Facebook Is Not Really That Special
mattmaroon.com
mattmaroon.com
On the other hand, the applications can be overwhelmingly irritating. The news feed is a blessing and a curse. I like to know when there are new photos of my friends to check out, but I don't care about what Zombie they just became. And regarding the app signup notifications in the feed: there are some things I'd rather not know about my friends, and one of them is how much time they are spending goofing off on Facebook...
Note to startup hackers: if you're on facebook and more than 50% of your news feed is your CEO's random facebook activity, it might be time to look for a new job (or start your own thing.)
there are already so many social networks, so facebook is not dominant where as Google has penetrated globally due to its quality.
And this is easier to happen because more people can build a community than a search engine.
That's exactly it. You're probably not seeing how they're different. When you used Google you saw that it's different from Yahoo, but I'm sure many people didn't see the difference. After all, they're both search engines. Same here: although they're both social networks, Facebook is very different from MySpace. When I used Facebook the first time, I got that Aha moment you talked about.
Facebook = keep tabs on people you know, or sorta know.
MySpace = meet random people you don't know, get spammed by porn bots, irritate your ex by posting salacious photos of yourself with a new fling, browse photos of potential mates in a criminally inappropriate age bracket from yourself, etc.
I'm leaning towards "no". For any site to replace Facebook it would require either many, many users to make the transition to another site or to outright leave making the site less useful for its users, and I honestly don't see that happening. Facebook is honestly nicely designed, has plenty of users and I can't see any killer app or nicer equivalent of Facebook appearing to make moving worthwhile.
The only thing that could replace Facebook is an unprecedented sharing of data between many significant players allowing interoperability between sites much like how E-Mail works. The existence of DataPortability may be a slow but sure approach towards this goal but there's too many factors to consider influencing whether this will ever actually happen. I certainly hope so in the long run - one site having the amount of influence that Facebook potentially can worries me.
Disclaimer: I don't actually use Facebook, and probably never will.
How facebook will be replaced.
http://chimprawk.blogspot.com/2007/11/google-opensocial-and-...
http://chimprawk.blogspot.com/2007/11/social-network-transit...
I would amend that to "some people". Just seems like "most people" to you.
Even if 50 million Americans are on Facebook, then what are the other 250 million doing?
i don't think you much understand people nor do you understand the internet either.
Show me a fan who connected with a musician on Facebook the way they connect with on MySpace. MySpace is a lot more content/entertainment oriented (as it has been since its origin) while Facebook was always more about connecting with friends and messaging.
I don't fall into any of the groups your stereotyping; however, I do find them extremely offensive and ignorant, as if a Facebook user were a super elite.
In fact, that would only reinforce the point that it's just not for everybody.
MySpace is generally considered to be a poorly designed, unkept "social network" while Facebook is generally considered to be a clean, open, and sophisticated networking application. There is a very clear, highly researched demographic divide between the younger generation (middle/high school) using myspace and older, more sophisticated generation using Facebook. There is also a clear point of transfer, High School => College, where many people "graduate" to Facebook. It's a progression. (There are studies saying that MySpace also caters to the "older" population >30yo, but those are not the people I am considering.)
Facebook is not for everybody. I highly doubt the "too old" population I stereotyped will ever use Facebook. But as time goes on, I can see people in my generation (early twenties) replacing the "too old" generation while still using things like Facebook, so that huge market will slowly be absorbed.
There will always be a MySpace. It's amazingly good for connecting artists, like you mentioned. But it's still a shitty, poorly run, poorly designed, and non-user-centric organization. I wish Virb would have taken over.
But it is what it is -- just because I'm not a passionate MySpace user, although you of course made that great assumption, does not mean it does not provide value for those who use it.
Again, your assuming people use MySpace and Facebook for exactly the same purposes, which in fact, many do not.
You can go on and on about how Facebook is for the great sophisticated people in their early twenties, and again, it shows you don't understand how and who uses the internet.
Show me the app you've designed that has amazing UI and also has 100 million users.
Keep ranting and raving about why Facebook > MySpace and you're still failing to miss the point: while they are both "social networks" their uses, which at times competing, are generally completely different.
Clearly you group yourself in this "sophisticated" category, and for someone as myself that has claimed for a couple years Facebook is a lot better than MySpace, I can see why that would comfort you to think of it that way.
Millions of MySpace users are often times just different than the millions of Facebook users.
Accept it.
And then they implemented Facebook Apps.
Lesson to startup founders out there. If your website is blessedly devoid of spam, don't create it yourself. It really pushes your users away.
Then you, my friend, have never met a teenager.
Facebook just spams me with invites and stupid boring status updates. It's like a very very bad webmail system with a shared address book.
There are definitely services besides facebook that will let you do all of the things you mentioned (looking up a birthday, pictures from the bar, contacting a friend of a friend). In fact, you can do those things on pretty much every social networking site. Facebook just happens to be the popular one right now.
When it first became popular, Google was a one of a kind. The other search engines have since caught up, but initially they didn't even compare. I think that's what makes a website really special, and that's kind of what I think facebook is lacking. There's nothing inherently special about fb other than the large number of people that use it.
There is no other way at the moment to use the internet to do the things I mentioned above.
My friends prefer evite for organizing things. It uses email, there's a thin layer of privacy, and you have a space to include details and RSVPs and such. It's not great, but it's less complicated than Facebook and you don't have to be a member of the site for it to work.
You can't google for "what should I do friday night" but you can use facebook to find out what people you know might be doing.
I like yelp for help with the question "what should I do friday night." It's a social network where members actually create useful content for anyone to use.
This was what was in my Facebook feed just now, at 4:20pm on a Saturday:
6 "has joined the group..." or "has become a fan of..." messages
5 miscellaneous profile updates (added photos, became friends, etc)
4 facebook spam (a facebook ad for facebook ads, "Top Books in Boston, MA network" etc)
1 application message (somebody added a "bumper sticker")
My theory is that, since it's the first beautiful Saturday we've had this year people are outside enjoying the weather without bothering to update facebook beforehand. There are probably people going out somewhere tonight, but haven't decided yet and aren't using facebook to figure things out because text messages are way more reliable when everyone is scattered around actually doing things.
Also, you can customize the frequency of different kinds of items on your news feed.
I expect the average facebook probably has a few hundred 'friends'. Which makes the whole thing a little bit pointless.
(If what he said is true then it's pretty ridiculous to call it hate.)
However, the real "technology" is how the popular perception of this tech has been (purposefully?) changed so it is no longer "techie."
On the other hand, the fundamental problems of the internet are not inherently technological anyways, but based on social dynamics and trust. That is why things like facebook and myspace are important.
What I would like to see some genius do is figure out what the "purpose" of the internet is. By this, I mean what is the compelling, concrete, and feasible potential of the internet? Sounds like a facile question, but it isn't. I don't mean something like "communicate faster, broadly, and more efficiently" or "watch porn."
There is a deep, underlying motivation that compels us to interact and be social, to avoid loneliness and the like, despite all the narcissistic toys we surround ourselves with. Why, and what does the internet do for this motivation?
all they came up with is letting you make one type of connection with other people with an account. nothing to see here. the only thing that makes it notable is the large amount of data put into it.
The key is to allow the kind of control people have in real relationships. From what I understand, it isn't possible to terminate facebook friendships, and that eliminates the basis of accountability needed for a good trust relationship.
Wasn't Yahoo using Google to generate search results when you first saw Google?
To be fair, Yahoo had a winning strategy of just licensing the search tech from other companies all the way up until Inktomi. Which is part of why it's funny they didn't buy the Google search when it was handed to them on a silver platter.
Also if I remember correctly, when you searched on Yahoo for, say, poker, you saw whatever was in their directory first, and then any further results were from whoever their provider was (I want to say it was Inktomi before Google). Am I wrong about that?
You're right. Inktomi powered their search results before Google.
Source: http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2162831
I started using Google in the first half of 1998. When people talk about these things, I'm always shocked to learn how early to the party I appear to have been. It felt like it was already a big deal when I first saw it, maybe because it was so shocking to see that search wasn't as doomed as it had seemed to be.
As I gradually shifted from browsing aimlessly towards finding something specific, I began to appreciate Google's advantages of speed and reliability. The only time I ever tried another engine after trying Google was if I didn't find what I was looking for. That wasn't very often, and usually the other engines didn't turn up anything interesting either, so I gave up after awhile and just used Google for everything.
Facebook likes to brag that they host more photos in the US than Flickr and the other competitors COMBINED (I'm trying to find a linkable source for this - maybe someone has more luck?). That seems pretty special to me, especially since all those photos can be found in a strong social context, unlike on most other hosts.
I also wouldn't dismiss "a convenient way for you and a friend to decide which bar to go to tonight" as unimportant. For the majority of people it's more important than "the biggest advance in information distribution since the printing press". Sad, but true.
It feels weird defending Facebook, since I resisted signing up for it, I'm not a constant user, and yes, there IS a lot of hype. But I don't think it can be dismissed as easily as "I don't get it".
Can you dismiss their 65 billion page views a month? The fact that half of their users return daily? Can you explain why it's not valuable to essentially own most interpersonal relationships on the web?
Note: she's since outgrown it and is now obsessed with anime and gaiaonline (i'd never heard of the thing until recently -- apparently VERY popular).
And, for the record, AOL had a staggering percentage of eyeballs at their peak.
I think the distinction is that Google is a technological advancement/phenomenon which seems lasting. Facebook is a SOCIAL phenomenon which (to Matt) does not.
I'm inclined to agree with him. I think we'll be talking about Facebook in a few years the way we talk about AOL right now.
I just don't think their value at the time will even be 1/10th of Google's because of the distinction you accurately summed up.
that will depend if they succeed to monetize their success. You can't be sure so sure any predictions for anything these days.
On Facebook, you're relaxing. You're not in action mode. It's going to be hard for them to come up with ways to monetize passive traffic. The best anyone has done in offline media is show branding ads. This may work, and may even make them profitable, but it won't make them Google.
I agree with the other two guys that there isn't a whole lot of correlation between profitability and importance.
I just think you're underestimating the importance of social tools that help people communicate more efficiently. I could replace 'Facebook' with 'email' and 'Google' with 'the telephone' and your rant would make about as much sense, but it'd be just as wrong.
You should look that up (i.e. read Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions), because it does not mean what you think it means. (Except when used as a bullshit buzzword by “enterprise” software executives)
Well, for whom? For its creator it was obviously both. For a few happy customers it was at least special. For society at large, who gives a shit?
I think this would be a much clearer discussion if we defined "Special" and "Important" properly (and realized that they mean very different things to different people).
There are a lot of people on HN/YC who are trying to hack together a successful internet company. For them, I don't think Matt's definitions of Special or Important are all that useful, because they ignore a lot of viable business ideas -- ideas that fill a niche which is inane by itself, but economically important to a few focused souls. If you make your living building Widget X, then no matter how trivial that widget is to its users lives, it is everything to the people who devote their lives/company to producing it.
The better our economy evolves to allow niche ideas to make money, the harder time we're going to have figuring out how to define "Important". It is increasingly possible to earn a living doing something that's entirely trivial from a "big picture" point of view... but as soon as you're earning a living from it, it's become important (to you).
1) Facebook, unlike Google is not a technological advance. It means that copying Facebook is easier.
2) People can also jump ship en-masse from one social network to another within a few years. Many people migrated from Myspace to Facebook. Its not limited to social networking sites. I was amazed when almost everyone of my friends migrated from Yahoo Messenger to Google Talk within about a month. I had about 30-35 regularly online friends at Yahoo and suddenly almost all of them migrated to Google Talk. This was when GTalk didnt even have emoticons. Of course Yahoo Messenger is still ahead of Google Talk in terms of users but this was just an example to show that even if a previous communication medium has all your friends, that does not mean you are locked in. It may so happen that suddenly everyone just simply without explanation migrate to another platform. This process is not very rational and completely unpredictable.
3) Also consider the fact Facebook does not seem popular in countries like India and China. Within some years these countries will be far bigger in terms of number of users compared to the US.
Maybe not important to him (or me, for that matter), but there are definitely people out there to whom it's important. But facebook needs to find a good way to monetize all those page views before the hype wears off.
I don't think Facebook is worth $15 billion but I wouldn't trivialize it too much - it's becoming the de facto online personal communications tool.
Matt should go read some of danah boyd’s sociology papers about social networking sites, if he wants to be convinced that there’s more than just a “nifty utility” there. She does a much better job exploring their significance than random unsubstantiated comments in this rather inane discussion.
as for overall utility fb's platform is the major innovation on the web in the last 5 years and its still very young (less than a year). Additionally photo, mobile, media sharing, and virtual goods apps are both technically powerful and very easy to use.
they are aggregating the primary social activities on the web and a wrapping them together in one box that people are familiar with.
there is a lot of hype in the valley, yes or course, but dismissing fb as a fad is a bit shortsighted. with the level of traction they have achieved to date and the opportunities ahead fb is in a very good spot.
I had at least a little 'aha' when first encountering buddy-list instant messaging; and again when it added a bit of activity awareness (like twitters or Facebook statuses).
Another little 'aha' was when seeing the convenience of Friendster for both self-publishing to friends and expanding one's social vision.
Another little 'aha' was encountering easy group-forming via the net, via anything from eGroups to the super-easy affiliation groups of early Orkut/Tribe (when Friendster fumbled affiliations).
Yet another was the benefit of online event invites/planning/followup, as through Evite and Meetup and Upcoming.
And another was the fun of casual or cooperative games with friends and strangers, as through IGZ/Excite Games/Yahoo Games/etc.
The special thing about Facebook is that it has a reasonable chance of subsuming all those, and more, based around the shared and reasonably defensible core, the 'social graph'.
That same graph offers a good hope of dealing with the 'trust' problem that's attacking the utility of the net on every front -- email spam, web spam, anonymous harassment, phishing, malware trickery, vandalism, payment/sales fraud, impersonation, libel. People are justifiably retreating to circles of trust, and a well-groomed, jealously defended, authentic 'social graph' is a plausible antidote to all those problems.
For example, email was a giant 'aha' when it was young and strong -- but it's dying under the weight of abuse and generational change. Social graph messaging has already replaced email for some people, maybe a whole generation of net users, and social graph messaging might topple (or save!) email in the near future.
Of course Facebook isn't the first social network, but it's mostly been doing the right things to be the 'last', the one that you never need to leave because it overlooked a new opportunity or forgot to defend its core trust value.
Understatement of the 21st century right there.
It may not have the profound, society shaking, impacts that Google has, but it does cater to a fundamental human desire - societal interaction. And, as such, it is special and not going away.
If not, why exactly is it the top story?
For example, the potential of social networks as consumer distribution model or as magnifying social capital is completely ignored here.
he literally said he couldn't foresee GOOG in particular getting so big, just that type of thing in general.
It's more about the wave and less about the surfer. Google and Napster were riding huge waves. Facebook, I think, is boogie boarding on a tiny one.
Unlike human memory, investments keep track of false positives which is why I suggested that as one possibility. But, there might be other ways to avoid forgetting.
I did much better after 2004, but that year was my first attempt at any serious trading, and it didn't go so well.
It's not the technology, but the community.
http://www.horsepigcow.com/2008/02/23/social-capital-and-the...