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Comment by et-al | Hacker News Reader

Imagine you're a small coffeeshop that just needs to list your hours and location on the internet and maybe make some announcements. What are your options?

- Google Maps

- Facebook Page

- Yelp Page

- Instagram (maaaybe)

You most likely already have a Facebook account, so setting up a Facebook page would be the easiest.

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FB is among the last places I'd look, and would not be impressed by that being the only web presence for a small business. Seriously, seeing such induces an involuntary "ugh".

Putting up a website is trivial & cheap, and looks a whole lot more professional than one on FB. As a customer, I'd look for it by a Google search, and go to the "official" site. Put the hours there, and an easy link to a popular mapping site.

Frankly, having followed social media since dialup BBS days, I find Facebook a surprisingly crufty/poorly-made site. A core design has been hacked up to wedge in whatever new features. A new site could easily provide a next-gen UI, better putting common content together, better assembling a feed, saner advertising, and pointedly avoiding "censorship" ... only thing needed is that "tipping point" for migration.

I agree with you, but the reality is that domain registrations lapse, the niece/nephew who set up the initial web site went away to college, passwords are forgotten.

All these responses about setting up your own web site are similar to BrandonM's infamous Dropbox advice in the context of small retail shop owners.

Hard to comment without being anecdotal, but I exclusively look for business hours on Google maps or Yelp. If I'm searching for a type of business ("hm, is there a bakery near me that's alf-decent?") then I use Yelp. "How busy is <restaurant x> right now?" then I'd use Google Maps. Yelp and Google both link to a businesses' website meaning I don't ever expect to log onto Facebook to check for basic business info. Facebook definitely does have some benefits for businesses such as notifying of promotions and such, but I honestly don't think I've ever thought of FB as the first stop to get business info. It's like a last resort to check for a FB page for me.

Yes, that's my personal experience as well. However, I've also contributed to Google Maps (and OpenStreetMaps) for missing locations that weren't entirely new.

I don't have any data, but I would not be surprised if a significant number of Google Map locations were created by patrons of a venue and not its owners/employees. Facebook Pages, on the otherhand, I see being set up and and maintained by an owner.

That's correct, Maps crowd-sources data if no owner enters stuff. You can even see "Is this your business?" sometimes if the owners haven't bothered to do it. Which, I mean, fair enough.

It's pretty easy to claim your location on Google/Google maps, which is usually where I find business hours and contact information.

Facebook owns Instagram, so that's no good either, if you're trying to avoid it. There's surprisingly little backlash against Facebook-owned entities.

One could argue that having hours and location online is so important for businesses that you do not necessarily have to chose the tool that is the easiest to setup.

But why wouldn't small business owner who has other things to work on not choose the easiet route?

If you travel abroad, you'll notice that Google Maps/Facebook/Foursquare are all the internet presence a lot of cafes and restaurants have.

And I wouldn't be surprised if the Google Maps info was created by a patron and not the owner themself.

This is a good point. Thank you.

-A wordpress blog.

-A self-hosted site or a VPS.

But there is the genuine problem of discovery. Better hope your blog appears at the top of google search. Anyway, the vast majority of people for which facebook is basically their homepage of the internet won't know your site exists.

Sorry for this dumb question, I never used facebook, but what is the difference between your own webpage and a page on facebook? How do those facebook users automatically know that you exist when you are on facebook. They still would have to find you somehow?

Facebook's discovery is enhanced because they have more information about you, and so can correlate you and your friends information with information about the page to more effectively match you to that particular page.

For example, you are likely to like an event/business/venue your friends already liked, so facebook can suggest that business to you. Or you see in your feed that your friends checked into a certain event/business/venue, resulting in you being exposed to that.

All this happens without you even performing a search. And if you do perform a search, the top search result will most likely be correct, because it used you and your friends' information.

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