Facebook launches its TikTok rival, Instagram Reels • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook launches its TikTok rival, Instagram Reels

#131

Post by beenBoutIT » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 5:13 PM UTC

me_me_me wrote: post #73

danpalmer wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just a branding thing though right? We've had all sorts of social networks that each rise and fall. If Facebook has the formula for a successful network and can apply that formula over and over again that's pretty successful. Facebook is probably the the company most able to claim to have achieved this, with facebook.com and Instagram being two big hits, arguably Messenger and WhatsApp too. TikTok is probably…

Who know, maybe its true. Though all I can see is: 'buying out promising products before they are going to become your rivals' mentality. It might be a successful strategy to run a business when you are big enough to do it (as long as your buyouts are correct). I heard about facebook from a friend when it was still exclusive and I joined when it was opened up. Now I open it up at what seems exponential intervals, and…

Back when it was still exclusive to people with university '.edu' email addresses Facebook was the best thing to ever happen to college. Instantly knowing who's in your classes or potential courses was a game changer.

Re: Facebook launches its TikTok rival, Instagram Reels

#132

Post by nindalf » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 5:16 PM UTC

beenBoutIT wrote: post #122

Miner49er wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well there already is a competitor - TikTok. As it stands, if I only care about the TikTok/Reels functionality, I'm going with TikTok. It doesn't come with all the extra bloat. I guess we'll see what happens with the potential Trump ban and Microsoft acquisition though.

If Microsoft acquires TikTok how would they go about vetting all of the code to remove any potentially malicious components?

They will grep for and comment out the code that goes like “maliciouslyUploadSecretInfo.*()“

Sorry, but that was a ridiculous question.

Re: Facebook launches its TikTok rival, Instagram Reels

#133

Post by praveen9920 » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 5:16 PM UTC

>..popular karaoke app TikTok..

Never heard it that way.

Re: Facebook launches its TikTok rival, Instagram Reels

#134

Post by tanilama » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 5:17 PM UTC

galuggus wrote: post #83

tanilama wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TikTok however is the opposite of WeChat where the interface is dead simple and intuitive. What is Reels immitating here?

The Chinese version of TikTok douyin is also a hybrid of games, shopping, live streams a messenger and instant apps. The ui is far less important than having a captive user base

It is not part of the core UX.

TikTok or Doubin, just swipe up/down would be enough for 90% of your input

Re: Facebook launches its TikTok rival, Instagram Reels

#135

Post by mrkramer » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 5:21 PM UTC

asutekku wrote: post #115

mrkramer wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever heard of redesign? Vine needed it. TikTok didn't win against Vine because of it was new. It had better UI, UX, better features better strategy overall. Somebody could make new Facebook but people wound't move to it cause Facebook has 15 years head start and gigantic social graph.

Tiktok didn’t really exists at the same timeline as Vine so I wouldn’t say Tiktok won against it.

Vine had over 200 million active users and Twitter didn't see any potential?! TikTok has over 800 monthly active users in 3 years. I don't know what Twitter was thinking but Vine had a lot of potential. TikTok wouldn't be so big if Vine was kept alive and managed well.

Re: Facebook launches its TikTok rival, Instagram Reels

#136

Post by nindalf » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 5:23 PM UTC

Avtomatk wrote: post #111

Theodores wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook is always there for people but it is not the talk of the town any more. A decade ago you could have everyone on it for their entire lunchbreaks, deep-stalking their mates. But nowadays people are not engaged with it compulsively. Younger people don't use it because their parents are on it. Content isn't made by people for Facebook because it won't show in their friends feeds. Advertisers that are small to me…

I do not understand why this comment has a bad vote, hackernews looks like reddit, if a comment goes against your opinion, downvote without explaining the reasons. The only thing I disagree with is that Facebook does make big profits from its ads, in fact it does a tough competition to google and amazon... the rest of your arguments seem correct to me... facebook doesn't feel like the home that it was before... it fe…

That comment was downvoted because it was spinning unfounded and untrue speculation as facts. Here’s one example

> Advertisers that are small to medium size businesses don't get a return from spending their money there, so they have left too.

No, this is not true. Not only has Facebook done well in Q2, performance was unaffected by the boycott of large advertisers because of revenue from small businesses.

Re: Facebook launches its TikTok rival, Instagram Reels

#137

Post by identity0 » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 5:24 PM UTC

whalesalad wrote: post #18

Instagram is the beta test environment/battleground for Facebook.

Haha no. Facebook is where successful instagram features go to die.

Re: Facebook launches its TikTok rival, Instagram Reels

#138

Post by ethbro » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 5:24 PM UTC

beenBoutIT wrote: post #122

Miner49er wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well there already is a competitor - TikTok. As it stands, if I only care about the TikTok/Reels functionality, I'm going with TikTok. It doesn't come with all the extra bloat. I guess we'll see what happens with the potential Trump ban and Microsoft acquisition though.

If Microsoft acquires TikTok how would they go about vetting all of the code to remove any potentially malicious components?

> If Microsoft acquires TikTok how would they go about vetting all of the code to remove any malicious components?

Rename it "Skype for Teens". Make no changes to the codebase.

Re: Facebook launches its TikTok rival, Instagram Reels

#139

Post by ethbro » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 5:26 PM UTC

alehul wrote: post #79

9nGQluzmnq3M wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're comparing apples to oranges here. WeChat is a "superapp" platform for doing distinct things: chat, payments, ticket bookings, etc. Instagram's features, on the other hand, are all purely social networking.

I wouldn't say the UX challenges get any easier as you grow from social networking "super app" to generalized "super app." If anything, it would become more challenging, and the top comment would make more sense as to how it appears intuitive. On the topic of social, though, WeChat has private messaging and broadcasting, location sharing, a social feed of friends' updates, and public accounts that can push feeds to s…

We used to call "super apps" portals. Mistaken valuations of their stickiness generally led to the first cratering of internet company values.

Re: Facebook launches its TikTok rival, Instagram Reels

#140

Post by beenBoutIT » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 5:28 PM UTC

nindalf wrote: post #132

beenBoutIT wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Microsoft acquires TikTok how would they go about vetting all of the code to remove any potentially malicious components?

They will grep for and comment out the code that goes like “maliciouslyUploadSecretInfo.*()“ Sorry, but that was a ridiculous question.

Acquiring an app from a Chinese company and slapping the Microsoft branding on it without doing some sort of vetting would be absurd.