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

Thousands flock to Wikipedia founder's 'Facebook rival'

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 271 posts

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

#21

Post by DeusExMachina »

Even though this specific platform does not appeal to me, I'm glad to see the market produce alternatives to Facebook and Twitter.

Another notable mention is Thinkspot [1], the platform created by Jordan Peterson and others.

Sure, as others point these are not "direct" competitors to the existing platforms, but I don't think they need to be.

You can't beat Facebook at making Facebook. In my opinion, if anything can chip away at the power of large players are platforms with different ideas and rules.

[1]: https://www.ts.today

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

#22

Post by nanomonkey »

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.

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

#23

Post by pfrench42 »

grezql wrote: post #16

Just signed up, I hope this really takes off. I think the design needs a proper face lift, then again the first version of FB wasnt a really eye candy either. I hope in future they implement messaging system and events.

I'm still considering signing up. I would do it in a heartbeat if, with my subscription, I could "gift" a subscription to a couple people of my choosing

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

#24

Post by konstantinentia »

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.

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

#25

Post by enitihas »

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.

Mere thousands are nowhere enough, but even Facebook also should have a very small number of high revenue customers. As long as this new network can draw a good enough amount of those users, they will be fine and will also impact Facebook's bottom line.

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

#26

Post by freehunter »

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.

And convincing people to use a service named “scuttle butt”.

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

#27

Post by znpy »

rbritton wrote: post #3
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.

Anecdotally, Google+ failed for me because I got stuck in an authentication loop for a business page. It wanted to verify the business, but the link to do so always errored out, which made it impossible to ever change the page content beyond what I initially put in. I stopped using both sides of it at that point, and it wouldn’t surprise me if others ran into similar rough edges. In true Google style, there was absol…

it failed for me because the UI was slow as molasses and the circles functionality, while cool, was not clear in the sense that it was not clear who could see what when "posting to circles"

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

#28

Post by tossAfterUsing »

freehunter wrote: post #26
nanomonkey wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And convincing people to use a service named “scuttle butt”.

annecdotally, my attention isn't usually held for long by people who are unwilling to engage with a service because of it's weird name...

https://scuttlebutt.nz/

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

#29

Post by dawg- »

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.

>Mere "thousands" doesn't seem like enough to get critical mass on a social network.

It's kind of like running for president of the United States and bragging that you got "hundreds" of votes.

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

#30

Post by Abishek_Muthian »

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…

>From my understanding, this is a social news site with fact checking.

That makes sense, I don't think a social network and privacy advocating (WikiPedia donating, HN type) go hand in hand. I like the premise of WT.Social.

Facebook is where it is because it cracked 'real identity' when others were encouraging dog/cat names for profiles.

Post reply on HN