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Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

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Re: Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

#81

Post by ZephyrBlu »

groffee wrote: post #35
yalogin wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not that easy. This is life and death for Facebook. TikTok is really taking over and is a force. It’s also a Chinese company and so they can’t buy it. They are forced to compete, either they do this or become fully irrelevant

Facebook is dying, but not because of TikTok. Facebook is dying because they stopped being Facebook. If they gave what's left of their userbase what they actually wanted (chronological feed, seeing friends posts, not seeing spam, more ways to interact (bring back pets, gifts, superpokes etc)) they'd do ok. It doesn't help that their core code is a steaming pile of bloated dung that doesn't seem to be tested by anyone…

Attention is zero-sum. If TikTok is winning, someone else is losing. TikTok now is what Facebook was 10 years ago.

Re: Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

#83

Post by ardit33 »

fullshark wrote: post #18
ardit33 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, apple went from selling personal computers to iPods, phones and headphones, where they make most of the money.... Would you have said the same for Apple back in 2007? Ps. Restaurants change menus all the time.

More like MTV non longer showing music videos imo. Facebook could have stayed your personal Rolodex and serve that use case but decided to chase engagement wherever it could. Maybe it was inevitable and necessary to avoid death or maybe they abandoned their primary purpose and turned off their users and therefore the network / social graph from which they derived value. Or maybe they will continue to print money.

That did happen! MTV was showing more 'reality shows' and such for a while as they were more successful. Then you had MTV2 and MTV3 showing actual music videos.

What killed MTV was youtube around 2007-2008, not another tv channel, but a completely different tech.

Re: Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

#84

Post by jahewson »

liberia wrote: post #28

All the platforms have their own TikTok style mechanism now. YouTube has Shorts, Facebook has its Reels feature which is tightly integrated with Instagram and you need an Instagram account to engage with Reels on Facebook, which is a bit of a growth hacker dark pattern. For now, Reels is not interspersed with ADs which is refreshing, but that could all change. The whole vertical video craze is a weird one, and one I’…

> boiled down snippets of info that prey on my base instincts and giddy 1 minute dopamine fixes.

This would aptly describe a tabloid newspaper.

Re: Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

#85

Post by justusthane »

rascul wrote: post #64

Facebook will die with what is currently the older generation. They're addicted, and while they're still around, Facebook will survive. Nobody else seems to care so much about Facebook anymore.

I think this suggests that isn’t the case. Facebook knows they can’t survive long term with that strategy and they aren’t happy stagnating, so they’re making changes to try to attract younger users. Except they’re going to fail to do that while also driving away their existing users.

Re: Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

#86

Post by joshmanders »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #79
ulfw wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're basically describing myspace.

I honestly liked MySpace. I think it was superior to Facebook in every way. At least you could enjoy some cool music on someone’s page when you visited it. The page was about them.

Then follow me on SpaceHey, MySpace reborn.

https://spacehey.com/josh

Re: Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

#87

Post by [deleted] »

anothernewdude wrote: post #42
SrslyJosh wrote: post #6

Nobody hates Facebook users more than Facebook, I guess. :-/ I've tried to type out several pithy comments, but the bottom line (to me) is that Facebook just doesn't respect its users or care about their needs. Can you imagine if brick-and-mortar businesses tried to do this? You go out for a Big Mac, but it's not on the menu anymore because Taco Bell had a few really good quarters, so McDonald's decided to pivot to t…

I'm already there for McDonalds. No idea how to order what I want from those machines.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

#88

Post by adra »

throwaway892238 wrote: post #21

Did Facebook ever really need to become such a behemoth? Could they not have been mildly profitable just hosting pictures and helping people stay connected? Would it have been impossible for them to simply keep operating without capitalism's Blob-like need for growth at all costs?

When money (credit) is cheap and plentiful, there's all the incentives to push the company to bigger and more speculative growth. When credits expensive, you actually have to sell something. Let's see if this downturn is an end to this eras fast money or just a temporary blip before the helicopters of cash start flying again.

Re: Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

#89

Post by threeseed »

maxfurman wrote: post #46
next_xibalba wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the bottom line (to me) is that Facebook just doesn't respect its users or care about their needs. Wouldn't a consequence of this be that Facebook would be losing users in drovers? And yet the data seem to disagree. This is a type of take that feels very "inside baseball" and fueled more by the feelings of its proponents than any kind of empiricism.

They just posted their first net user loss - so maybe not "in droves" but their username is certainly declining and will continue to do so without drastic change

> but their username is certainly declining

You can't make any claims about Facebook's position based on a single quarter's result.

Especially given we are in the most tumultuous period in the last few decades.

Re: Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

#90

Post by SamuelAdams »

robswc wrote: post #77

I know it sounds dumb but its hard to say we haven't moved closer to what only ~10 years ago we considered a "playful exaggeration" on the worst of humans and social media. In WallE, everyone is floating around in chairs having their content spoon-fed to them with a generous amount of ads mixed in. If you've ever scrolled or seen someone scroll, its kinda close. Just mindlessly moving their thumb up and down, taking…

> Ask a tik tok user to tell you even 10% of the videos they saw within the last hour. I'd be surprised if they could.

Heck you could ask the same for any HN user as well :)

Yes this is social media. Yes some of it is mindless time wasting. For me personally I sometimes get useful information that helps improve my work / profession. At least that’s how I justify it.

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