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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

#241

Post by timmytokyo »

xwdv wrote: post #74

It’s crazy to think the social media era may finally be ending. There’s really no viable platform anymore where you can just go passively keep up with what friends and acquaintances are doing. Everything is about feeding you content you didn’t ask for but may be targeted enough to catch your attention. And for what? To show you some ads here and there? To collect data that can be used to… sell more ads and products?…

"When somebody says you can solve X with blockchain, they don’t understand X, and you can ignore them." - Nicholas Weaver

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

#242

Post by judge2020 »

foobiekr wrote: post #239
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…

All of those restaurants sell poisonous trash. Which makes this a good analogy for social media. We should all be happy they may finally be peaking and fading.

Except that TikTok is going strong[0], and is arguably just as bad.

0: https://radar.cloudflare.com/#most-popular-domains

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

#243

Post by tomc1985 »

threeseed wrote: post #97
groffee wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Facebook is dying because they stopped being Facebook a) No evidence they are dying. All we have is a single quarter's result i.e. statistically meaningless. b) No evidence that staying true to the original Facebook is the best strategy. Unquestionably, Stories has been a popular feature in both Instagram and Facebook ecosystems and perhaps certain features from TikTok will be the same. But there is plenty of evide…

There's an army of users out there accustomed to and just simply want to see what their friends are up to and posting.

Are they as sexy as the bajillion TikTok users out there? No.

Are they enough to build a solid business aruond? Yes.

Would facebook ever consider stepping up to the plate that built their core business again? No, because Facebook management sucks.

I don't give a shit about algorithmic recommendations and of horse-shit force-fed happiness content don't anticipate ever changing that. Many of my friends are the same way.

What ever happened to servicing the long tail?

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

#244

Post by gonehome »

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…

The brick and mortar is a good example because if they did what Facebook is doing fewer may have gone bankrupt when they were destroyed by Amazon.

I’m not a fan of the ad driven business model and the damage it’s done, but Zuckerberg and Facebook are correct here. They know the users better than the users know themselves. It’s been true since the launch of the news feed.

Don’t listen to what users say, watch how they behave.

Everyone says they want to be fit but people just sit around and eat chocolate cake.

Zuckerberg has reorganized and saved Facebook a few times now despite hysterics from users and the press. I’d give him the benefit of the doubt.

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

#245

Post by mycentstoo »

me_again wrote: post #218
hiimshort wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've enjoyed the analogy so adding onto it: Google would open up 5 competing, different burger places next to each other and then close them all down a year later, confused that none of them did well enough. All to open a new Taco stand on the other side of town and claim it's got the same great food you liked before (it doesn't).

Apple would sell exactly one kind of burger, which is great but costs $20. The wrapper is rose gold or space grey. Only Apple-certified condiments can be applied to the burgers, and a packet of ketchup is $5. Each year the faithful queue outside for the privilege of obtaining the latest burger.

They would also stop providing plates with the meal. They would be available for an additional charge.

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

#246

Post by recursive »

thorncorona wrote: post #237
me_again wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple would sell exactly one kind of burger, which is great but costs $20. The wrapper is rose gold or space grey. Only Apple-certified condiments can be applied to the burgers, and a packet of ketchup is $5. Each year the faithful queue outside for the privilege of obtaining the latest burger.

The silver lining is if you pay for it it pretty much will always taste decent.

Unless you like your burgers with barbecue sauce. That use case is bravely unsupported.

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

#247

Post by noman-land »

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…

Sometimes you see someone standing perfectly still on the sidewalk, locked into their phone, people passing them on both sides. After a while they sorta snap out of it, look around to reorient themselves, and continue walking. I've watched people stay in this locked state for hilariously long times.

I call them lost souls.

We've all been there in one way or another but seeing someone in that trance, from the outside, is very disconcerting. These phones are no joke.

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

#248

Post by whymauri »

xwdv wrote: post #205
kumarvvr wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There’s really no viable platform anymore where you can just go passively keep up with what friends and acquaintances are doing. Whatsapp, Telegram and Signal fill that place quite nicely. I regularly check my Whatsapp contacts status messages. Most of them are filled with things from their daily lives. I have a bunch of groups in Telegram, both personal and professional. I feel FB style of "feed" thing has become…

Checking WhatsApp statuses is like checking peoples away messages on AIM. I think a feed is still the best way to deliver updates, but they seem to quickly get corrupted for monetization and algorithmic manipulation.

I haven't updated my WhatsApp status in 8 years. I legitimately did not know that people viewed/cared about them. And I use WhatsApp daily.

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

#249

Post by kinghtown »

thex10 wrote: post #221
xwdv wrote: post #74

It’s crazy to think the social media era may finally be ending. There’s really no viable platform anymore where you can just go passively keep up with what friends and acquaintances are doing. Everything is about feeding you content you didn’t ask for but may be targeted enough to catch your attention. And for what? To show you some ads here and there? To collect data that can be used to… sell more ads and products?…

> There’s really no viable platform anymore where you can just go passively keep up with what friends and acquaintances are doing. IMO it’s pointless to “passively keep up with what friends and acquaintances are doing”. We should either actively keep up (thus actually maintain the relationship), or let it go~

Sure, but there is a desire or even need to have robust and interactive options in our communication devices for keeping in touch with all the people we know in a more inclusive and less active way than just directly messaging or calling a specific person, which to be clear people are still doing.

People want something like Facebook as an option. It has usefulness- sharing photos, inviting people to events, a simple platform for small business. I’m not going to get into the negatives of Facebook which, I feel, outweigh the benefits.

Facebook has become a net negative on society but in the early days it was quite good. The problem isn’t social networking apps as much as the sad reality that these services can’t exist without ads or sweeping changes to drive growth. If only it were possible to have something like Facebook but without the suits.

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

#250

Post by saurik »

batiudrami wrote: post #201
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.

It depends how you measure it, right? I now only use Facebook for events and that is because there is nothing else that competes. Everything else in the Facebook app is awful, and even events is increasingly user-hostile. I recently deleted instagram (an app I actually used to really like!). But I still count as a daily active user in their reporting. I wonder what their internal engagement metrics look like. I bet F…

> I now only use Facebook for events and that is because there is nothing else that competes.

This is a big reason I still use Facebook, and am extremely unhappy that they keep removing features :(. I used to be able to browse events easily for random dates in random locations on my phone, a feature that now only seems to exist on desktop... but, even then, it doesn't seem to support not having a search term :/. When you combine that with fewer and fewer events being on it due to fewer and fewer people being in the target market of using it it is in a death spiral.

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