Thousands flock to Wikipedia founder's 'Facebook rival' • Hacker News Board

Re: Thousands flock to Wikipedia founder's 'Facebook rival'

#121

Post by Zenst » Tue, Nov 19, 2019, 7:44 PM UTC

filmgirlcw wrote: post #97

emptybottle wrote: post #70

To all the people poking fun at "thousands"... You have to start somewhere, and I'm sure you'd be tickled pink to see thousands of new users signing up for your app...

If I was the co-founder of one of the top websites in the world that had to pivot from my shitty news organization into what looks like a shitty version of Diaspora, I’m not so sure I’d be thrilled with “thousands.” You need network effects for social network rivals to take off. That isn’t to say there won’t be a Facebook successor (there almost certainly will be one — the big challenge for Facebook is if it has a pi…

Maybe, but then you have a different financial model being played out with it being subscritpion based and no small fee either. This changes how it can be marketed and the pyrimid approach would not supprise me in that once the subscriptions level of, they offer them referal links in which they get $1 a month for people subscribing via their link after their extended trial period of say 90 days.

At least, that is what I would be looking at doing. Certainly the monthly fee is high, so what level they break even in running costs will be lower and may well be that they already break even in running and depreciation of assets -costs. May even be a small monthly profit already. We just don't know.

Re: Thousands flock to Wikipedia founder's 'Facebook rival'

#122

Post by vikiomega9 » Tue, Nov 19, 2019, 7:45 PM UTC

Do they talk about why we need to log-in?

Re: Thousands flock to Wikipedia founder's 'Facebook rival'

#123

Post by Vinnl » Tue, Nov 19, 2019, 7:47 PM UTC

konstantinentia wrote: post #24

jermaustin1 wrote: post #14

I can't see this as a Facebook rival. From my understanding, this is a social news site with fact checking. I use Facebook to post pictures of my vacations for my family, and get updates on my nieces and nephews since I moved from Houston, TX to NYC 5 years ago. Until someone replaces that aspect in a way that works while still enabling my family to do their memes and quizzes, and all that crap I avoid, there will be…

I similarly relocated away from family. Turns out that if they know you don't use Facebook they will go out of their way to update you directly. Just believe that you are worth it, and my friend, you are.

I don't have WhatsApp in a country where practically everybody has WhatsApp, and while I certainly get included in enough things and am not dissatisfied (especially since quite a few have now also installed Signal), I'm also certainly getting left out of a lot of things still.

Again, not that much of a problem to me, but certainly something I wouldn't deny is happening.

Re: Thousands flock to Wikipedia founder's 'Facebook rival'

#124

Post by amwelles » Tue, Nov 19, 2019, 7:48 PM UTC

farisjarrah wrote: post #113

zamalek wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I use Facebook to post pictures of my vacations for my family I use Facebook as a perpetually correct address book. People change address, phone number and sometimes email, but never their Facebook account. That single property of Facebook (which is something my generation attributed to Facebook, instead of it being directly coded as a feature) is why I could basically never leave. I've tried to get my family off o…

Are there any popular main-stream non-facebook or non-google owned chat properties? I've been looking for a family friendly alternative.

Telegram comes to mind.

Re: Thousands flock to Wikipedia founder's 'Facebook rival'

#125

Post by solarhoma » Tue, Nov 19, 2019, 7:49 PM UTC

filmgirlcw wrote: post #97

emptybottle wrote: post #70

To all the people poking fun at "thousands"... You have to start somewhere, and I'm sure you'd be tickled pink to see thousands of new users signing up for your app...

If I was the co-founder of one of the top websites in the world that had to pivot from my shitty news organization into what looks like a shitty version of Diaspora, I’m not so sure I’d be thrilled with “thousands.” You need network effects for social network rivals to take off. That isn’t to say there won’t be a Facebook successor (there almost certainly will be one — the big challenge for Facebook is if it has a pi…

Facebooks successor is Instagram. Unfortunately for us Zuckerberg bought Instagram.

Re: Thousands flock to Wikipedia founder's 'Facebook rival'

#126

Post by joegahona » Tue, Nov 19, 2019, 7:50 PM UTC

Does this mean 160,000 registered? Or 160,000 entered their cc info and are paying? Way different metrics, obviously.

Re: Thousands flock to Wikipedia founder's 'Facebook rival'

#127

Post by cridenour » Tue, Nov 19, 2019, 8:01 PM UTC

psweber wrote: post #62

jermaustin1 wrote: post #14

I can't see this as a Facebook rival. From my understanding, this is a social news site with fact checking. I use Facebook to post pictures of my vacations for my family, and get updates on my nieces and nephews since I moved from Houston, TX to NYC 5 years ago. Until someone replaces that aspect in a way that works while still enabling my family to do their memes and quizzes, and all that crap I avoid, there will be…

I fantasize about a product like that sometimes. A private, pay social site geared towards families. Your family pays a yearly subscription. Photo/video sharing. Event planning. Family news timeline. Everything purely linear. No manipulation to maximize engagement. No ads. Just real information about your family that you care about. One side of my family has about 30 people that are all willing to travel to meet some…

RIP Path.

Re: Thousands flock to Wikipedia founder's 'Facebook rival'

#128

Post by xchaotic » Tue, Nov 19, 2019, 8:01 PM UTC

The pricing to me seems horribly expensive especially as they are fighting a competitor that is ‘free’ and has way better network effects?

Re: Thousands flock to Wikipedia founder's 'Facebook rival'

#129

Post by TomMasz » Tue, Nov 19, 2019, 8:02 PM UTC

emptybottle wrote: post #70

To all the people poking fun at "thousands"... You have to start somewhere, and I'm sure you'd be tickled pink to see thousands of new users signing up for your app...

I hear you but Facebook, for better or worse, is the social networking site everyone you know is on. It has a tremendous advantage over any upstart for that reason. Lots of geeky folks flocked to Google+ in its early days but that wasn't enough to replace Facebook. Even when they gave everyone who had a Google account of some kind a G+ profile it still wasn't enough. I will definitely check this out but it'll be back to FB when I need to know what my friends are up to.

Re: Thousands flock to Wikipedia founder's 'Facebook rival'

#130

Post by deusofnull » Tue, Nov 19, 2019, 8:02 PM UTC

konstantinentia wrote: post #24

jermaustin1 wrote: post #14

I can't see this as a Facebook rival. From my understanding, this is a social news site with fact checking. I use Facebook to post pictures of my vacations for my family, and get updates on my nieces and nephews since I moved from Houston, TX to NYC 5 years ago. Until someone replaces that aspect in a way that works while still enabling my family to do their memes and quizzes, and all that crap I avoid, there will be…

I similarly relocated away from family. Turns out that if they know you don't use Facebook they will go out of their way to update you directly. Just believe that you are worth it, and my friend, you are.

I've been trying to get my family to install signal for our family group chat to no avail... i feel signal is so much smoother than fb msgr, but no one outside my techie / ativist friend groups ever agree to even try it.