Facebook Blames Email Problems On User "Confusion" • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook Blames Email Problems On User "Confusion"

#131

Post by malandrew » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 3:55 AM UTC

malandrew wrote: post #70

betterth wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it was this simple than Facebook would never have caught on in the first place. The answer isn't "rollback" because clearly there is some value here. The answer is finding out how to maximize that value to our lives, not maximize the payout for investors.

The main thing Facebook provides that isn't addressable with the systems we'd be left with in a "rollback" is a universal way to stay linked to other people that provides both people with control over whether that link exists or not. Everything else is just features glommed on top of that basic feature. AFAICT there are only two ways to provide that basic feature: (!) A centralized service like Facebook that manages…

I forgot one detail. They don't just provide the links, but a way of discovering the link via other unique identifiers, some of which are confirmed. e.g. email addresses and phone numbers.

With #2 you'd still need trusted sources that can verify that a person i found via johndoe@acme.com or +1 (914) 555-1212 is in fact the owner of that email or phone number.

Re: Facebook Blames Email Problems On User "Confusion"

#132

Post by Karunamon » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 4:03 AM UTC

greedo wrote: post #124

abduhl wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a ridiculous argument. There are plenty of people I see every day that I would consider, at best, an acquaintance. There is also a very small group of people that I see maybe once or twice a year that I would consider friends. Your definition of friendship is outrageously shallow and is contrary to any other definition I have heard.

Agree. My best friend is moving to another state, 16 hours away. I skypechat with him on a daily basis, and he knows me like a brother. I haven't "seen" him in over two years, and when I joked that he was going to leave town without saying goodbye, he said "what will be different?" He was right, nothing is different. It's like friends back in the 1800s exchanging letters. Doesn't mean that our friendship is less beca…

Thank you. I for one am tired of seeing the "People you only interact with online are not friends" canard. Relationships don't work that way.

Re: Facebook Blames Email Problems On User "Confusion"

#133

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 4:21 AM UTC

malandrew wrote: post #70

betterth wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it was this simple than Facebook would never have caught on in the first place. The answer isn't "rollback" because clearly there is some value here. The answer is finding out how to maximize that value to our lives, not maximize the payout for investors.

The main thing Facebook provides that isn't addressable with the systems we'd be left with in a "rollback" is a universal way to stay linked to other people that provides both people with control over whether that link exists or not. Everything else is just features glommed on top of that basic feature. AFAICT there are only two ways to provide that basic feature: (!) A centralized service like Facebook that manages…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook Blames Email Problems On User "Confusion"

#134

Post by j_s » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 5:09 AM UTC

Not anymore.

Facebook's e-mail debacle: One 'bug' fix, but rollback impossible

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4192133

Re: Facebook Blames Email Problems On User "Confusion"

#135

Post by raganesh » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 5:35 AM UTC

wahsd wrote: post #95

seiji wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enough of this conquer-the-universe bullshit. Their end goal is to be the entire Internet in a curated show-you-only-what-you-agree-with-so-you-click-on-more-things model. They won't stop or slow down until something else makes them irrelevant.

Um, when people start waking up they will realize that it isn't, hasn't ever, and will never work. Facebook only functions on one core input; your demographic info. I would bet significant amounts of money that Facebook has permanently backed up everyone's demographic info for all eternity. It is the vulnerable point in the Facebook deathstar. No one already looks at or intentionally clicks on any adds on Facebook, i…

Demographic info may not be the only thing they know about. Given a lot of sites embed some sort of Facebook widget on their pages, they have a tracking mechanism.

If I had not explicitly signed-out of Facebook before visiting all these other sites, Facebook knows about it. And maybe also the browsing habits of people in my network. That gives a really deep profile about me - a lot more than just my demographics.

Recently there was an excellent article on ReadWriteWeb, about why Facebook terrifies Google: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/why_facebook_terrifies_...

Check out screen shots of their respective ad platforms in that article: the level of targeting that is possible with Facebook (which is only going to become deeper, given all the additional details they are gathering about me) is simply not possible with Google. This is one major reason why Google is pushing hard with Google+

Re: Facebook Blames Email Problems On User "Confusion"

#136

Post by mark_integerdsv » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 5:35 AM UTC

malandrew wrote: post #70

betterth wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it was this simple than Facebook would never have caught on in the first place. The answer isn't "rollback" because clearly there is some value here. The answer is finding out how to maximize that value to our lives, not maximize the payout for investors.

The main thing Facebook provides that isn't addressable with the systems we'd be left with in a "rollback" is a universal way to stay linked to other people that provides both people with control over whether that link exists or not. Everything else is just features glommed on top of that basic feature. AFAICT there are only two ways to provide that basic feature: (!) A centralized service like Facebook that manages…

You are describing (1) a cellphone network and (2) a cellphone number.

The rest is overthink.

Re: Facebook Blames Email Problems On User "Confusion"

#137

Post by lesterbuck » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 5:52 AM UTC

raganesh wrote: post #135

wahsd wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, when people start waking up they will realize that it isn't, hasn't ever, and will never work. Facebook only functions on one core input; your demographic info. I would bet significant amounts of money that Facebook has permanently backed up everyone's demographic info for all eternity. It is the vulnerable point in the Facebook deathstar. No one already looks at or intentionally clicks on any adds on Facebook, i…

Demographic info may not be the only thing they know about. Given a lot of sites embed some sort of Facebook widget on their pages, they have a tracking mechanism. If I had not explicitly signed-out of Facebook before visiting all these other sites, Facebook knows about it. And maybe also the browsing habits of people in my network. That gives a really deep profile about me - a lot more than just my demographics. Rec…

"If I had not explicitly signed-out of Facebook before visiting all these other sites, Facebook knows about it."

Even if you have explicitly signed-out of Facebook, the presence of the like button on a site allows Facebook to track your movements on that site. Their like button javascript reports back a unique login cookie that is not erased when you sign off of Facebook. Pressing the like button is a small part of its purpose. Its purpose is to track you around the web as long as you have ever logged into Facebook before. This was all covered here on HN months ago, when I first learned of it.

Re: Facebook Blames Email Problems On User "Confusion"

#138

Post by prodigal_erik » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 6:06 AM UTC

Splines wrote: post #36

Xcelerate wrote: post #19

I think Facebook is a great company, but their message system needs a bit of work. Last year I was at their HQ and one of the engineers was working with someone I knew on some code. The engineer said "send me a message on Facebook". So the guy sends it, and then the FB engineer said "I don't see it -- are you sure you sent it?" It took a few minutes before we all realized it had gone into the "other" section of the m…

Facebook needs to dogfood their own stuff. I remember reading about how they use IRC internally. Very cool, but it makes you wonder why they don't use facebook messages for everything.

If your messaging system goes down, that's a bad time to learn your team became reliant on that messaging system and is now unable to coordinate to fix it. Same reason system status pages shouldn't be hosted on the systems they support, so you don't lose them when you need them most.

Re: Facebook Blames Email Problems On User "Confusion"

#139

Post by Splines » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 6:31 AM UTC

prodigal_erik wrote: post #138

Splines wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook needs to dogfood their own stuff. I remember reading about how they use IRC internally. Very cool, but it makes you wonder why they don't use facebook messages for everything.

If your messaging system goes down, that's a bad time to learn your team became reliant on that messaging system and is now unable to coordinate to fix it. Same reason system status pages shouldn't be hosted on the systems they support, so you don't lose them when you need them most.

Alternatively, it makes outages that much more painful. Also, for stuff like "external mails go to the other folder", usability issues wouldn't go unnoticed.

Re: Facebook Blames Email Problems On User "Confusion"

#140

Post by Nursie » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 6:37 AM UTC

gnaritas wrote: post #115

joeblubaugh wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what? You don't get to decide who people's friends are. 30 years ago people had all kinds of friends they only got to communicate with on the phone and through letters. Non-face-to-face friendships (and romantic relationships) have existed since we had semi-reliable postal services. People happen to find things like Twitter & Facebook really helpful in this regard.

I'm not telling anyone who their friends are, I'm telling you you're using the English language sloppily if everyone in your Facebook you really consider a "friend". You've devalued the word to nearly meaninglessness. Everyone you've ever met is not your friend. Everyone you've had a friendly conversation with and looked up on Facebook is not your friend.

What makes you think that some of us don't use facebook in a different way to you, and only 'friend' actual friends?

It's you that's devalued the word IMHO, if you are codifying a 'friend' relationship with everyone you've ever met.