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Thousands flock to Wikipedia founder's 'Facebook rival'

bbc.co.uk

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

#91

Post by jmmcd »

Uehreka wrote: post #82
capableweb wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many users do you think HN has? No matter how many, I think I would call HN mostly a success (currently/temporary?). Seems that to have a good social network, it's less about quantity of content and more about quality. Most of Twitter is shit, but it contains some average content too, and a small amount of gold nuggets. HN feels to have much better signal/noise ratio and judging by myself and others who hang arou…

I don’t think it makes sense to compare HN to other social networks. It wasn’t started as a business that would need to turn a profit, it was started as a side project by a rich guy (Paul Graham) who wanted to see what smart people thought about things. If HN fails to ever hit 1M users, PG (or Sam Altman) isn’t going to shut it down or cut off its funding, and neither he nor Y Combinator are expecting or relying on i…

Profit is not quite the point. The point is that in order for HN to be a useful site, so that person n+1 decides to join, all they need is that the first n people have something interesting to say. For a Facebook competitor to be useful to person n+1, the first n people have to include a lot of their existing friends and family. Network effects.

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

#93

Post by class4behavior »

emptybottle wrote: post #70

To all the people poking fun at "thousands"... You have to start somewhere, and I'm sure you'd be tickled pink to see thousands of new users signing up for your app...

Both sides are in the wrong. Comparing the numbers of the first few days to Facebook suggests either ill intent or willful ignorance, while praising a new start-up as a Facebook rival without baking up that claim with some relatable rationale indicates bias or an agenda.

Facebook aims to cover anyone's every need which could come up in a social interaction or how communication could occur. In other words, FB is a communication, an entertainment and a business platform. WT:Social, on the other hand, seems to be an evolution of the WikiTribune diving into the social market world, yet continuing its focus on reporting and fact-based information sharing. This involves work which isn't all too appealing to the general public.

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

#94

Post by beat »

Barrin92 wrote: post #67
dawg- wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

I don't think the purpose here is to be the proverbial president of the US but to simply have a community of people who are willing to chip some money in and who want healthier discourse. If you're going to blow up to the size of facebook you're just going to suffer from the very same problems. More diversity and more competition and more alternatives is what this is supposed to be part of. I think the point here is…

But will it suffer from the problem of monetizing user data? That seems to be the big thing it's designed to avoid.

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

#95

Post by rvz »

metalliqaz wrote: post #80
emptybottle wrote: post #70

To all the people poking fun at "thousands"... You have to start somewhere, and I'm sure you'd be tickled pink to see thousands of new users signing up for your app...

I agree with everything you said, but I still think "thousands" is way too low for newsworthiness. Social networks need a critical mass before they are good for anything. Surely that number has to be in the millions, right?

Well, Twitter was seen as a failure in 2009 compared to Facebook at the time. What constitutes to mass adoption is if several so-called 'influencers' try it out and if they make more money on the platform than both Twitter/Facebook and if the social network allows advertisers on there too. Then the millions of users will follow suit. Its that simple and it is has worked for Snap and it is working for TikTok.

If there is no gain or incentive for the famous users or the so called 'influencers', then the 'millions of users' will stay where the famous users are.

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

#96

Post by rgbrenner »

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's because Google tried to be the network for everyone. There are a lot of people.. several billion, and if that's your market, then 300m doesn't cut it. (They also forced it onto everyone.. there was little community there.)

On the other hand, being the social network for a smaller audience is very do-able. Even Facebook started locally at Zuckerbergs college, then expanded to other colleges, before eventually opening up. Being the social network for a single school only requires a few thousand people.. then you're the social network everyone (in that school) wants to be on to discuss events relevant to the school... and you've created your foothold.

Google was never interested in a creating a foothold in a small niche. They said "We're google.. basic marketing rules don't apply" and they learned they were wrong.

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

#97

Post by filmgirlcw »

emptybottle wrote: post #70

To all the people poking fun at "thousands"... You have to start somewhere, and I'm sure you'd be tickled pink to see thousands of new users signing up for your app...

If I was the co-founder of one of the top websites in the world that had to pivot from my shitty news organization into what looks like a shitty version of Diaspora, I’m not so sure I’d be thrilled with “thousands.”

You need network effects for social network rivals to take off. That isn’t to say there won’t be a Facebook successor (there almost certainly will be one — the big challenge for Facebook is if it has a piece of that or not), but just as Diaspora, Google+, Peach, Ello, App.net, Gab, Mastadon, and any other number of attempts at this have failed (calling Mastadon a failure is unfair, but its not Twitter and won’t ever be), so will this.

Snap was a threat to Facebook’s core messaging properties (WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram), so Instagram had to blatantly copy Snap to win back momentum. Snap is still a thing, but unless it leans into the fact that it isn’t owned by Facebook (which is ultimately what hurts WA and Instagram), it isn’t ever going to catch-up, especially on a global level. TikTok has the sort of network effect Vine never had, and could be a real contender for the next generation, even with its ownership questions. Twitch and YouTube still have opportunities for growth — and there is still lots of room for innovation in the live video space.

And look, maybe this will be a really nice niche community for a small group of people. I hope it is. I hope the people that signup and pay for it enjoy it. I hope Wales doesn’t get bored when it doesn’t have tons of users and make tons of money.

There is a market for small community social networks. Not everything has to be the scale of Facebook — I’d argue it’s better when things aren’t that size — but let’s not pretend we’re not talking about this because it’s being positioned as something that is “taking on” the giant — when it would be more helpful - but make for a poorer headline/narrative - to say, “rich dude wants to recreate The Well for a generation of users who doesn’t know what The Well was.”

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

#98

Post by aphextim »

psweber wrote: post #62
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 fantasize about a product like that sometimes. A private, pay social site geared towards families. Your family pays a yearly subscription. Photo/video sharing. Event planning. Family news timeline. Everything purely linear. No manipulation to maximize engagement. No ads. Just real information about your family that you care about. One side of my family has about 30 people that are all willing to travel to meet some…

Add to that network the ability to order physical printed copies of photos for cheap automatically sent to your house you could have a goldmine with people who still make photo albums/scrapbook.

You would have to only allow those in your family/inner circle the ability to order your photos but for families who use Facebook just to keep in touch/share baby photos having a social media centered around family groups could be lucrative.

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

#99

Post by chimi »

Uehreka wrote: post #82
capableweb wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many users do you think HN has? No matter how many, I think I would call HN mostly a success (currently/temporary?). Seems that to have a good social network, it's less about quantity of content and more about quality. Most of Twitter is shit, but it contains some average content too, and a small amount of gold nuggets. HN feels to have much better signal/noise ratio and judging by myself and others who hang arou…

I don’t think it makes sense to compare HN to other social networks. It wasn’t started as a business that would need to turn a profit, it was started as a side project by a rich guy (Paul Graham) who wanted to see what smart people thought about things. If HN fails to ever hit 1M users, PG (or Sam Altman) isn’t going to shut it down or cut off its funding, and neither he nor Y Combinator are expecting or relying on i…

HN is a marketing channel for startups who might want to pitch ycombinator, then market the startups they pick, then find employees for those startups, then repeat.

The value isn't in selling ads.

I see this whole line of reasoning that thousands of people isn't enough to be newsworthy a symptom of valleythink where all that is valued is growth.

There are other factors that indicate success and the community for the most part has lost sight of those for the tunnel vision of "must get funding!"

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

#100

Post by boring_twenties »

psweber wrote: post #62
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 fantasize about a product like that sometimes. A private, pay social site geared towards families. Your family pays a yearly subscription. Photo/video sharing. Event planning. Family news timeline. Everything purely linear. No manipulation to maximize engagement. No ads. Just real information about your family that you care about. One side of my family has about 30 people that are all willing to travel to meet some…

Couldn't you self-host something that checks all those boxes for far less than a few hundred a year?
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