Facebook the Devourer • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook the Devourer

#81

Post by alphang » Sat, Oct 06, 2012, 8:00 AM UTC

tatsuke95 wrote: post #26

If you want to hate on Facebook there should be less focus on Facebook the tool, which is a useful communication service, and more focus on Facebook the company, which is horrible. Terrible business model, "shadiness", and being part of an ongoing mass of wealth evaporation (Zynga, as we speak) is what bothers me the most about Facebook.

That's a good point. I miss the "social utility" days of the service. In that sense it's hugely valuable. (One of the best things about the internet, really.)

It's the push for users to overshare/go frictionless/"Like" the internet etc/viral gaming stuff that makes me uncomfortable.

Re: Facebook the Devourer

#82

Post by gogetter » Sat, Oct 06, 2012, 8:42 AM UTC

Another top comment that makes no sense. Alas, karma does not necessarily correlate with intelligence.

The point of the blog post is clear. There are other methods to do what people, such as middle-aged ones, now use Facebook for: sharing photos and text blurbs.

Knowing this, Facebook is pretty silly since you're posting all your private stuff on some kid's website. You do not know him and he doesn't know you. To him, you are just "Dumb fucks".

Can photos be shared by email? Can photos be shared via peer-to-peer? What is Skype? It's peer-to-peer. But it's not used for sharing "files". Years ago Google had something called the HELLO protocol. Anyone remember that? There are many ways to share personal photos and private text blurbs, not all of them are widely used. Posting your private photos and text blurbs on some kid's website seems like one of the dumbest ways to do it, especially when the kid calls people "[d]umb fucks" for doing so.

Re: Facebook the Devourer

#83

Post by lmm » Sat, Oct 06, 2012, 1:10 PM UTC

edj wrote: post #37

jamesaguilar wrote: post #10

> Remember Facebook? This delusion that Facebook is somehow dramatically more replaceable than Google or Amazon is kinda amusing. There are plenty of other places to buy online and plenty of other places to search. I can't imagine the mental contortions that are required to hold both of these beliefs at once: "Facebook is replaceable," and, "Google is irreplaceable." They are both replaceable, but it would be tough i…

The only website he lists that seems irreplaceable to me is Wikipedia. Everything from source discovery, to unearthing basic facts, to hypertextual excursions through human knowledge is so much easier and more fruitful now, it's hard to imagine going back to the way things were before.

I don't think I've used wikipedia in the past three years.

Life would be a lot worse without my Kindle, but in terms of a website that changes the world in itself, I can only think of arXiV. I remember what trying to look up actual research papers as a high school student was like before it.

Re: Facebook the Devourer

#84

Post by lmm » Sat, Oct 06, 2012, 1:13 PM UTC

RandallBrown wrote: post #68

jiggy2011 wrote: post #6

This is one thing that has always made me skeptical about FBs survival. The majority of it's use seems to be for very short term things, like friends sharing what they are currently doing. There is little value in most FB posts that are years old. As opposed to wikipedia which is a gradually building blob of knowledge. Let's say FB was down for a week, many people would use G+ instead for their social networking need…

The thousands of pictures of my life all through college and the years since have immense value to me.

People like collecting such things (and I'm no exception), but how often do you go back and actually look at them?

Re: Facebook the Devourer

#85

Post by lmm » Sat, Oct 06, 2012, 1:16 PM UTC

graue wrote: post #52

10098 wrote: post #24

Of course we can replace facebook. If you think about it, we don't really need a "social network" - all these things can be done via e-mail, xmmp and irc (all of which are standard open protocols). Use mail groups instead of "pages" and "communities", set up your mail client to neatly arrange incoming messages in folders and voila. Use xmmp for private conversations. Use irc for group conversations. It's easy. The th…

In other words, Facebook provides more usable and discoverable interfaces for the tasks you list. But you omitted a few tasks that are not practical at all using the tools e-mail, XMPP and IRC provide: Passive broadcasting / timeline: Share a status update with your friends, without putting it in an inbox or otherwise forcing them to actively dismiss it. People read your update if they happen to see it, but are not o…

>Passive broadcasting / timeline: Share a status update with your friends, without putting it in an inbox or otherwise forcing them to actively dismiss it. People read your update if they happen to see it, but are not obligated to.

That's what IRC is all about

>Events: Invite people to an event and let everyone see a convenient headcount and list of all the Yes/Maybe RSVPs.

Easy with calendaring

>Friends of friends: Discover new connections among the people you already know—for example, that Bob and Sally are acquainted even though you've never seen them together.

Yes, that's fair. Is that actually useful though?

>Photo tagging: Label each person in a group photo in a listable, searchable way. By viewing photos others have tagged, refresh your memory of who someone is.

Perfectly doable with traditional online photo galleries.

I don't think facebook makes much possible that is impossible without it; the value is all in the integration, as well as the convenient interface you mention.

Re: Facebook the Devourer

#86

Post by lmm » Sat, Oct 06, 2012, 1:17 PM UTC

alphang wrote: post #80

Apocryphon wrote: post #5

Facebook, at its core, is about private (hah!) networks of one's friends and families. It was always designed to be insular, to form self-selecting groups. It's a platform that's inward looking. The inability to create and publicize new content with it to the Net at large is a feature, not a bug.

That's the thing that's been bugging me for the past year or so. I don't know about other people, but it's clear to me that Facebook's default privacy settings — the way it's nicely set up so that you overshare with the whole world — is NOT how most users would use it. So why keep it around, Facebook?* From my vantage point, it's kinda evil, and it's anti-user. Why can't you stop being Twitter and just be an awesome…

Most users want to be able to share with their friends with zero friction, and put a higher value on this than keeping things private. I really think facebook's defaults are reasonable for the vast majority of their users.

Re: Facebook the Devourer

#87

Post by lmm » Sat, Oct 06, 2012, 1:20 PM UTC

jjacobson wrote: post #25

People get bored of looking at the same thing for too long. The combination of HTTP, Browsers, HTML, etc provides a broad canvas for artists, designers and makers to paint on. Facebook and Twitter are trying hard to take all of these amazing experiences, content and sites and package them up into a wall post or tweet. This is going to get boring for the majority of users and another solution for finding great content…

I found the greatest advantage of facebook - particularly in contrast to myspace - was that it presented the same set of information consistently. No personalized theme, no background music - everyone's page looks the same, which makes it so much easier to see the content (which is what's important). The rest of the web can look like an explosion in a paint factory by comparison.

If anything I think the greatest counter is the rise of twitter bootstrap, giving lots of content across the rest of the web a minimal, consistent look.

Re: Facebook the Devourer

#88

Post by stephang56 » Sat, Oct 06, 2012, 1:21 PM UTC

I agree absolutely and have been trying to delete my Facebook account, but to no avail. How does one delete his Facebook account? If you know, please tell me. I have asked facebook to do it more than once, but they won't even respond to me. The best I have been able to do its deactivate my account, but it gets reactivated frequently and I have to go deactivate it again. Any help out there? Please respond via email stephang56@hotmail.com as I do not frequent this forum enough to see a reply.

Re: Facebook the Devourer

#89

Post by lmm » Sat, Oct 06, 2012, 1:23 PM UTC

schrijver wrote: post #69

jonathanehrlich wrote: post #34

Umm. Really? - the arab spring - a father sharing his son's first steps with the world - learning of the death of an old, lost friend - telling the world you are ok after your hotel has been bombed in Mumbai - watching your nephew learn to ride a horse. - learning about steve job's death and feeling the entire world grieve - discovering a new book to read - trash talking your friends about just how bad the Montreal C…

The thing is that Facebook doesn’t connect me to things that matter, it just connects me to lots of things. If my best friend would have been in Mumbai, he would have let me know he was fine through other means. If some acquaintance was in Mumbai, if it weren’t for Facebook, I wouldn’t even know they were there in the first place. And I don’t want to! I mean, I really don’t feel the need to know the lives of 400 diff…

>If my best friend would have been in Mumbai, he would have let me know he was fine through other means.

Maybe your friend's more technical, but for many people the easiest way to send a piece of information to several of their friends/family at once (at least if it includes a picture or something) really is facebook.

Re: Facebook the Devourer

#90

Post by lmm » Sat, Oct 06, 2012, 1:25 PM UTC

gogetter wrote: post #82

Another top comment that makes no sense. Alas, karma does not necessarily correlate with intelligence. The point of the blog post is clear. There are other methods to do what people, such as middle-aged ones, now use Facebook for: sharing photos and text blurbs. Knowing this, Facebook is pretty silly since you're posting all your private stuff on some kid's website. You do not know him and he doesn't know you. To him…

Ease up on the hate pal.

You know why people share these things by posting them on someone else's website? Because it's orders of magnitude easier than the alternatives. It lets millions of people do something valuable they otherwise couldn't, not because it would be technically impossible for them to do it but because they don't have the skills. That's the value facebook provides.