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

31–40 of 271 posts

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

#31

Post by thiagomgd »

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…

People are so quick to label new apps/sites as Facebook/Instagram/Twitter rivals, but in really they are not. As you mentioned, just because you can friend someone, it's not a Facebook rival, or else, Imgur would be a Instagram rival because you can post pics...

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

#32

Post by workthrowaway »

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…

google+ did not fail for me. and many others i know. i enjoyed being part of communities around specific topics.

spamming was the only problem i saw. and i just couldn't comprehend that the same company that defeated spams in email couldn't do the same on their social network.

someone made a comment earlier about twitter killed vine and now tiktok is being a better vine. maybe someday we will see a social network where the emphasis is on communities and not the self. that's what google+ did better than anything that was out there.

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

#33

Post by lm28469 »

konstantinentia wrote: post #24
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.

That, plus if they don't update you personally and all you get from them is passively watching their facebook feed I have bad news for you. I'd take a bi yearly call from my grandma over the daily shitposts of any member of my family that I haven't talked to in 10 years.

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

#35

Post by gk1 »

konstantinentia wrote: post #24
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.

Same here. Going off FB just gives me a reason to call my friends and family, and for them to call me.

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

#38

Post by p1esk »

ddxxdd wrote: post #13
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.

That faint praise will transform into real praise once millions of BBC readers feel compelled to join those thousands already in Wikipedia's version of facebook.

I don’t feel compelled.
Post reply on HN