"Perhaps one day not long from now, everything on the Web will be a mere extension of Facebook." - a very optimistic view of the growth of FB , to put it mildly.
You mean everything on the "social web"..
Can Anyone Stop Facebook?
41–50 of 52 posts
Re: Can Anyone Stop Facebook?
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't trust any of them. That's why I don't have a Facebook page, I don't have a MySpace page, I don't use gmail or any of Google's services. I don't have a Twitter account. I do have an account on LinkedIn because my boss at my last job asked me to set one up, but I never update it.
I don't either which is why i'd never use my real name when signing up to them. I dont mind giving them free content, i'm just not comfortable with how they can tally that content back to me.
How much free content do they need to tie it back to you? Remember AOL releasing some search queries, and quickly people were identified. I imagine that is not hard with facebook interactions either.
Re: Can Anyone Stop Facebook?
#43As history teaches us, the answer is 'yes'. Personally, I think it most likely that Facebook will end up stopping Facebook, by failing to ameliorate ways that it currently annoys its users (or allows its users to annoy each-other) and by coming up with new and creative ways to annoy its users in the future. With one eye on recent history and the other on my crystal ball, I find it probably that future annoyances will come primarily in the form of privacy breaches.
Either that or I'll be the first up against the wall when Facebook becomes SKYNET.
Re: Can Anyone Stop Facebook?
#442006: Can anyone stop MySpace? 1997: Can anyone stop Netscape? 1999: Can anyone stop Webvan? etc. etc.
The first and last example never had anything close to the scale of facebook. Facebook is the first app of its kind to reach this scale. There was no lockin incentive with Netscape - quite the opposite. I'm not saying facebook will last forever - just that it is easy to poke holes in your examples. IBM and Microsoft are probably the best examples of decades long dominance that eventually began to decline.
Burger King gave McDonald's a run for its money sometime back in history. The person to "stop" Facebook will recognize that to beat Facebook, you can't me-too Facebook, and you have to provide something that Facebook can't duplicate either. Burger King offered a product that they touted as more sophisticated than the kiddie-image McDonald's. When McDonald's tried to follow suit, they fell flat on their face.
That said, I think there's more to be done in the social networking space than mere marketing differences. Twitter was just the first and probably simplest example of what you can do once you get away from the traditional count-my-friends social networking model.
Re: Can Anyone Stop Facebook?
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
The first and last example never had anything close to the scale of facebook. Facebook is the first app of its kind to reach this scale. There was no lockin incentive with Netscape - quite the opposite. I'm not saying facebook will last forever - just that it is easy to poke holes in your examples. IBM and Microsoft are probably the best examples of decades long dominance that eventually began to decline.
Burger King gave McDonald's a run for its money sometime back in history. The person to "stop" Facebook will recognize that to beat Facebook, you can't me-too Facebook, and you have to provide something that Facebook can't duplicate either. Burger King offered a product that they touted as more sophisticated than the kiddie-image McDonald's. When McDonald's tried to follow suit, they fell flat on their face. That sai…
Good points - but I have to say that the follower-count dynamic on twitter is totally uninteresting and unsustainable as a motivator for new users. It should have been hidden long ago.
Re: Can Anyone Stop Facebook?
#46Look at Facebook ... look at ChromeOS .... it's the same thing (only Facebook is further along). The business is data mining and advertising. The issue will be who do you distrust the least. Who is going to make it easiest to export my personal data to use somewhere else? Hopefully us geeks will keep pushing for this and then help everyone else follow. Until then I feel like I'm just toying around with the flavor-of-…
"The business is data mining and advertising." I often wonder if the business of online advertising really works well. Targeted advertising certainly has better results that blanket campaigns, but don't most users ignore advertisements by now? I know that I hardly even notice them anymore (even the good ones).
don't most users ignore advertisements by now?
Not well targeted ads! One of the forums I frequent has a fairly new ad up almost all the time. A number of people have commented on their experiences purchasing the products from that vendor and as a result, many more (myself included!) plan to buy from them when the need arises. It's a simple banner ad and clicking it takes you to a gorgeous website that is a perfect showcase for what they're selling.
I really don't think most people (non-developers) dislike ads; we dislike annoying, generic ads that have nothing we're interested in.
Then again, my wife and I love the "messing with sasquatch" TV ads because they're so funny although I can't even remember what they're selling!
Re: Can Anyone Stop Facebook?
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
It depends if Facebook will be gone. Trust and reliance become significant things in stopping migration, I haven't changed from Google despite it being eternally the same because #1 I rely on it, #2 I trust it. If facebook can get one, or both, of these from its 350 million users it has a significant chance to stick around. You also have to consider teen markets shift much faster than adult markets. I know in my high…
Google specifically avoids changing the user experience. Facebook-today is, for my uses, much worse than Facebook-of-years-past. In the past it was simplistic, elegant, and did one job and did it well. Now it is trying to be everything and is bloated, slow, and spammy. The signal-to-noise ratio is terrible and I can't find a way to turn off "Mafia Wars" spam.
> I can't find a way to turn off "Mafia Wars" spam.
On the notifications that display, hover over the top-right corner and an X should appear. It prompts to hide all notifications from the application.
Thankfully notifications are one thing Facebook is removing. Perhaps the signal-to-noise ratio will improve when they make the spamming more difficult.
Re: Can Anyone Stop Facebook?
#48Look at Facebook ... look at ChromeOS .... it's the same thing (only Facebook is further along). The business is data mining and advertising. The issue will be who do you distrust the least. Who is going to make it easiest to export my personal data to use somewhere else? Hopefully us geeks will keep pushing for this and then help everyone else follow. Until then I feel like I'm just toying around with the flavor-of-…
I don't trust any of them. That's why I don't have a Facebook page, I don't have a MySpace page, I don't use gmail or any of Google's services. I don't have a Twitter account. I do have an account on LinkedIn because my boss at my last job asked me to set one up, but I never update it.
do you use a phone?
i wonder how people felt when phones first came out. the privacy nuts must have gone crazy: oh no! the operator could be listening to my personal conversations.
Re: Can Anyone Stop Facebook?
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, that's highly anecdotal and as long as Facebook keeps growing your observation does not hold true for the majority of the users. Everything goes in waves though, it lies in human nature to grow bored with sameness. Ten years ago there existed a community product in my country that had managed to capture 90% of all high-school students, and they seemed unstoppable. Now, the product is almost forgotten, they lost…
About which community product are you talking?
Re: Can Anyone Stop Facebook?
#50I have one facebook account with a totally fake profile that I used once to view someone's photos. I'm done with facebook, but I guess my once-only fake account still counts towards the growing number of facebook users. I am surprised by how pervasive facebook is. I insist that people post their photos on flickr or some other service because I don't want to use facebook. They in turn insist that I sign up to facebook…
I am in the same boat, I have a fake facebook profile that I used once for a specific (slightly nefarious) purpose and that was that. Anyhow, I must be one of the few according to Slate, who does not like sharing everything I do with my friends, enemies and strangers.
Same boat here. Judging by this thread our boat is getting quite crowded. Maybe the Slate people did their research using a facebook poll ;-)