Facebook's Three New Products • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook's Three New Products

#41

Post by goatforce5 » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 6:10 PM UTC

michaelchisari wrote: post #2

Given their social networking dominance, their swimming pools filled with vc money, and the top engineers working for them, does anyone else feel like Facebook are underachievers? Considering they had to have known about G+ for a while before it launched, you would think they would really hit something out of the park in terms of competitive features. These are all pretty lackluster, imho.

You can call 'em what you want, but I imagine running the second most popular site in the world must feel pretty good.

Re: Facebook's Three New Products

#42

Post by nextparadigms » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 6:11 PM UTC

grandalf wrote: post #29

michaelchisari wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really think that attitude will allow them to maintain their dominance?

What do you think Facebook should have built/announced? Pretty much all of the really useful features are also big privacy violators, and with the uncertainty around how the public views social networking privacy, FB is smart to wait and let Google make the first move.

Those who don't innovate, fall behind. Who was it that said companies kill themselves, and it's not the competitors that do it?

Re: Facebook's Three New Products

#43

Post by Zakuzaa » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 6:12 PM UTC

guimarin wrote: post #30

badclient wrote: post #24

What's the end game? MS acquires fb? Skype makes a killing off fb users for premium subscription and gives fb a cut?

MS can't/doesn't need to acquire facebook. they have a large stake in the company due to their early stage $270m investment. Facebook is too expensive at this point for MS to buy.

Stake ain't large. ~1.5%ish

Re: Facebook's Three New Products

#44

Post by Newky » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 6:12 PM UTC

Also, I went with the setup, and not only did facebook not support linux, it doesn't detect I'm on a linux system and started to download a .EXE file!

Feeling some pressure from google + ?

Re: Facebook's Three New Products

#45

Post by togasystems » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 6:13 PM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #26

Looks like video chat is the hot new battleground again. Facebook Skype vs. video GChat vs. Apple FaceTime/iChat/iMessage vs. Microsoft Skype(?)

Microsoft Skype just partnered with Facebook .... and Twitter will use Apple FaceTime ...

Re: Facebook's Three New Products

#46

Post by nextparadigms » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 6:14 PM UTC

kenjackson wrote: post #16

wccrawford wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

G+ launched with Group video chat (in the Hangouts feature) with no fanfare at all, as it if was nothing. FB's announcement today has spent a lot of time talking about how much work it was to implement... It's got to be a huge kick in the pants to them. I kind of feel bad for them.

Apple does this every release. Marketing is important. Facebook is now the ubiquitous video chat social network, built on Skype. Google+ is Circles on your Gmail. Everything else you say requires some level of convincing.

Except that Hangout is a lot more social than the Facebook/Skype integration. Google+ has out-social'ed Facebook.

Re: Facebook's Three New Products

#47

Post by nkassis » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 6:14 PM UTC

smackfu wrote: post #34

For those drawing comparisons: Facebook has 500 million users. How many does Google+ have?

That's not even worth wasting time at answering. Look Google doing a great job of rebranding it's services. Google already had video chat for a while now. If you have gmail you have video chat. I don't get why facebook is just getting around to doing it. And google didn't need skype to do it.

Re: Facebook's Three New Products

#48

Post by togasystems » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 6:14 PM UTC

What does this mean for all of the group chat companies that have launched recently?

Re: Facebook's Three New Products

#49

Post by nubela » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 6:14 PM UTC

Newky wrote: post #44

Also, I went with the setup, and not only did facebook not support linux, it doesn't detect I'm on a linux system and started to download a .EXE file! Feeling some pressure from google + ?

same thing. i thought that was complete fail on their end. a .exe? come on.

Re: Facebook's Three New Products

#50

Post by MartinCron » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 6:15 PM UTC

michaelchisari wrote: post #2

Given their social networking dominance, their swimming pools filled with vc money, and the top engineers working for them, does anyone else feel like Facebook are underachievers? Considering they had to have known about G+ for a while before it launched, you would think they would really hit something out of the park in terms of competitive features. These are all pretty lackluster, imho.

Facebook just works pretty darn well, though. The application is almost always responsive, it's extremely polished, and it's always getting a bit stronger in what it offers.

If that's underachieving, sign me up.