that's similarly fatal, but I wouldn't necessarily expect that, at least not within a reasonable timeframe.

Re: Facebook hype will fade

#35

Post by glhaynes »

michaelchisari wrote: post #31
glhaynes wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! I'm interested specifically in the day-to-day usage: the situations of signing up, finding/adding my friends, posting statuses, reading and commenting on other peoples', sharing media like photos, etc etc. So to start with a simple one: how does one add somebody else? Can you just search by name? I'm just having a bit of difficulty imagining how that sort of thing would work well in a truly distributed, feder…

If you'd like, you can get an Appleseed invite. Send an email to invite@appleseedproject.org and I'll send you one back right away (this is open to anyone, by the way). You can sign up for the main beta test site (currently around 500 users). Searching is being worked on, that's coming in the next update, but yes, you just search by name (or other attributes). Distributed search is difficult, but only on the backend,…

Perfect, thanks! I wish you guys luck.

Re: Facebook hype will fade

#36

Post by michaelchisari »

wyclif wrote: post #32
michaelchisari wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is my Appleseed friends list: http://developer.appleseedproject.org/profile/michael.chisar... Keep in mind, this is beta software in active development, so you'll notice a few bugs here and there (and the live server is missing a major update I'm running locally).

I'm glad to see that it's under the GNU license, are there invites?

Send an email to invite@appleseedproject.org and I'll send you an invite.

Re: Facebook hype will fade

#37

Post by kin »

lotusleaf1987 wrote: post #19
zinssmeister wrote: post #14

I see so many people compare facebook to (late '90s) AOL these days. But the two never had much in common with each other. I think if facebook continues to bring out innovative ways/products/features that connect people with each other it will continue to be successful. Will it one day fade away? Probably. As do most huge dotcoms. But some even stay relevant for well over a decade (ebay, match, expedia, google). Most…

Your profile and buddy list on AOL were probably pretty similar to your Facebook friends. I think they have a lot in common.

Originally, but AOL never expanded on it. A profile was like a text box and that's it. As for AIM, everyone I know that used to use it still do. I don't think that's changed very much other than that people now use web based clients to chat on AIM.

Re: Facebook hype will fade

#38

Post by d2viant »

lotusleaf1987 wrote: post #16
klochner wrote: post #5

facebook growth went something like this: college --> high school --> young adults --> everyone Trendy stuff generally follows the same cascade, more or less, where you don't see college students emulating the dress habits of the elderly. facebook's biggest potential for failure is in not capturing the next generation of young users. The young users pick up some other social network, everyone else follows suit, and f…

I got my Facebook account in 2005 when I was a college freshman. At first it was amazing, then they opened it up to high schoolers which was okay, but not really what I wanted from Facebook. Then they added things like the Friend Feed which bombarded you with "Your friend [name you know] just added [someone you don't know or care about}." Which was okay, but then they opened the gates and suddenly all your coworkers…

Do you really think LinkedIn is a chink in Facebook's armor? I question how many people regularly use LinkedIn as opposed to those who just update when their job title changes. All Facebook needs is for an intern of theirs to add a couple more features around the career section of people's profiles and LinkedIn is toast.

Re: Facebook hype will fade

#40

Post by jupiterj »

lotusleaf1987 wrote: post #22
fkeidkwdq wrote: post #11

Comparing Google with Facebook. I was using google since it was pretty unknown, I think it is still, after all these years, a good tool for searching. I will never use facebook, I think local solutions for meeting people will emerge soon and they will be much more appealing and useful. Facebook only can exists if it can find a way to be a local tool.

I've never met anyone on Facebook, they're all people I knew somehow previous to our friending .

Interesting. I would like to know if the majority of people use Facebook like you (with people they knew previously) or they use it to get new connections. How can I get this information? Any poll published somewhere?
Post reply on HN