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Facebook's killer app is here. No, it's Not places.

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Re: Facebook's killer app is here. No, it's Not places.

#21

Post by edanm »

luxative wrote: post #16
edanm wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The contest-related stuff is a big reason, I suspect - I'm in a contest now with a team of people, where the team with the most "likes" clicked through them on to a company website is given an Ipad each (8 members). Believe me, we're doing a good job advertising the company for them :)

Interestingly, for all these competitions, the iPad seems the undisputed motivator these days!

Maybe because it's something a lot of people do want, but can't justify getting for themselves (I already have a laptop, I don't really need an Ipad).

Or maybe just 'cause it's the shiniest new toy around :)

Re: Facebook's killer app is here. No, it's Not places.

#22

Post by patrickk »

sz wrote: post #9
rfugger wrote: post #7

I personally don't see the appeal of Facebook pages. The only function I can see of "liking" any of these pages is to give Facebook more information so they can try to sell you more stuff.

The appeal to businesses is clear. The appeal to users could be social ("What brands do I associate myself with?") or promotion-related ("Become our 1,000,000th fan and get this free thing!", "Facebook-exclusive discount!"). Also I don't think Facebook lets you put in bio information (favorite movies, etc.) anymore without it linking to a page.

Facebook's increasing focus on business customers will be at the detriment of regular users, who will be demoted to the rank of mere 'consumers'. It's a subtle - but important - distinction.

Facebook's decision-making will increasingly be driven by thinking like "how can we monetize all this wealth of consumer data" or "how can we introduce tiered fanpage packages to business customers as a revenue stream" rather than focusing on what makes a great user experience.

Currently, knowing that my friend has achieved another 'badge' in Mafia Wars adds zero value to my life. It only gets worse as Facebook focuses more and more on business brands. What do I care if my friend 'likes' Apple or Nike? How does that improve my relationship with that person? People I am really friends with in real life don't care what brands I like, or what isotonic sports drink I drink. The like me because of me. Much as businesses would like to think that people define their lives by the products they buy (this is like the opening scenes in 'Fight Club' where Edward Norton's character tries to pick out stuff from an Ikea catalogue that defines himself) that's not a basis for a relationship. And Facebook used to be all about relationships. Now I look at my Live Stream...and it's got all this random flotsam floating downstream. I care about none of it.

The reason I love HN, incidentally, is because it's the polar opposite of MySpace and what Facebook is gradually becoming. Real people, that I share a lot in common with, expressing their real opinions, no auto-generated crap, and zero bling.

You see comments like "What could cause FB to die?" here on HN. They're so big at this stage, with the power of network effects and lock-in, that external competition is no threat to them realistically. The only way they will die is if they continue exactly the way they are now, making people's experience ever-more spam choked, till people realize "hey this experience is actually quite shit, even if I do have 500 online friends" and start looking for alternatives. We're not quite there yet though.

Re: Facebook's killer app is here. No, it's Not places.

#23

Post by InACloud »

FACT CHECK: 500 million users is over 25% of the world's online population.

Actually, the last time I checked http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html shows the world population at 6.8billion. So 500 million would only be 7% of the worlds population. Impressive, but nowhere near 25%.

Re: Facebook's killer app is here. No, it's Not places.

#24

Post by mmacaulay »

patrickk wrote: post #22
sz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The appeal to businesses is clear. The appeal to users could be social ("What brands do I associate myself with?") or promotion-related ("Become our 1,000,000th fan and get this free thing!", "Facebook-exclusive discount!"). Also I don't think Facebook lets you put in bio information (favorite movies, etc.) anymore without it linking to a page.

Facebook's increasing focus on business customers will be at the detriment of regular users, who will be demoted to the rank of mere 'consumers'. It's a subtle - but important - distinction. Facebook's decision-making will increasingly be driven by thinking like "how can we monetize all this wealth of consumer data" or "how can we introduce tiered fanpage packages to business customers as a revenue stream" rather tha…

Great post. I've been "bored" of Facebook for some time now (as I suspect many are). There's another thread on the main page where people are discussing whether or not Facebook is on the way out - I think it is, we're just waiting for something to replace it with. Twitter? Nope. My less technical and/or web savvy friends are never going to be interested in it. Diaspora? Maybe. But it seems like the purpose of Diaspora was to replace Facebook from the outset - that's just not how these things happen. More likely is that it will be something completely out of left field.

Re: Facebook's killer app is here. No, it's Not places.

#25

Post by dagw »

InACloud wrote: post #23

FACT CHECK: 500 million users is over 25% of the world's online population. Actually, the last time I checked http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html shows the world population at 6.8billion. So 500 million would only be 7% of the worlds population. Impressive, but nowhere near 25%.

Not everybody in the world is online, and thus not part of the worlds online population.

Re: Facebook's killer app is here. No, it's Not places.

#26

Post by dhimes »

InACloud wrote: post #23

FACT CHECK: 500 million users is over 25% of the world's online population. Actually, the last time I checked http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html shows the world population at 6.8billion. So 500 million would only be 7% of the worlds population. Impressive, but nowhere near 25%.

Don't forget the word "online" in the original statement.

Re: Facebook's killer app is here. No, it's Not places.

#27

Post by luxative »

InACloud wrote: post #23

FACT CHECK: 500 million users is over 25% of the world's online population. Actually, the last time I checked http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html shows the world population at 6.8billion. So 500 million would only be 7% of the worlds population. Impressive, but nowhere near 25%.

Online population: http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm (approx 2 billion)

Re: Facebook's killer app is here. No, it's Not places.

#28

Post by patrickk »

mmacaulay wrote: post #24
patrickk wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook's increasing focus on business customers will be at the detriment of regular users, who will be demoted to the rank of mere 'consumers'. It's a subtle - but important - distinction. Facebook's decision-making will increasingly be driven by thinking like "how can we monetize all this wealth of consumer data" or "how can we introduce tiered fanpage packages to business customers as a revenue stream" rather tha…

Great post. I've been "bored" of Facebook for some time now (as I suspect many are). There's another thread on the main page where people are discussing whether or not Facebook is on the way out - I think it is, we're just waiting for something to replace it with. Twitter? Nope. My less technical and/or web savvy friends are never going to be interested in it. Diaspora? Maybe. But it seems like the purpose of Diaspor…

Thanks. I'm genuinely curious what people think of this, so I reposted it there.

I think the early-adopter types - like you, me and the typical HN user see real value when it prevents itself, and Facebook ain't it. Mainstream users will hop onto Facebook because their friends are there, not necessarily because it's the best social network out there, whereas early adopters will jump onto Facebook in it's early days because

a) it's cool

b) it's useful - for users - not businesses

c) it's not MySpace.

They will continue to stick around as long as these are still true. Whether a) is still true is debatable, b) is fading and c) is becoming more of a reality by the day.

Re: Facebook's killer app is here. No, it's Not places.

#29

Post by gaius »

edanm wrote: post #11

Personally, I think Facebook's killer app is that it fixed email. For a huge population, email never worked very well, mostly since they had to find out someone else's email to talk to them. Facebook fixes this completely for any personal email use - all your real-life friends are friends on Facebook. I'm guessing a huge percentage of personal mail has moved from email to Facebook messages - does anyone have any data…

Another thing FB effectively fixed, app invites notwithstanding, was spam.

Probably lots of kids these days don't even know this, but there was once a time when your (probably only) email address was supplied by your university or employer. If two people moved, it was easy for them to lose contact with each other until a "chance" encounter (e.g. seeing them post on Usenet or whatever). Facebook solved that problem by making everyone's address book self-updating.

Re: Facebook's killer app is here. No, it's Not places.

#30

Post by gaius »

rfugger wrote: post #7

I personally don't see the appeal of Facebook pages. The only function I can see of "liking" any of these pages is to give Facebook more information so they can try to sell you more stuff.

The other day I got half-price cupcakes because I was following my supermarket on FB. So now the internet knows I'm a cupcake-eater... So long as there's some value in it for both parties, it can work.
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