Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bullshit

marco.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 233 posts

Re: Bullshit

#151

Post by look_lookatme »

rfergie wrote: post #79
Pheter wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it works, which is why they do it.

I work with some brands on trying to measure this and in many cases I'm not sure it does work. The typical process works like this: 1. Brand creates facebook page 2. People who really, really love the brand connect with the page. 3. The brand observes that people who have connected with them on social media are excellent customers. 4. The brand tries to increase the number of connected users by offering promotions an…

Everyone stops thinking about it after 4, because connections are measurable and thus reportable by the media planners at whatever agency the brand has hired to do their social. It's simply a metric and few people at real companies think about it, they just see the numbers and think it's working. This is because agencies tell them it will and that's the worst part about it all.

Social's value is seeing how people react to your brand, absorbing their feedback, connecting directly... but the planners have reduced it to numbers, like they do everything, and sucked the life out it.

Re: Bullshit

#152

Post by bad_user »

jballanc wrote: post #143
nl wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android is Open Source[1], which has a real definition[2] that means something. You can fork it, and create your own distribution (as Amazon has shown). It is open in other ways, too - Android phones can load applications from sources other than the Market (unless that feature has been disabled by your carrier - which goes back to the first point). Most Android phones have a sdcard slot, too, which allows you to get…

Out of curiosity, would you call OS X "open"? You can find enough of the source for OS X to create a booting OS here: http://opensource.apple.com/ . Obviously, this isn't all of OS X, but then not all of the Android OS is "open" either. I'm not trying to be contrarian, but I think the people criticizing Adroid for not being "open" are primarily picking on precisely the vagueness that you have highlighted. There are w…

You cannot build and sell / distribute your own devices with OS X on it. Apple has been very aggressive with companies that tried that, in particular with Psystar, the first company that sold "hackintosh" computers [1], which they sued into oblivion.

So no, OS X is not open and there's nothing vague about it.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psystar_Corporation

Re: Bullshit

#153

Post by notatoad »

jballanc wrote: post #143
nl wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android is Open Source[1], which has a real definition[2] that means something. You can fork it, and create your own distribution (as Amazon has shown). It is open in other ways, too - Android phones can load applications from sources other than the Market (unless that feature has been disabled by your carrier - which goes back to the first point). Most Android phones have a sdcard slot, too, which allows you to get…

Out of curiosity, would you call OS X "open"? You can find enough of the source for OS X to create a booting OS here: http://opensource.apple.com/ . Obviously, this isn't all of OS X, but then not all of the Android OS is "open" either. I'm not trying to be contrarian, but I think the people criticizing Adroid for not being "open" are primarily picking on precisely the vagueness that you have highlighted. There are w…

no, OSX is not open. you can't take the published source code and compile it into a useable copy of OSX.

you can take the published android source code and create a useable copy of android from it. the entire operating system is there. android is open source. the people criticizing android for not being open are either lying, or have forgotten that we have moved on from the 3.0 branch which was not open.

Re: Bullshit

#154

Post by drivebyacct2 »

ootachi wrote: post #150
drivebyacct2 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really get what you're saying here. Some Android devices have locked bootloaders, but that doesn't affect the openness of AOSP. If anything, you're making an argument for GPLv3 which would require Android OEM's to allow for open bootloaders and (S-OFF (htc)). But I can assure you, my Galaxy Nexus is running a CM9 alpha that I built from source last night.

Replace "some Android devices" with "the vast majority of Android devices". That is Marco's point.

All HTC devices since September, most devices from And if that's Marco's point, it's pretty damn poor. How does what Motorola does with the bootloader of their phone have to do with the code that Google puts out exactly?

Re: Bullshit

#155

Post by bad_user »

blinkingled wrote: post #112
KeithMajhor wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In all seriousness. What does "open" even mean? I've noticed that no one is saying "open source". Not that I know what that really means either. Android isn't developed in the open they just release the source code. That's the only real difference from Windows 7. So is this all just relative to the phone market? It's "open" as far as phones go? I get the feeling "open" is not something you can be . It's a continuum.…

I think you make an excellent point. There is no utopian definition of open - it simply cannot exist meaningfully. So there has to be a compromising definition. I like to define it on a scale like Andy Rubin did on D8 interview. Left most is least open and rightmost is most open. I think in the current mobile space Apple sits on the far left, Microsoft a little to their right and Android farther to the right. Only Me…

Left most is turn-key software that never gets distributed. Far-left is proprietary software, such as iOS that comes with severe restrictions on how and when you can use it. You cannot install it on non-Apple devices and any app you install on it (i.e. any use case) has to be approved by Apple. Other software on the left, but closer to the center, is Windows, that does get distributed in binary form and that you can install on any PC you want, but comes with a very restrictive EULA.

GPL v.3 software sits somewhere in the middle. BSD/MIT is far-right, while right most is public domain.

I think it's extremely unfair to place Android anywhere on the left side of this scale.

Re: Bullshit

#156

Post by zobzu »

bru wrote: post #44
zobzu wrote: post #35

Deeply agree on that list. But there are some o at least one company that I'd actually trust more than others, and support, and that's Mozilla. Because there's no share holders. Because it's owned by non-profit. And because their track record is perfect so far. Everything's open. All the development is in the open, not just the code. Everything's made for our best interest actually.

What about Opera? Their software is unfortunately proprietary, but I trust them. As far as I know, they never sold any data they got though their proxies with Opera Mini. And they got a lot.

I'm liking the opera guys. they do good stuff and they're small, yet still alive.

That being said, it doesn't make them good on the open source front. They're proprietary. They don't develop in the open.

So while I like them and their product, I don't trust them the way I can trust Mozilla.

In other words:

I don't trust Google, MS, Opera, or any other such company. They make good products (yes, even MS), but again it's a different matter.

Re: Bullshit

#157

Post by rfergie »

look_lookatme wrote: post #151
rfergie wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work with some brands on trying to measure this and in many cases I'm not sure it does work. The typical process works like this: 1. Brand creates facebook page 2. People who really, really love the brand connect with the page. 3. The brand observes that people who have connected with them on social media are excellent customers. 4. The brand tries to increase the number of connected users by offering promotions an…

Everyone stops thinking about it after 4, because connections are measurable and thus reportable by the media planners at whatever agency the brand has hired to do their social. It's simply a metric and few people at real companies think about it, they just see the numbers and think it's working. This is because agencies tell them it will and that's the worst part about it all. Social's value is seeing how people rea…

I completely agree. It looks like it is working and agencies/whoever is running social don't look any deeper because why would you when everything is fine?

Re: Bullshit

#158

Post by zobzu »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #76
conradfr wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your link has this : http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en

Am I supposed to install an opt-out plugin for every single tracking service in the world? There are hundereds of those, and asking each of them to voluntarily stop tracking me makes no sense.

At least, there's still an opt out =/

Re: Bullshit

#159

Post by hub_ »

blinkingled wrote: post #103

Marco, Gruber, MG have their own BS : *Android is NOT open It gets stated as absolute fact only by Apple and its hardcore followers (Steve Jobs said Windows is open not Android first, DF, MG and MA have been religiously snarking out on any chance to declare Android not open.) It is BS because all 3 of them do this only to promote what they subscribe to - i.e. they have no consequence from Android not being open (they…

The problem is that they use that phrase for virtually any argument against Android. Being about carriers being dick (the ask the phone vendor to cripple the software and the phone vendor obeys), about vendor not upgrading the OS on phones (because they want you to buy a new one), etc. All of this being unrelated to whether Android is open or not.

Re: Bullshit

#160

Post by rfergie »

Pheter wrote: post #107
rfergie wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work with some brands on trying to measure this and in many cases I'm not sure it does work. The typical process works like this: 1. Brand creates facebook page 2. People who really, really love the brand connect with the page. 3. The brand observes that people who have connected with them on social media are excellent customers. 4. The brand tries to increase the number of connected users by offering promotions an…

Social media is by no means a silver bullet, but that's not to say that it doesn't have it's uses for brands. Raising awareness, however, is something that social media can be particularly useful for.

I agree. If you look at it on a CPM basis it is possible to get insane value out of social.

However, the main way I've seen people do this so far is with viral content. Producing something that can go viral is very difficult for some brands - their culture does not support the risky, balls out attitude that does well online.

(If you have examples of viral content that does not fit this pattern then please let me know)

Post reply on HN