Facebook's Three New Products • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook's Three New Products

#71

Post by MatthewPhillips » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 6:34 PM UTC

guimarin wrote: post #9

dreamux wrote: post #8

While I can appreciate (in fact, I probably don't) the technical difficulty of delivering a chat/video service to a userbase of 750M; these simply aren't compelling innovations for most (especially younger) people. Of particular note, these features aren't sticky (the usability of these features is common to _many_ other services) nor do they raise particularly high barriers to entry for competitors (Google has alrea…

this is exactly what www.blekko.com is trying to do.

I thought what blekko was trying to do was offload the work of building a search index onto its users.

Re: Facebook's Three New Products

#72

Post by websymphony » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 6:35 PM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #54

nkassis wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

Naah, GrandCentral became Google Voice. Totally different product.

Re: Facebook's Three New Products

#73

Post by tghw » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 6:35 PM UTC

brudgers wrote: post #64

Despite all of the hype about video chat and circles versus lists, to me the big announcement looks like group chat - which seems kind of stupidly obvious. Thinking about it, Google may have missed the mark by throwing video into the equation - unlike is the case with video, when people don't have to get dressed to be part of a discussion based on text. It almost looks like Google heard that Facebook was working on g…

I may be mistaken, but I think that's part of the idea with G+; you post an update to a specific circle and you basically have a chat with that circle.

Re: Facebook's Three New Products

#74

Post by juliano_q » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 6:36 PM UTC

mike-cardwell wrote: post #23

What? This is their "awesome" announcement? Is this some sort of a joke? Even techies aren't going to be interested in this, let alone normal users...

Unfortunately, I think it flows the other way. "Normal" users will probably use it, and some techies may use it too just because their "normal" friends use it.

I think I will never use it because I almost dont use video chat (Hangout can change that) but I see my mother using it to talk with her sisters. She currently uses Skype, but using only Facebook will be much easier for her.

Re: Facebook's Three New Products

#75

Post by dmbass » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 6:37 PM UTC

dreamux wrote: post #8

While I can appreciate (in fact, I probably don't) the technical difficulty of delivering a chat/video service to a userbase of 750M; these simply aren't compelling innovations for most (especially younger) people. Of particular note, these features aren't sticky (the usability of these features is common to _many_ other services) nor do they raise particularly high barriers to entry for competitors (Google has alrea…

Most people's social graphs are too small (130 people) to be useful. Well we will use an extended social-graph, you might say, but if you are extending the social-graph, why not include the entire internet? Why would my social-graph contain better (more accurate and relevant) information about doing a thing than doathing.com?

The social-graph is a reduced set of the internet. It is probably easier to search, but how will the results be better than Google?

Re: Facebook's Three New Products

#76

Post by Apocryphon » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 6:39 PM UTC

togasystems wrote: post #45

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 ...

Wait a second: what does Twitter even have to do with video conferencing?

Re: Facebook's Three New Products

#77

Post by brudgers » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 6:40 PM UTC

tghw wrote: post #73

brudgers wrote: post #64

Despite all of the hype about video chat and circles versus lists, to me the big announcement looks like group chat - which seems kind of stupidly obvious. Thinking about it, Google may have missed the mark by throwing video into the equation - unlike is the case with video, when people don't have to get dressed to be part of a discussion based on text. It almost looks like Google heard that Facebook was working on g…

I may be mistaken, but I think that's part of the idea with G+; you post an update to a specific circle and you basically have a chat with that circle.

[IHNBITG+] My understanding Circles aren't reciprocal, so I don't really see how circles could map onto group chat.

Re: Facebook's Three New Products

#78

Post by r00fus » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 6:40 PM UTC

smackfu wrote: post #13

pstack wrote: post #10

I don't see any products, there. I just see a couple of lame features. Skype and group chat. Skype already does Skype, so I'm not sure why I'd load up Facebook just so I could skype through a webpage, instead. My IM client has done group chat for years, so I'm not sure why I'd load up facebook just so I could chat with a group of those people, either. This kind of falls in line with my confusion as to why people ruin…

Don't need a Skype login, or need to know anyone's Skype login.

That is a killer integration feature. I wonder how this works...

Re: Facebook's Three New Products

#79

Post by WalterSear » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 6:40 PM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #67

ugh wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s for people who already spend a lot of time on Facebook. They don’t have to bother anymore using dedicated software. Simple as that. You are looking at it from the wrong perspective.

He's clearly being purposefully obstructive in his comments. Obviously if you're on FB already then why open Skype, why open an IM client, that's how integration works. The parent is asking the equivalent of why you'd add maps to google when you have a perfectly good road map out in the car.

Typical parent.

Re: Facebook's Three New Products

#80

Post by nbm » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 6:43 PM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #70

phillco wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was in high school, almost everyone used AIM. Then Facebook Chat came out and practically crushed it. Why? It wasn't better (it was far, far, worse, actually — you couldn't chat with somebody without one of you complaining about it), but everyone was there . It became the defacto way to reach people. It was successful for the same reason Facebook was successful.

> everyone was there This is exactly why I turned chat off. I have no desire to be contacted by old high school classmates who happen to be bored and browsing facebook, and see me pop up.

You can set up a friends list, and turn on chat only for that friends list, if you like. Set up the friends list at https://www.facebook.com/friends/edit/ and then click the little settings icon at the bottom right (in the new chat design) and choose "Limit availability...".

With the old chat design, choose chat at the bottom right, then the "Friend lists" menu item in the chat window, and add the friends list you want to affect chat availability, and then turn availability on/off to particular lists.

Useful for parents and work colleagues who don't use other IM or who you don't want to give your personal IM accounts to.