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

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

#151

Post by herval »

planetguy wrote: post #123
pemulis wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make them exclusive. Only let a handful of people wear them, so that they become a social status symbol. Make them so rare that people share photos of them "in the wild" like they were pictures of celebrities. The early announcement and slow public roll-out are necessary for pragmatic reasons -- you can't test Glass in the real world if you're trying to keep it secret -- but I think it's also a brilliant marketing st…

Nope, as far as I'm concerned they're still gonna be dorky. Wearing electronics on your face is irredeemably dorky, and I don't see any way around that. Electronics in your pocket: cool Electronics in your hand: cool Electronics hanging out of your ears: cool Electronics on your head, face, or built into your clothing: irredeemably uncool. I can't explain why in words, all I can tell you is that the world sees these…

Smartphones used to be dorky (less than a decade ago!). So did computers and even wrist watches. I'm pretty sure "electronic eyewear" (which ARE dorky now - see oakley's nerd product, the Thump) will follow suit. Dorky, then widespread, then sexy and desirable.

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

#152

Post by alan_cx »

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…

Given that really the only thing a computer can do is store, manipulate and present data, what else would make sense to store that data? Aren't RAM and hard drives pretty much databases?

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

#153

Post by outworlder »

planetguy wrote: post #123
pemulis wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make them exclusive. Only let a handful of people wear them, so that they become a social status symbol. Make them so rare that people share photos of them "in the wild" like they were pictures of celebrities. The early announcement and slow public roll-out are necessary for pragmatic reasons -- you can't test Glass in the real world if you're trying to keep it secret -- but I think it's also a brilliant marketing st…

Nope, as far as I'm concerned they're still gonna be dorky. Wearing electronics on your face is irredeemably dorky, and I don't see any way around that. Electronics in your pocket: cool Electronics in your hand: cool Electronics hanging out of your ears: cool Electronics on your head, face, or built into your clothing: irredeemably uncool. I can't explain why in words, all I can tell you is that the world sees these…

Uh.

I might be getting old, but I remember a time where electronics ANYWHERE in your person were incredibly uncool.

They were called "wereables" from a reason.

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

#154

Post by taligent »

detst wrote: post #101
ececconi wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Connecting people and giving them a new way to communicate with each other is a big waste to society? Facebook has fundamentally changed the idea of the weak tie for many people. If that's a waste, then I don't really know what else is meaningful in life.

> If that's a waste, then I don't really know what else is meaningful in life. The "strong tie"? I'm just not so sure changing the "weak tie" is such a net positive for society. I'm not going to claim that FB doesn't have its positives but I'd rather see a society building strong ties with fewer people than weak ties with many. (and, frankly, doing nothing but wasting time for hours per day)

How is communicating with people on Facebook a greater waste of times than playing games, being on here, chatting with friends, watching movies etc.

It's funny because your entire comment is self contradictory. On one hand you criticise socialising using Facebook and on the other want to build stronger ties. Socialising = Stronger ties.

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

#156

Post by mangoman »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #64

Two things: Both facebook and google are playing catchup on social. Facebook with monetization, google with popularity. This leaves them wide open to disruption from companies that nail the fundamentals from the get go and bring significant value-add to the table. Second, both companies view users like cattle. Just headcount to convert to dollars. Overall my hunch is that there's a 50/50 chance that neither google no…

While I agree that both Facebook and Google have those respective problems, I think social is an area where user base is not easily portable. It would be tough to convert all the moms and dads to switch from Facebook to another platform...It was difficult enough to get them on Facebook.

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

#157

Post by alan_cx »

mkinsella wrote: post #115
confluence wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Interesting point. However, I'll disagree with Amazon.com. Purchasing real world products is much more than just a database frontend.

I see the two as separate things.

Amazon.com, the website, is a database which churns out orders that manifest in the real world. But once that happens is not amazon.com the actual site any more. That has done its job of gathering data, processing it, and outputting it.

Its like if I phoned in an order. The web site is like the phone system. The phone system is not doing anything in the physical world, except passing on the data of an order.

That said, I can see a right old debate about there the lines of separation are.

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

#158

Post by confluence »

alan_cx wrote: post #152
confluence wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Given that really the only thing a computer can do is store, manipulate and present data, what else would make sense to store that data? Aren't RAM and hard drives pretty much databases?

I was merely pointing out that there isn't anything special with most of these sites. No hate. I love them, and use most of them on a daily basis.

Just pointing out something I found highly curious.

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

#159

Post by confluence »

benburleson wrote: post #142
confluence wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What's a good example of a site that isn't a db frontend?

Wolfram Alpha and the search part of Google/Yahoo! - also bing.

These do more than just regurgitate data. They do useful things, such as compose summaries, search and analyse the links etc. Most of the others is simply a "SELECT * FROM TABLE" for each page.

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

#160

Post by confluence »

jawr wrote: post #132
confluence wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well none of them were the first to do what they did. None of them actually pioneered anything, the ideas were in the air.

Google was an improved HITS algorithm and the infrastructure of infoseek (copied). They weren't the only search engine to do link analysis. There were others.

You think Yahoo! was the first portal? Or Netscape the first browser?

Facebook was not the first social network. MySpace/Friendster were also pretty big back then.

You can say they executed better, but at the time, my friend, it wasn't such a sure bet.

That's the way it is with innovation, and that's why companies fail so hard, and so fast. No one really knows what's going on.

You give them fundamental attribution due to the survival bias found in innovative industries.

You forget the many failures.

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