Facebook's killer app is here. No, it's Not places. • Hacker News Board

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

#41

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 23, 2010, 1:34 PM UTC

jasonlbaptiste wrote: post #37

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…

Hmm, facebook mail is absolutely horrid. It's a combination of spam messages and just contact that I will never read. I have 1000+ unread messages. I actually read a fb message in my normal email box and if it's something actually valuable, ill then respond on FB.

[deleted]

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

#42

Post by alttab » Mon, Aug 23, 2010, 2:10 PM UTC

chunkyslink wrote: post #6

dlsspy wrote: post #4

I've been noticing this trend as well. I commented to a friend recently, “Remember when there was more than one web page?”

Yea me too. As someone who doesn't have a Facebook account I notice it a lot. I have actually started removing sites from my favourites list that are peppered with Facebook widgets. I just don't visit them anymore. There is still plenty of choice out there but stuff is slowly morphing into Facebook.

I've seen plenty of commercials with: facebook.com/myproduct as their URL. Crazy shit.

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

#43

Post by asdfer » Mon, Aug 23, 2010, 2:49 PM UTC

notahacker wrote: post #32

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…

It also fixed event invitations extremely well. Events is Facebook's killer app it barely realises it has...

This is the main reason I always hear that people are 'forced' to stay on FB, even if they don't like it: so they can still get invited to parties.

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

#44

Post by chrisbaglieri » Mon, Aug 23, 2010, 2:52 PM UTC

When combined with Places, Pages becomes a significantly more compelling platform. For business owners it becomes a more vibrant and useful set of data. For consumers, it becomes more real time and as a result more social. For developers, it becomes a more interesting data set to build upon. This excerpt from GigaOM (http://gigaom.com/2010/08/20/facebook-places-the-real-target...) was telling:

We’re hearing that Facebook is pouring resources into pitching the Places feature as a tool for local businesses in dozens of markets, by approaching individual store-owners and business people and selling them on the idea of setting up a Places page for their location. According to Facebook’s description of the new feature, anyone can create a page for a place, but businesses can claim their page — by responding to a phone call from a Facebook representative, or by uploading some kind of official documentation that proves they have the right to that location.

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

#45

Post by jonknee » Mon, Aug 23, 2010, 2:52 PM UTC

MySpace band pages were the rage a few years ago. Times change. The MySpace pages at least provided value for both sides--you could hear the music and the bands could let you know about shows. Most business pages I've seen on Facebook are one sided in that the fan gets nothing out of it other than letting all their friends know what corporation they are a "fan" of.

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

#46

Post by iamelgringo » Mon, Aug 23, 2010, 2:55 PM UTC

johns wrote: post #5

This is just the latest revision of AOL Keywords. How did that work out for them?

20 years after they were a startup, they made $400M in profit on revenue of $3.2B last year. I'm not saying those are sexy numnbers, but they're not exactly shabby, either.

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

#47

Post by GBKS » Mon, Aug 23, 2010, 2:57 PM UTC

patrickk wrote: post #39

luxative wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patrickk, some thoughts on your points: a) Yes, it's not 'as cool' as before. But, thanks to the 'friends of friends' effect ypu've mentioned, it has achieved remarkable numbers while it 'was cool' - and at this time, that's all that matters. b) I think businesses are starting to see value in facebook. Facebook Places (with the automatic creation of a facebook page too) will only catalyze this. And...with a single de…

On a) - cool is very subjective, so perhaps there's no point in even mentioning it. It depends on the person you ask. On point b) - Facebook is focusing on making it's services more useful to business, at the detriment of it's core users. Facebook became popular in Harvard because you could scope out that cute undergrad you spotted around campus. The people in your network were tied to your friends and classmates in…

I actually think Facebook has a decent grip of this spam problem. Your news feed doesn't show you all the events that happen, only a limited set. They figure out which people you interact with more, which updates get more attention, etc and only show you the ones that they think matters to you.

Their goal is to capture as much data as possible (updates, likes, places, pages) and to find the connections between things. With enough data and number crunching, they can figure out if you're interested in xbox or Mafia Wars updates or now and adjust accordingly.

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

#48

Post by glhaynes » Mon, Aug 23, 2010, 3:43 PM UTC

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…

Do you hide the spammy stuff? I'm interested in nearly none of the apps on Facebook, but I really enjoy status updates and comments. So whenever I see something in the feed from an app I'm not interested in, I click the Hide button then choose to hide everything from that app. Two clicks, it's gone forever. Used to have to do that quite a bit, but now I've got most things blocked, so only about once or twice a week do I have to block a new app. Compared to dealing with spam in my email, it's no big deal at all.

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

#49

Post by glhaynes » Mon, Aug 23, 2010, 3:49 PM UTC

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!

An apartment complex near me is having an iPad giveaway, replacing their Wii giveaway.

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

#50

Post by city41 » Mon, Aug 23, 2010, 4:11 PM UTC

jonknee wrote: post #45

MySpace band pages were the rage a few years ago. Times change. The MySpace pages at least provided value for both sides--you could hear the music and the bands could let you know about shows. Most business pages I've seen on Facebook are one sided in that the fan gets nothing out of it other than letting all their friends know what corporation they are a "fan" of.

That's not really true. Bands can, and do, use Facebook pages as effectively as they used Myspace pages. You can include audio, tour dates, etc on Facebook pages quite easily. In fact it's my sole means of finding out when/where my favorite bands are touring now.

Facebook pages are even better, because this can apply to anything, not just bands. I also get informed of the latest Abstruse Goose, updates to favorite iPhone apps, etc, all through Facebook. It's just up to the owner of the page to use it effectively.