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This Tech Bubble Is Different

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Re: This Tech Bubble Is Different

#51

Post by swombat »

leon_ wrote: post #46
swombat wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those were computer-to-computer, not people-to-people. The only people who could use those were technical. Facebook, Twitter, et al, built a communication infrastructure between people. That's about much more than just programming or designing computer communication protocols. It's a common fallacy from programmers to think that the hard part of "build a system for 100 million users" is the programming.

Strange, my nonprogramming mother can send emails without problems. (And finds Facebook horribly confusing.)

Emails are a very unproductive way to handle communications between hundreds of people in your social network. They provide no ambient awareness of what's going on with the people you know.

They were people-to-people communication infrastructure, sure, in the same way as a dirt road is a road. But there's a big difference between an 8-lane highway and a dirt road, and there's as big a difference between email and twitter. Both are a kind of infrastructure.

Re: This Tech Bubble Is Different

#52

Post by _delirium »

swombat wrote: post #39
leon_ wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How about a communications infrastructure spanning ... tcp/ip? The infrastructure has been here for a long time. The reason why people start to "connect" with everybody now is because computers and mobile IP devices are becoming really cheap. People would be still communicating in realtime without twitter, facebook, co. SMTP, IRC and IM protocols were here before Mr. Zuckerberg knew how to spell PHP.

Those were computer-to-computer, not people-to-people. The only people who could use those were technical. Facebook, Twitter, et al, built a communication infrastructure between people. That's about much more than just programming or designing computer communication protocols. It's a common fallacy from programmers to think that the hard part of "build a system for 100 million users" is the programming.

90s AOL users were technical?

Re: This Tech Bubble Is Different

#53

Post by ma2rten »

aksbhat wrote: post #22

"Hammerbacher looked around Silicon Valley at companies like his own, Google (GOOG), and Twitter, and saw his peers wasting their talents. "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads," he says. 'That sucks.'" I loved this quote, I also had a similar experience. In past I had an internship in a similar role and pursued few projects on mining communities in large social networks. Ho…

Hey, I think I read your paper in class. Amazing how small the world can be sometimes.

Re: This Tech Bubble Is Different

#54

Post by danielnicollet »

michaelochurch wrote: post #38

Different? Different? Here's some reality surrounding certain socioeconomic fads, including the "technology bubbles" we'll see intermittently for the next 100+ years since technology is becoming the only economic force that really matters. The visible winners and value-harvesters are usually idiots who got lucky. We look at what they're doing and we say, "When the tide goes out, those lucky, no-talent assclowns will…

your view is a bit dramatic but probably closer to reality than anything else I have read in this thread. The so called A-players taking B and C outcomes also gradually increase their power and influence in the infrastructure of what the net economy has become because they are able to win in almost every cycle. The hipsters, usually only win once and then fade away from fame ;-)

Re: This Tech Bubble Is Different

#55

Post by danielnicollet »

bad_user wrote: post #11

The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads Best minds of any generation have always thought about ways to make money. That doesn't mean that the world doesn't benefit from side-effects. Information is at your fingertips because of companies like Google and Yahoo. Staying connected is easier then before because of companies like Facebook and Twitter. And speaking about infrastructu…

Best minds of any generation have always thought about ways to make money.

Yes but making money by building things that truely further the good of humanity is very different from doing so while trying to separate more consumers from their cash

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