The solution to this problem was G+ and that failed too. I find myself using Facebook less and less. I'm not bitter about it and I'm not making a conscious decision to stay away. I just am finding less and less value in it.
The Facebook experiment has failed
191–200 of 304 posts
Re: The Facebook experiment has failed
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
replace "facebook" with "HN" in the quote above... How many of us could have said that? Are we forced to be here?
And Reddit, and Slashdot and WoW and usenet... Aren't there studies that find there is an element of addiction to browsing the internet?
"Withdrawal symptoms: If the person stops using the Internet, they experience unpleasant feelings or physical effects."
It's a bit like having a drug addiction really.
Re: The Facebook experiment has failed
#193People really just don't seem to understand that experiences with social media are specific to the individual. I guess it's understandable. I see the same Google Maps as everyone else does. I see the same Hacker News as everyone else who visits HN. But Facebook isn't like that. Your Facebook timeline is based entirely on your friends and how you interact with Facebook. And so, every few weeks it seems, we get these p…
Agree to what you say. Facebook is great in some cases, like finding your old buddy from college or school. I use FB to find them, but after that I get their email ids and from then on its email communication. So for me FB is the place to find people. But FB is not for getting news about the topics I like; because, IMHO like the OP, Facebook news feed is broken for this purpose. Yes it is broken if you like to get ne…
I agree, but people have always followed the information they want.
Online, that's as old as Usenet, and it continued through topics on CompuServe and AOL. It continues today through specialised forums and bulletin boards, especially the forums on subject-based websites. Good ones include AV Forums, Hydrogen Audio, DPReview, Doom9 etc.
Anyone who thinks Facebook is, or is meant to be, a substitute for Doom9 is extremely dim.
A lot of Facebook is social grooming and phatic communication http://grammar.about.com/od/pq/g/phaticterm.htm
Re: The Facebook experiment has failed
#194Facebook is performance art. It's a phonebook of people I lost contact with many years ago. It's also a quasi-broken emailing list program. It might be a decent advertising platform for small businesses. Don't know. It's not a news feed. It's not stories relevant to me. It's not a way to actually have friends. It's not a place where people create things and share (mostly). People might think it's those things. Hell,…
Google+ really was on to something with its circles: My friends are easily divisible into groups, and, apart from life events like getting engaged, what I want to share is only really relevant to a specific subset. I know Facebook has groups you can share specific things with, but it's not a feature Facebook has focused on, so even I don't really use it. I could use google +, but no one else does, and there's not muc…
> there's not much of a point to shouting into an empty room
Spot on....
Re: The Facebook experiment has failed
#195Facebook seemed to promise something better than email. Yet email is an open standard and so will still be part of all of our daily lives long after FB is a memory or a niche. We moan about email but it gives us choice - free with ads or paid and ad free, basic or full featured.
For keeping in touch with friends I find email, phone, Skype and train 'n boats 'n planes work pretty well.
Re: The Facebook experiment has failed
#196Facebook is performance art. It's a phonebook of people I lost contact with many years ago. It's also a quasi-broken emailing list program. It might be a decent advertising platform for small businesses. Don't know. It's not a news feed. It's not stories relevant to me. It's not a way to actually have friends. It's not a place where people create things and share (mostly). People might think it's those things. Hell,…
In the beginning (circa 2003-2005 when I was in college) it was a tool for only your peers. Granted at the time it was little more than a directory and event management tool. But it served a useful purpose back then. In my opinion the jumping-the-shark moment was either when it was opened to the world or when "Apps" were introduced.
IMO it started to degrade pretty quickly once the 2003-2005 cohort started to have babies. That pushed extended family, etc. to join to see baby pictures, etc. But I agree somewhat about the apps too, especially the way the games were introduced (when I think about how much I know about some of my friends' mafia wars habits vs. how much I care...)
This all happened at about the same time, though, and it all fits under the umbrella of the (sensible, from FB's standpoint) strategy of "grow as large as possible."
Re: The Facebook experiment has failed
#197Author here. Didn't think this would show up on HN. These were my thoughts when I wrote it: 1. Most stuff being shared is of no value to most people. Does not encourage exchange of good ideas. Sharing, as it works now looks like a fad. It has peaked. Most people I know are bored now, it's just the inertia that keeps them there. 2. If someone is genuinely interested in something, they will seek out good communities to…
Re point 1, see my answer above, especially the last bit
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5814061
The idea that the shared stuff is of "no value to most people" is a good indication that you haven't understood what's actually going on.
> doesn't need to look like FB
This is true, but then, Facebook has 1.1bn users and has thrashed all of the rival sites in the marketplace.
You should be able to work out why Facebook has been really successful and why Friendster, Orkut, Hi5, MySpace, and many others have not.
If you don't understand that, then you're not in a good position to criticise Facebook.
Re: The Facebook experiment has failed
#198fackbook might not be useful to some, but I met my wife there.
Re: The Facebook experiment has failed
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except it really is not. Facebook friends can be equally curated and pruned. Facebook offers its own variant of circles, and importantly my friends are on facebook which can facilitate discussion. Even though everyone has gmail and Google is forcing G+ down everybody's throat, G+ has not taken off. There is no material to discuss on G+. Besides, the same problems will creep in with G+ too. Do you want to pick and cho…
The keywords are "can be". Or as the author put it "unless you jump through hoops". The Google+ interface makes a difference. The majority of stuff on Google+ is shared privately, because the interface invites doing it that way. (The interface also invites having a "loudmouth" circle with zero notification level, so you can follow people without having their posts in your default stream).
It's really easy to hide people on Facebook, if you even see their stuff in the first place. Mainly, you'll see stuff from the people you interact with.
Otherwise, G+ Circles are ridiculously clunky and slow, due to Google choosing superficial eye-candy over functionality.
Re: The Facebook experiment has failed
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except it really is not. Facebook friends can be equally curated and pruned. Facebook offers its own variant of circles, and importantly my friends are on facebook which can facilitate discussion. Even though everyone has gmail and Google is forcing G+ down everybody's throat, G+ has not taken off. There is no material to discuss on G+. Besides, the same problems will creep in with G+ too. Do you want to pick and cho…
The keywords are "can be". Or as the author put it "unless you jump through hoops". The Google+ interface makes a difference. The majority of stuff on Google+ is shared privately, because the interface invites doing it that way. (The interface also invites having a "loudmouth" circle with zero notification level, so you can follow people without having their posts in your default stream).
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