Facebook hype will fade • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook hype will fade

#101

Post by JanezStupar » Sat, Jan 08, 2011, 4:07 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #56

d2viant wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd venture to guess that nearly all LinkedIn users are on Facebook, but I don't think the opposite is true. Along with that the information recorded under both sites overlaps quite a bit. At that point it's just a matter of how and to who you show your information on Facebook. I don't think Facebook is the least bit worried about LinkedIn.

Hours spend doing social networking things on sites other than Facebook cost Facebook money and relevance. Also, plenty of "important" people avoid Facebook like the plague because it's a time sink, so there is plenty of pull in the other direction.

I'm nobody important - however I resist creating a FB account and each day I am more pleased with my decision.

And I would sooner create LI account than FB. I am also very careful about what information I release about myself to the world.

But we are few and far in between.

Re: Facebook hype will fade

#102

Post by miguelpais » Sat, Jan 08, 2011, 4:20 PM UTC

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…

That's why I have friends lists. Just some weeks ago some girl I didn't know that happened to be the designated driver of the group of friends I was with on the new years eve sent me a friend request on facebook.

I don't want to be rude and accepted it, but she went to my list of people that I don't consider friends, but people that at some point in my life I had some interaction that as now ceased. That list doesn't have access to my photos, only some personal information and the majority of my status updates are invisible to them unless I explicitly set otherwise.

So yeah, they're my fake friends. If your friends list is already big setting this up and checking if there are no backdoors into your information will be painful, but I think it pays off. I did it mostly because I didn't want to bring the family and friends sides of my life together in a single website, with all the potential problems that could come from that, but I ended up creating more than just the friends and family lists.

Funny thing, right now Facebook privacy is more about protecting your information from your "friends" than from the outside world.

Re: Facebook hype will fade

#103

Post by nhangen » Sat, Jan 08, 2011, 4:32 PM UTC

knowsnothing613 wrote: post #77

mscarborough wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, at least for now. Nothing better for fickle teenagers will pop up in the next 6 years? Doubtful. EDIT: fickleness with social networks not restricted to teenagers, obviously.

The new it social network for tweens/YA is tumblr. Facebook will eventually lose market share to Tumblr. All these social networks are simply an extension of the email use case. It's nothing new, nor do I see Facebook taking down google. Social networks are like hot clubs. Eventually their popularity fades, as soon as another it scene opens, which is why I'd never invest in a social network site. So shall it pass wit…

If Tumblr was going to take on Facebook, we would have already seen it trend in that direction. I love Tumblr, but I can't see it being as ubiquitous as Facebook.

Re: Facebook hype will fade

#104

Post by mnml_ » Sat, Jan 08, 2011, 4:50 PM UTC

TheFacebook hype died in Nov. 2007 when they introduced advertisement.

Re: Facebook hype will fade

#105

Post by projectileboy » Sat, Jan 08, 2011, 4:52 PM UTC

There are at least a few important differences that the author ignored:

* Not many "trends" have had 500 million followers.

* The other companies mentioned actually ceded control in some fashion; Facebook is simply taking investment dollars.

* The other companies mentioned didn't have Mark Zuckerberg at the helm. Only a crank wouldn't acknowledge that Zuckerberg's leadership has been masterful.

Re: Facebook hype will fade

#106

Post by rottendevice » Sat, Jan 08, 2011, 5:27 PM UTC

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…

Same situation for me, which is why I much prefer to use Twitter these days. It's considered downright rude to defriend someone on Facebook, but on Twitter, you really only have to pay attention to the people you care about. It feels a lot more "opt-in" than Facebook in this way.

Also, I really don't care about people's virtual mafia's and pictures where everyone is obscenely drunk.

Re: Facebook hype will fade

#107

Post by retube » Sat, Jan 08, 2011, 5:32 PM UTC

jdp23 wrote: post #28

"This week's news that Goldman Sachs has chosen to invest in Facebook while entreating others to do the same should inspire about as much confidence as their investment in mortgage securities did in 2008." Well said. Sounds like a bubble to me.

Except of course, GS aren't investing in Facebook. They're backing out their stake to other investors via this SPV they've set up. I doubt they care what happens to facebook stock: there's huge demand at this valuation and all they care about is answering that.

Re: Facebook hype will fade

#108

Post by podperson » Sat, Jan 08, 2011, 5:36 PM UTC

The thing which amazes me about Facebook is how perplexing the basic UI is and remains. My wife will tell me "hey someone has made a comment on your wall you HAVE to reply to it" and it will take me five minutes to figure out where this comment is buried. Oh it's not under "status" it's under "profile". WTF?

Re: Facebook hype will fade

#109

Post by FreeKill » Sat, Jan 08, 2011, 5:41 PM UTC

brianpan wrote: post #63

zacharycohn wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the exact same experience as well, and then I discovered the "hide" button. I developed some rules and then spent about 20 minutes every day for a week hiding people who didn't fall within those. Examples of my rules were: 1) If I don't remember who you are, hide. 2) If I knew you in elementary/middle/high school/college and I don't think I'll ever see or speak to you again, hide. (This would cover people who d…

The hide is useful, but the unnatural part is the "everyone you ever met listening". The great thing about Facebook when I started was it was like blogs or photo sharing, except that everyone was a trusted, real-life friend. Facebook was like sharing photos, jokes, and stories with your circle of friends. Now that everyone and (and every company) are on facebook, I'm more comfortable back on a blog, where there isn't…

You can still do that now. You just need to make groups of your different friend groups (family, real life friends, high school friends, work friends, etc) and share what you want with those groups only, depending on what it is.

Re: Facebook hype will fade

#110

Post by jdbeast00 » Sat, Jan 08, 2011, 6:56 PM UTC

most of the complaints here could be solved by facebook implementing (better) disjoint friend networks. I would imagine they are working on this. I currently have draconian privacy in place to prevent most of my friends from seeing status updates. Once this becomes easier wont these issues go away?