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

Facebook's Little Red Book

map.cv

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 300 posts

Re: Facebook's Little Red Book

#211

Post by umeshunni »

wormius wrote: post #179
alex1138 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a serious problem with calling everything social media and (more importantly) how it spells doom for this that and the other If you want to criticize specific companies - yeah. But I literally do not understand what people are talking about when employing the usual "Social media was a mistake" type stuff

(apologies for the ridiculous length of this, and totally understand if you pass up reading the comment, it's also a bit incoherent/lazy/quickly put together) ---- To me, the real problems are the following. All related to "social media" but not social media in itself. 1) The Stream (timeline, whatever you want to call it). Instead of static single "pages" that linked to each other as separate entities with their own…

That's a great list and write-up. Thank you for doing this.

Re: Facebook's Little Red Book

#212

Post by stiltzkin »

paxys wrote: post #52

I think people here are too young to remember the tech industry in 2012. None of the images and ideas conveyed in this book (printing press, cave art, fall of the Berlin wall, Arab Spring, particle accelerators) were outlandish for the time and space it was printed in. Tech was all about optimism and idealism. Everyone in silicon valley knew they were changing the world for the better, and tech was the missing piece…

HN before 2012 was way different back then too.

Re: Facebook's Little Red Book

#213

Post by momoschili »

squigz wrote: post #204
po wrote: post #199

Historically, those who controlled the media controlled the message. If you're the only one with a printing press, you control what people read. Same with radio. Same with TV. But what happens when everyone can put their message in front of a lot of people? When the playing field is level? When everyone has a printing press, the ones with the best ideas are the ones people listen to. Influence can no longer be owned.…

I think Zuckerberg is still alive and well aware of the current landscape.

I think he was replaced by a robot at some point and is now in Cuba with JFK and Tupac

Re: Facebook's Little Red Book

#214

Post by nativeit »

tdeck wrote: post #150
paxys wrote: post #52

I think people here are too young to remember the tech industry in 2012. None of the images and ideas conveyed in this book (printing press, cave art, fall of the Berlin wall, Arab Spring, particle accelerators) were outlandish for the time and space it was printed in. Tech was all about optimism and idealism. Everyone in silicon valley knew they were changing the world for the better, and tech was the missing piece…

I think the movie The Social Network was responsible for bringing this into the public consciousness, and constructing it to some extent. It kind of framed the discussion about the software industry for at least a decade.

I think that’s maybe reversed. The Social Network was telling a narrative through a contemporary lens, and part of the reason it became a phenomenon was because it hit on something people were already feeling. It may have helped a lot of people better articulate their own unease. I know I had already identified the anxieties in myself, and started discussing the potential negative impacts to social cohesion and political polarization, as these things were already fairly stark to anyone who was interested in exploring them. Although, I am not a CS grad, but rather Media Studies, so I had been primed to look for unrest and fraying of social fabric as a result of the communications revolution of the internet, just generally. So maybe mine isn’t the best benchmark perspective on this after all?

Re: Facebook's Little Red Book

#215

Post by hex4def6 »

wormius wrote: post #179
alex1138 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a serious problem with calling everything social media and (more importantly) how it spells doom for this that and the other If you want to criticize specific companies - yeah. But I literally do not understand what people are talking about when employing the usual "Social media was a mistake" type stuff

(apologies for the ridiculous length of this, and totally understand if you pass up reading the comment, it's also a bit incoherent/lazy/quickly put together) ---- To me, the real problems are the following. All related to "social media" but not social media in itself. 1) The Stream (timeline, whatever you want to call it). Instead of static single "pages" that linked to each other as separate entities with their own…

I agree with all of this, but would add: The "social media" we see isn't the entire landscape. There are lots of small communities hanging out in spaces like unpopular subreddits, random internet forums, discord servers. It's just the 10GW burning sun that is popular social media can feel like it drowns that all out. And, I think there's a bit of a nagging feeling of irrelevance that can creep in when you're in these niches.

In the old days, you were small groups exploring the uncharted. You were in the minority because you were part of a group of pioneers, and I think there was a sense of optimism and excitement around that. I think a lot of the magic is gone precisely because tech is now ubiquitous and mainstream.

I can't help but wonder if it's my nostalgia as well, but I feel like 1995 - 2005 was the golden decade. It was at the point that technology was actually good enough to enable a lot of stuff (broadband, large storage media, etc), but it was still enough in its embryonic state that the novelty was still there.

Re: Facebook's Little Red Book

#216

Post by tivert »

mettamage wrote: post #189
sfblah wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're likely too young to remember anything much before 2012. Honestly, this stuff has been around for 50 years. Go watch a video about Steve Jobs at NeXT from the 1980s.

True, but for me, the techno-optimism started with Google. I was a young kid back then, but the idea to catalog all of the world's information under a search engine (that worked) sounded wild to me at the time.

> True, but for me, the techno-optimism started with Google. I was a young kid back then...

But for me, the world started with my youth. I was a young kid back then...

Re: Facebook's Little Red Book

#217

Post by tivert »

ncpa-cpl wrote: post #182
dluan wrote: post #153

Facebook somehow acquiring 小红书 would actually be a prescient move, but even that era seems forever ago.

I came looking for this, Is the Chinese instagram’s name, Little Red Book (小红书), related to Facebook’s Little Red Book, or just a coincidence?

> Is the Chinese instagram’s name, Little Red Book (小红书), related to Facebook’s Little Red Book, or just a coincidence?

I'd bet they're both related to Mao's Little Red Book.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotations_from_Chairman_Mao_T...

You know, "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun," and stuff like that.

Re: Facebook's Little Red Book

#218

Post by int_19h »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #149
dowager_dan99 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right - but also very wrong. People can be optimistic while still having an existential crisis about what they see/feel is happening. That's what makes them believe they can influence and change the world, and why they even try. What we're seeing in tech today feels like it started in the 80's, and before that point computers, etc. were viewed by some as the downfall of humankind and by others the saviour.

Oh, man, I can still remember how when barcodes started showing up on products in the late 70s that there were people saying it was the mark of the beast or a precursor to it or that it was some government ploy.

They still say that, by the way.

Re: Facebook's Little Red Book

#219

Post by riiii »

tsunamifury wrote: post #109
smnrg wrote: post #92

Design and content references must have felt like a cute satirical reference at the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotations_from_Chairman_Mao_T...

"We were going to change the world." And then they did... it was no accident

> We were going to change the world

Ah, the importance of being specific.

If you want to change your neighbourhood, you could start every morning by sweeping the pavement. Or you could leave a random dog turd. Both will accomplish your stated goal.

Re: Facebook's Little Red Book

#220

Post by riiii »

tivert wrote: post #217
ncpa-cpl wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I came looking for this, Is the Chinese instagram’s name, Little Red Book (小红书), related to Facebook’s Little Red Book, or just a coincidence?

> Is the Chinese instagram’s name, Little Red Book (小红书), related to Facebook’s Little Red Book, or just a coincidence? I'd bet they're both related to Mao's Little Red Book. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotations_from_Chairman_Mao_T... You know, "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun," and stuff like that.

> political power grows out of the barrel of a gun

They say you shouldn't bring a knife to a gunfight. But this is the only time a flag might be useful in a gunfight.

Post reply on HN