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The futures of Facebook and Google are embedded in these two images

robinsloan.com

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Re: The futures of Facebook and Google are embedded in these two images

#131

Post by 51Cards »

StavrosK wrote: post #89
51Cards wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one little thought I would add to that is that when Google first started working on a self driving car everyone went "WTF is a search company doing..". Now, X years later... it's a different story. People have started to really think about self-driving vehicles and autonomous travel. I don't see Glass at this point... but I didn't see practical self driving cars 6 years ago either, let alone states licensing them…

Google isn't a search company, it's an AI/ML company.

Very true, but when they started working on a driver-less car in 2006, they were still thought of as a search company. They hadn't yet bought Youtube or DoubleClick.

Re: The futures of Facebook and Google are embedded in these two images

#132

Post by jawr »

confluence wrote: post #109
dxbydt wrote: post #99

to gauge marginal positive externalities, invert the principal component & see what remains. as an example - suppose you wake up tomorrow and google search stops working. never mind why - some random bug impossible to figure out, so it just stops working. Then what are the positive externalities that remain ? Well, gmail. youtube. android. gdrive. maps. picasa. blogger. reader. googledocs. googlecheckout. etc etc etc…

Reminds me of a Charlie Munger quote: that to get closer to the right answer, scholars should "invert, always invert." You have a strong point there. Most top 100 websites I see are just frontends to databases . I kid you not. Their competitive advantage is proprietary data holding and network effects to get more data. Google - search + database frontend. Facebook - database frontend. YouTube - database frontend. Yah…

I don't think that's a just argument; a database is just a means of storing information which is parsed data, the important part there is the transition from data to information, not the fact that they use a database to store the information. The reason that they are all top websites is because of their first stakes, ingenuity, pioneering, etc.

Re: The futures of Facebook and Google are embedded in these two images

#133

Post by 51Cards »

ajross wrote: post #87
qq66 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest technical achievement of Facebook has been scaling Facebook. They've solved a lot of difficult technical problems to do so. And News Feed, Connect, and Open Graph are all huge steps forward in Facebook's ambition, although the third-party ecosystem still leaves something to be desired. Thank god that Facebook killed Evite, but now I'm hoping for someone/something to kill Washington Post Social Reader.

But again, Google did all that stuff too (almost 1:1, even -- remember that G+ is a facebook clone). And somehow they also found time to make self driving cars, a first tier mobile operating system, ChromsOS, a Dropbox clone, these ridiculous glasses, etc... Facebook just looks pretty lame in comparison, sorry.

Don't forget Google Docs, Maps, StreetView, Gmail...

Re: The futures of Facebook and Google are embedded in these two images

#134

Post by czr80 »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #130
guelo wrote: post #114

I'm not sure I understand this article. What is it that he imagines actors and athletes doing that they don't do with Twitter now? People hold up their phones pretty close to their face when capturing photos and videos so it is already the first person POV. And it is pretty easy to do, I'm sure it will be harder taking pics with Glass than a phone, it is more flexible taking pictures with your hands than your face. T…

He imagines that the feed from, oh, say, a baseball player? (football is too violent) will, someday, be wearing one of these, and then you'll get to see the game from their perspective while they're doing other things, and it'll be awesome. ... I'll believe it's awesome, with copious amounts of editing. If you're just watching it raw, it'll be disorienting and shaky and distracting. :P I'm also dubious exactly what b…

Serious question - how is that different from this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNMyj2ftuZA

Re: The futures of Facebook and Google are embedded in these two images

#135

Post by T-Winsnes »

pstuart wrote: post #88
gcb wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marketing. apple made walkmans cool again. After the 80s. with marketing alone.

marketing alone? yeah, right. edit: Adding a hard drive, making it easier to use than the competition, itunes store, app store. None of that had anything to do with it?

I remember my parents called all mp3 players "iPod" long before the appstore was announced. The first generations of iPods might have been easier to use than the other mp3 players at the time, but that alone does not explain the huge adoption by the general population. Marketing definitively had a lot to do with it, probably more than the quality of the product.

Re: The futures of Facebook and Google are embedded in these two images

#136

Post by waterlesscloud »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #130
guelo wrote: post #114

I'm not sure I understand this article. What is it that he imagines actors and athletes doing that they don't do with Twitter now? People hold up their phones pretty close to their face when capturing photos and videos so it is already the first person POV. And it is pretty easy to do, I'm sure it will be harder taking pics with Glass than a phone, it is more flexible taking pictures with your hands than your face. T…

He imagines that the feed from, oh, say, a baseball player? (football is too violent) will, someday, be wearing one of these, and then you'll get to see the game from their perspective while they're doing other things, and it'll be awesome. ... I'll believe it's awesome, with copious amounts of editing. If you're just watching it raw, it'll be disorienting and shaky and distracting. :P I'm also dubious exactly what b…

Go to youtube right now and watch any number of first person downhill skiing videos. What does Glass add to that?

Re: The futures of Facebook and Google are embedded in these two images

#138

Post by K2h »

toemetoch wrote: post #81
grandalf wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A camera that takes images comparable to a picture taken on a current iPhone? For every frame (such as in a video) the amount of work involved to reduce boredom increases. Raw video of people's lives is utterly, unimaginably boring, even if the person is a celebrity. Still photos work b/c they capture a whole moment, with just enough detail to inspire the imagination and to ground the imaginings in reality. My person…

It's not the device, it's the applications people will crave. Think about these apps for your glasses: - adBlocker to remove ads from your view - first person shooter missions with google maps integration. All you need is an empty cow-pasture. - architects/renovators guiding people through their new/renovated house before the contract' signed. - ... You're suffering from a serious lack of realism if you discard them…

i agree with you. all the haters on the project glass concept are not thinking of all the cool yet un thought of applications.

police officer gives you a hard time? not when you have these babies on.

-any- interaction with a portable or remote electronics could be done through glass

contextual info lookup, like price matching, comparison shopping, maps, directions, all of it

entertainment, eventually vr type emersion.

Re: The futures of Facebook and Google are embedded in these two images

#139

Post by jrockway »

T-Winsnes wrote: post #135
pstuart wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

marketing alone? yeah, right. edit: Adding a hard drive, making it easier to use than the competition, itunes store, app store. None of that had anything to do with it?

I remember my parents called all mp3 players "iPod" long before the appstore was announced. The first generations of iPods might have been easier to use than the other mp3 players at the time, but that alone does not explain the huge adoption by the general population. Marketing definitively had a lot to do with it, probably more than the quality of the product.

Indeed. The iPod was just a worse Nomad. (I already posted CmdrTaco's iconic summary in another comment in this article, so I will avoid it here.)

But nobody bought Nomad, and everyone bought an iPod. Why? Because Apple told people to buy an iPod, and people tend to do what they're told.

Re: The futures of Facebook and Google are embedded in these two images

#140

Post by taligent »

dvdhsu wrote: post #59
taligent wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being able to connect with people from around the world and share content is not a big waste to society.

> Being able to connect with people from around the world and share content is not a big waste to society. That's correct. However, the ability to "connect with people from around the world and share content" is, as your parent post notes, is Facebook's "core" functionality. What does Facebook have to show for the engineers they've hired this year, engineers they've hired last year? Are read receipts on Facebook chat…

When Google changes its icons for special occasions is that more beneficial to "society" than other things they could be working. Is ANYTHING people do really the best they could do for society.

I just don't understand why you are holding Facebook to some arbitrary standard.

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