Live data from Hacker News

Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

dcurt.is

181–190 of 231 posts

Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#181
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

QWERTY's initial design was for typewriters. To prevent jamming of typebars, commonly used letter pairs were not placed together. Saying that it was designed to be inefficient is wrong, however it's fair to say that preventing typewriter jams overrode typing efficiency as a design consideration.

Rather, it sped up typing by preventing jams.

[deleted]

Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#182
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't need the feed you don't even need the web browser since the message system is bog standard jabber. I do my FB messaging through Messages on my Mac and the FB Messages app on my phone. Works great.

Bog standard Jabber except for the changes they make - group messaging, 'seen' notifications, in line attachments, 'stickers' are all proprietary stuff which a standard jabber client doesn't support, unfortunately. Their Facebook Messenger for Windows client was discontinued earlier this month unfortuntaely, so I'm back using Trillian and boy do I miss the group messaging feature.

(genuine question, I don't use FB chat)

How is group messaging different from MUC[1]? The naming group messaging sounds alike, but I don't know the internals of FBs feature.

in line attachments is also possible[2] - I assume you mean sending files, embedding photos in messages and such?

As for seen and stickers I don't know of a XMPP equivalent, but I am curious as to why MUC wasn't used instead of proprietary group messaging.

[1]: XEP-0045, http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0045.html

[2]: html and/or XEP-0231, http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0231.html

Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#183
post #164
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot of room between "exist to make money" and "must make money in order to exist". Like, a staggering amount of room.

I don't really see much of a difference. If a company must make money to continue to exist, then I think it's reasonable to say that company "exists to make money." Of course, that doesn't mean is exists only to make money.

[deleted]

Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#184
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make me think of QWERTY keyboards and how they remain the most common format globally in spite of being intentionally designed to be inefficient. Some people seem to believe in an "ideal world" and let that interfere with interacting with actual reality in a practical way. Things need to be backwards compatible with user experience to succeed. New designs sometimes simply are not that.

There is no evidence that points to QWERTY being designed to be inefficient. http://www.economist.com/node/196071 http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/fact-of-fiction-t...

There is plenty of evidence that points to it being inefficient, however. Regardless of the various QWERTY origin stories, it's not a very good touch-typing layout compared to Dvorak or Colemak.

Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#185
post #170
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vincent Flanders called this mystery meat navigation [1] and has a whole site about webpages that suck.. (a bit dated) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_meat_navigation http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/mysterymeatnavigation.html

Some people have asked, "Where are the sites?" Well, the menu above should aim you in the right direction. Too bad that Web Pages That Suck sucks.

wow that site's still going. I remember reading his book when I first started learning web design. Always thought the bad design on that site was done ironically though..

Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#186
Am I the only person on the planet who vastly prefers the newer design?

Yes, the larger images were nice to look at - but they got in the way of actually viewing the content for me.

My personal viewing habits of the newsfeed are to give facebook a glance over once a day with my morning coffee. The purpose is to get an overview - quickly. The newer look got in the way of that, especially when viewing in smaller windows.

There are also all the folk who aren't looking at it on large displays, and maybe consistency of experience is important too.

Sure - maybe there's a metrics issue too. But I've seen more than my fair share of usability tests where things that my "design" persona like end up being disliked by the people who actually use the site.

Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#187
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Companies like Yahoo exist to make money - or, at least, they must continue to make money in order to continue existing. Hows that working for Yahoo now? Actually, that's kind of disingenuous. Google optimises for less clicks per user, because Google is a site for people who want to get stuff done. Yahoo and Facebook are time-wasters. And unlike Yahoo, I can't see it ever transitioning to anything other than a time…

I also have no interest in using Yahoo, but my (Japanese) wife loves using the Japanese-language version to browse news, etc. I wonder if they are making most of their money in Japan.

Quite likely, given that their online auction platform dominates the Japanese market (ebay eventually gave up).

Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#188
This anecdote perfectly illustrates how Facebook is not playing the long game. Facebook will erode any trust and loyalty that they did have in favor of short-term gains. We see it again and again. The last thing was the "pay to access your fans" bait-and-switch that to me was rather abhorrent.

Without any "higher mission" at all, Facebook has to resort to these lowest-common-denominator values.

I only hope that someone with better values can gain an edge someday, and refuses to be acquired/neutralized by Facebook.

Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#189
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Companies like Yahoo exist to make money - or, at least, they must continue to make money in order to continue existing. Hows that working for Yahoo now? Actually, that's kind of disingenuous. Google optimises for less clicks per user, because Google is a site for people who want to get stuff done. Yahoo and Facebook are time-wasters. And unlike Yahoo, I can't see it ever transitioning to anything other than a time…

Hows that working for Yahoo now? Pretty well, considering they are still around more than a decade after they stopped being "cool". They're not trendy in tech circles, they are just a business that makes money. Yahoo and Facebook are time-wasters... Time-wasters are basically unprofitable Yeah, unprofitable to the tune of $600 million a year. That's Yahoo's net profit last year. I swear to god, the blindness of peopl…

When I last heard, Yahoo seemed to have a net value of less than zero (http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-03-17/is-yahoo-s-... ), once you exclude their minority stakes in alibaba and Yahoo Japan.

That could just be investors / analysts being stupid (either the ones valuing alibaba too highly, or valuing Yahoo too low). But Yahoo doesn't make a ton of money off its core business.

It's still quite possible for them to turn it around. They are really very good at what they, and they have the eyeballs.

Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#190
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Companies like Yahoo exist to make money - or, at least, they must continue to make money in order to continue existing. Hows that working for Yahoo now? Actually, that's kind of disingenuous. Google optimises for less clicks per user, because Google is a site for people who want to get stuff done. Yahoo and Facebook are time-wasters. And unlike Yahoo, I can't see it ever transitioning to anything other than a time…

I also have no interest in using Yahoo, but my (Japanese) wife loves using the Japanese-language version to browse news, etc. I wonder if they are making most of their money in Japan.

If you're talking about Yahoo Japan, that isn't Yahoo. It's an independent company, which Yahoo holds a 35% stake in.
Post reply on HN