Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Goodbye Facebook

theaboutness.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 111 posts

Re: Goodbye Facebook

#21

Post by michaelchisari »

Tichy wrote: post #14
yuvadam wrote: post #11

This is a very important article. An eye opener. My takeaway is this - Facebook is the first web application that showed us how easy it is to connect to the people we love, as well as those we know, but do not care about. Facebook is the mere beginning of the way we will communicate in the future. It has its gripes, and people are starting to get bored with it ("ok so I friended her, now what?"). Nothing happens on F…

"how easy it is to connect to the people we love" I think connecting to someone used to mean something different, although I am not sure what it was.

It's interesting, because my interest and understanding of social network is that it's precisely for managing my distant relationships. People I went to high school with, people I worked with 5 years ago, my second cousins, people I somewhat know who I may need to contact at some point.

People I'm close to, "the people I love", I've never had a problem keeping in touch with them. I have their number in my phone, I have their email address, I see them regularly, I know what they're up to, and how to contact them. That's never been a problem, and social networking hasn't really changed that for me.

Re: Goodbye Facebook

#23

Post by golgo13 »

ojbyrne wrote: post #2

My girlfriend also deleted her account immediately after watching the movie. If there's 2 people, there must be more.

My dad (58) just signed up and I got the friend request Sunday night. Right now, his friends list consist of him and some guy in his computer class, and me. But in a few days, I know I'll get a friend request from my mom and some of my aunts. I'm pretty sure this thing is still growing.

Re: Goodbye Facebook

#24

Post by yeahsure »

Tichy wrote: post #14
yuvadam wrote: post #11

This is a very important article. An eye opener. My takeaway is this - Facebook is the first web application that showed us how easy it is to connect to the people we love, as well as those we know, but do not care about. Facebook is the mere beginning of the way we will communicate in the future. It has its gripes, and people are starting to get bored with it ("ok so I friended her, now what?"). Nothing happens on F…

"how easy it is to connect to the people we love" I think connecting to someone used to mean something different, although I am not sure what it was.

Leaving a "happy birthday" used to mean you actually remember the date, not that you had a message requesting you to wish someone a happy birthday. The people I really care about get a phone call, not a dummy "wall post".

Maybe I'm a bit of an antisocial, but I really liked the days before social networks. My friends where on my IM contact list, colleagues on forums or mailing lists.

Re: Goodbye Facebook

#25

Post by beoba »

jbhelms wrote: post #18
ojbyrne wrote: post #2

My girlfriend also deleted her account immediately after watching the movie. If there's 2 people, there must be more.

alas, for every person that delete their profiles there is another 2-3 that sign up. I am not saying that is sustainable, but they are growing. This is especially true in Asia where in the last 2 years has quadrupled.

It's easy to grow in percentage terms when you're starting from nothing.

Re: Goodbye Facebook

#26

Post by brlewis »

motters wrote: post #13

There is perhaps some chance that I could be wrong due to the substantial inertia which Facebook has now accumulated, but I expect that it's just another fad which seems to be peaking if my spider-senses are correct. Facebook is not a particularly brilliant application and the amount of value it delivers is also not that great. If you're a Facebook user or addict, just pause for a moment and ask yourself how much act…

The brilliance of Facebook is that it draws in lots of users. Their funnel is amazing. The app at the bottom of that funnel isn't that great, but manages to deliver value because of the huge userbase.

Re: Goodbye Facebook

#27

Post by tarkin2 »

I don't know. The author seems to think we'll become Zuckerberg's zombie army due to extended Facebook use. So was the same true of the time UseNet? MSN Messenger? And all those others when they were highly popular? Weren't we trapped in their creators' worlds? With before, when new tech comes along, with an interface, or "world" we prefer to use, then we'll move on. We'll interface with people on the web in a different way. Habits come and go.

Re: Goodbye Facebook

#28

Post by haraball »

rewind wrote: post #19

I find it humorous that there is such a need to DEFINE Facebook. It's different things to different people. We really don't need one definition of what it is or a nice tidy list of the ways people use it, what the benefits are, what the drawbacks are, etc. Every time I read about somebody complaining about Facebook, I usually just end up thinking "I don't use it (exactly) that way, so this doesn't (completely) apply…

On the other hand, it also removes the need to contact that person since you already know all the latest news. I'm not comfortable in situations when I meet people I don't see often and they tell me things that I already know, and I have to pretend to not knowing it to avoid the stalkerish feeling it gives me.

Re: Goodbye Facebook

#29

Post by kia »

anonymoushn wrote: post #17
stcredzero wrote: post #5

The degree to which China is not connected in the visualization at the bottom, I find worrisome. Why? Because connection and commerce are the true foundations of peace. By that thinking, visualization is not a good omen. (Maybe we should just chalk it up to language?)

Facebook lost in China and Russia because other similar products were already established (and in Russia the product is pretty much better >_>). The regions aren't actually less connected socially, or if they are you can't tell by looking at Facebook's data.

If you are talking about VKontakte in Russia, you are wrong. VKontakte (launched 2006) is a clone of Facebook (even the design is copied from FB). It's criticized in Russia for the same reasons as FB here.

FB lost because VK was specifically targeted at Russian audience from the beginning.

Re: Goodbye Facebook

#30

Post by motters »

brlewis wrote: post #26
motters wrote: post #13

There is perhaps some chance that I could be wrong due to the substantial inertia which Facebook has now accumulated, but I expect that it's just another fad which seems to be peaking if my spider-senses are correct. Facebook is not a particularly brilliant application and the amount of value it delivers is also not that great. If you're a Facebook user or addict, just pause for a moment and ask yourself how much act…

The brilliance of Facebook is that it draws in lots of users. Their funnel is amazing. The app at the bottom of that funnel isn't that great, but manages to deliver value because of the huge userbase.

And this is also its weakness because if its only virtue is that it's "the cool place to hang out in cyberspace" then this is very vulnerable to changes in fashion (see MySpace/Second Life/LiveJournal/GeoCities).
Post reply on HN