91–100 of 304 posts
Author here. Didn't think this would show up on HN. These were my thoughts when I wrote it: 1. Most stuff being shared is of no value to most people. Does not encourage exchange of good ideas. Sharing, as it works now looks like a fad. It has peaked. Most people I know are bored now, it's just the inertia that keeps them there. 2. If someone is genuinely interested in something, they will seek out good communities to…
We need better alternatives, but I think people overestimate what a "better alternative" would look like. That whitepaper from a few years back about building a social network on top of existing email infrastructure comes to mind. A bunch of my friends don't use Facebook. We exchange long emails regularly instead. It's awesome. Solves the problem Facebook supposedly solves much, much better. And I think it would be e…
I'm in the same boat as you. I email with most of my friends and family.
We need better alternatives, but I think people overestimate what a "better alternative" would look like. That whitepaper from a few years back about building a social network on top of existing email infrastructure comes to mind. A bunch of my friends don't use Facebook. We exchange long emails regularly instead. It's awesome. Solves the problem Facebook supposedly solves much, much better. And I think it would be e…
Do you have a link to the whitepaper? I'm in the same boat as you. I email with most of my friends and family.
You 'Like' something/someone for one simple reason. You feel that page is interesting to you and you want updates. If you don't want updates from something you like, you write it down in a notebook.
Gone are the days when Facebook was an obsession. People tend to expect more and more from the service (even though it's free) they use but Facebook went in the exact opposite direction - they gave back less of what we want and more of what we don't.
I see more and more companies exclusively on Twitter which is great. Twitter's a great platform for business while I always had this sense that Facebook is more suitable for individuals.
After a week/month/year/half a decade you realise it's taking up a larger percentage of your than you'd like and you make cuts.
I have kept my Facebook account open but I can't remember when was the last time I checked it out of interest. If someone messages me or write on my wall, I get a (non-push) notification on my mobile or email (in the mailbox Newsletters which I check/clean at the end of the week). But that's it, Facebook is (almost) a past for me, just like Myspace.
Also because it's not as easy as drag&dropping a mail into the right tab.
Anyway, just my 2 cents.
PS : Actually Facebook is going through the same thing Mail has been going through since its creation. It was only friends at first, then co-workers and friends, then spam & forum notification, newsletter etc... came around and now it's becoming hard to sort through all those things. So my remark on Gmail's tabs still stands.
People really just don't seem to understand that experiences with social media are specific to the individual. I guess it's understandable. I see the same Google Maps as everyone else does. I see the same Hacker News as everyone else who visits HN. But Facebook isn't like that. Your Facebook timeline is based entirely on your friends and how you interact with Facebook. And so, every few weeks it seems, we get these p…
> And so, every few weeks it seems, we get these posts from some techie who believes that his (it's always a man) experiences with social media are universal. On the other hand, technical people are like rats. They're the first to pile on to fresh meat (there was even a prominent website by this name...), and they're the first to flee when the place is burning down.
Look at the success of Pinterest or Instagram for example. Neither grew because of technical people.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not a heavy FB user, but having lived in various places around the world, it's one of the few ways I can passively keep in touch with what my dear friends have been up to half way around the globe. That is real value that Facebook does deliver, something I must admit despite my wide ranged mistrust and distaste for various other aspects of the service.
And that thin veil is held together by its complicated breakups, baby pictures and cat memes. If it wasnt that everyone enjoyed sharing these things id hate to think what might happen. Im in the same boat as you here. And it worries me. Imagine if we had to go back to the old days of using msn status updates and actually having to gasp converse with one another in order to get our fill of socal interaction.
There is a temptation when people comment on Facebook to extrapolate their experience with the vast array of different societies, social norms, perspectives, ages, interests, backgrounds, maturities etc.
So it doesn't scale to the networking needs of an entrepreneur or academic. That's really not what it sets out to do.
People really just don't seem to understand that experiences with social media are specific to the individual. I guess it's understandable. I see the same Google Maps as everyone else does. I see the same Hacker News as everyone else who visits HN. But Facebook isn't like that. Your Facebook timeline is based entirely on your friends and how you interact with Facebook. And so, every few weeks it seems, we get these p…
I'm not a heavy FB user, but having lived in various places around the world, it's one of the few ways I can passively keep in touch with what my dear friends have been up to half way around the globe. That is real value that Facebook does deliver, something I must admit despite my wide ranged mistrust and distaste for various other aspects of the service.
Author here. Didn't think this would show up on HN. These were my thoughts when I wrote it: 1. Most stuff being shared is of no value to most people. Does not encourage exchange of good ideas. Sharing, as it works now looks like a fad. It has peaked. Most people I know are bored now, it's just the inertia that keeps them there. 2. If someone is genuinely interested in something, they will seek out good communities to…