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Thousands flock to Wikipedia founder's 'Facebook rival'

bbc.co.uk

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

#181

Post by filmgirlcw »

iamnothere wrote: post #161
filmgirlcw wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Mastadon, and any other number of attempts at this have failed (calling Mastadon a failure is unfair, but its not Twitter and won’t ever be), so will this. Who says that success should be measured by Twitter? It may be that no other social network approaches Twitter and Facebook in size given their dominance, but that doesn't mean that there can be no other social networks. In my opinion, one-size-fits-all social w…

Mastodon is successful for sure, but it isn't successful enough to overcome the incumbent in the space, which is what we're talking about. That isn't a bad thing, but it's important to add that context when looking at anything else that is being heralded as "the next X."

That's literally why I added the caveat of saying "Mastodon isn't a failure" -- but it hasn't overcome the incumbent and it won't and that may not have been the goal, but that is certainly the story that was told/sold "this OSS de-centralized app is going to replace Twitter," if not by the founders, than by the press/people excited by the idea.

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

#182

Post by cc-d »

mgbmtl wrote: post #5

Not to dive into semantics, I guess it's more of a Reddit rival? Meaning that I would be happy if it can be a fairly good news aggregator, and it doesn't need a huge critical mass. Facebook is for baby pictures of friends, angry old relatives and instant messenger for people that you want to keep at a certain distance :-)

Obligatory plug for https://ieddit.com/ - there is quite a bit of ideological overlap in terms of what is trying to be achieved and why.

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

#183

Post by hombre_fatal »

johnyzee wrote: post #173
TomMasz wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> the social networking site everyone you know is on As for Facebook the site, this is less and less true. I have kids cross different age ranges, and Facebook is not a thing at all for any of them or their social groups. And whenever someone wants to organize things via Facebook, there is always a lot of pushback from people who don't/won't use it. Their other properties, Whatsapp and Instagram, are very popular, bu…

As another experience, I've yet to meet someone aged 20 and up that doesn't have Facebook neither in Texas nor Mexico and I'm meeting people constantly 20-40.

I'm sure they have Whatsapp, Instagram, and other apps, but I've never met someone who couldn't at least provide a Facebook profile when asked and then communicate with me on it.

It seems hard to draw on your kids' experiences until they at least enter university or the work force and are actually meeting new people. I never had a Snapchat until a cute woman asked me if I had one. Now I have one ready to go.

Facebook wasn't even available until I entered university, but that's also when the rolodex becomes useful. Not so much in highschool where, even in my massive school, I still wasn't meeting so many people nor had much control over my social life compared to uni.

So I'm wary of people extrapolating from what kids do. People have been saying the death of FB is just around the corner, "just look at what kids use" for years.

Of course, a lot of this also depends where you live, like how Americans will use iMessage while that's basically unheard of in other parts of the world.

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

#184

Post by ISL »

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…

I'm not sure that a large network is essential. A strong niche is. Owning the market in an influential niche can be enough. Facebook's rise came from universities.

It seems unlikely that this particular new network will succeed, but if it provides value to a tight-knit set of users, it can plant roots and grow.

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

#186

Post by thephyber »

nanomonkey wrote: post #22
jandrese wrote: post #2

Is that headline damning with faint praise? Mere "thousands" doesn't seem like enough to get critical mass on a social network. For comparison Google+ had something on the order of 300 million users and failed to get traction.

From my experience on Scuttlebutt and other decentralized/alternative social medias, thousands will try something out just to kick the tires; it's staying, contributing and utilizing the tool for things it wasn't intended for that really matters.

Even Facebook had the Games platform to create gravity and staying power... but only for a few years until FB turned off the spigot of free viral News Feed spam to friends of the game player.

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

#187

Post by oarabbus_ »

TomMasz wrote: post #129
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…

Google+ was... simply terrible. MySpace was a superior product for the end-user, much less FB.

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

#190

Post by ReverseCold »

Bootwizard wrote: post #174
iamnothere wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mastadon, and any other number of attempts at this have failed (calling Mastadon a failure is unfair, but its not Twitter and won’t ever be), so will this. Who says that success should be measured by Twitter? It may be that no other social network approaches Twitter and Facebook in size given their dominance, but that doesn't mean that there can be no other social networks. In my opinion, one-size-fits-all social w…

Absolutely agree. I hate this trend of measuring success by comparing small products to massive bloated giants of tech. You don't have to get to that level to be a success, and you're honestly probably better off if you don't. Big social media companies are now seen as responsible for the destruction and compromise of democracy and have many more problems which wouldn't exist if they weren't so universally adopted. I…

The usefulness of a general "social network" is how many people it has. If I can't find almost everyone I know on it, and they are on a different platform (Facebook) it's easier for me to just use the other platform. People feel like they need it to keep in touch with others they don't see often (or even just others in general).

I personally don't have any major social media accounts, just small ones like HN - but I understand why people feel the need to use larger ones.

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