The problem isn't that Facebook can just copy your company. Snap Chat built a feature, not a product. It seems to me turning down any offer from Facebook to purchase it was stupid. Facebook would obviously build their own version of the app in a few weeks and it seems likely Poke will win.
Is Poke Proof That The Facebook API Is A Trojan Horse?
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Re: Is Poke Proof That The Facebook API Is A Trojan Horse?
#32I (as a not really into the whole "Social" web thing person) am a bit confused: Facebook itself already has photo uploading, sharing and commenting. Instagram is also something with photo uploading (but with applying effects to them). SnapChat is picture sharing. So if Facebook copied it I guess Poke is also picture sharing. So Facebook has 3 different photo related things: Facebook photos, Instagram and Poke. What i…
The big thing with poke/snapchat is that they send pictures that aren't stored anywhere and can only be viewed for a few seconds, after which they are inaccessible. This makes it easier and less worrisome for people to do things like sext or send pictures of themselves making silly faces.
Re: Is Poke Proof That The Facebook API Is A Trojan Horse?
#33Can you tell us how much of the FB API SnapChat was using and if there's a "safe" way to take advantage of FB Graph and other features without leaking too much detail to FB?
I've never used SnapChat, but hypothetically if you wanted to limit data going back to facebook here's one potential approach.
For this example, let's say you have an app that you want to use facebook for account creation and friend finding, but not necessarily distribution inside of Facebook.
- force facebook login for account creation - upon auth redirect back to your app, force signup completion with password and other credentials you might need. - next step is invite/follow people from your facebook friends list. - When users come back to your account from now on, only allow login via the credentials you had them create (password) and the email address you pulled from facebook. No facebook logging in after the first time.
They'd still be able to see how many people used facebook to signup. But if you don't let people continuously login with FB, or interact with their API outside of one time or explicit actions, they won't be able to get a good picture of your retention and engagement.
Re: Is Poke Proof That The Facebook API Is A Trojan Horse?
#34The solution is coming: http//beingcollective.org
Re: Is Poke Proof That The Facebook API Is A Trojan Horse?
#35Sir, you're mistaken. At best facebook could've seen the calls Snapchat was using for friend matching but they weren't dependent as a company on facebook's infrastructure which is what your post is implying.
Snapchat should be concerned, but not because by use of facebook's apis gave facebook the valuable insight into some interesting user behavior.
No, they saw it was a cool app that was doing well in the store. They have distribution of over 800M people.... "hey, remember poking?... yeah that old feature we used to have... yeah... lets just make a snapchat clone and call it poke." That conversation could've happened over lunch or at a hackathon and it goes straight to production.
Guy's there is very little honor in the realm of ideas rightnow. Facebook is throwing punches just like everyone else.
Re: Is Poke Proof That The Facebook API Is A Trojan Horse?
#36If you are as confused by OPs talking about 800lb gorillas and soforth as I was: Snapchat is a picture sharing application that uses facebook's API. Poke is a competitor that facebook made. OP is implying that facebook saw Snapchat's beginning success by seeing how many API calls they were making and then copied snapchat, instead of buying them. Thus: OP is implying that Facebook uses its API to see up-and-comers in…
It's a trojan horse because something presented as a gift (or at least something good for you) is actually used to attack and conquer you when your guard is down.
Re: Is Poke Proof That The Facebook API Is A Trojan Horse?
#37Snapchat was a clever take but not particularly defensible.
The real test is whether FB will allow a strong competitor to survive and continue to consume its api.
Basically Twitter did the same thing to many of the basic tweet consumption & production apps -- the killer move Twitter made, though, was cutting off api access to those competitors, which FB have not AFAIK done. (Though another comment mentions that the find friends via FB feature is gone from snapchat, I haven't seen anyone commenting that they were cut off by FB and will assume it was snapchat's decision to remove it.)
Re: Is Poke Proof That The Facebook API Is A Trojan Horse?
#38They did not get 800lb by happenstance, so stop being silly with all these trojan APIs and put-all-your-data-here-in-my-cloud trap, build your own stuff.
Re: Is Poke Proof That The Facebook API Is A Trojan Horse?
#39To those confused about how Snapchat uses the Facebook API: At least for iOS, Snapchat (used to?) have a feature where you can "find friends via Facebook." Taking a closer look at the latest version now though, it appears this feature has gone away and the only way to add friends on Snapchat is through your contacts list or directly by username. I believe the OP is implying that calls to the Facebook API (even those…
That feature wasn't present when I started using it a month or so ago. It made it impossible to find friends on it.
Re: Is Poke Proof That The Facebook API Is A Trojan Horse?
#40So here's something that just happened 5 minutes ago. A girl I've been snapchatting with texted me and asked why the Poke app is just like snapchat. I asked her if it was better, and she said 'I haven't used it much, but it looks much better', and now we're using it instead of snapchat. Pretty fascinating. She downloaded the app because they're advertising it on their mobile app.
That doesn't surprise me too much. Visually, the Poke app does look much more appealing however the big win is obviously the Facebook integration. Snapchat requires you to find friends by their phone number or by manually entering their username. The Poke application on the other hand allows you instant access to your entire friends list. In my opinion, the Poke app will obliterate Snapchat because of this.
I have a phone number for everyone I want to snapchat with, but a couple of those people are not on Facebook. I can't imagine someone not having a smartphone in my demographic but not having FB, while rare, does happen.