Steps to make a Facebook Killer | Hacker News Reader

Steps to make a Facebook Killer

ashishlive.blogspot.com

7 pointsashishb4u9 comments

I don't know why this is on the front page, this is an article with absolutely no substance. tl;dr: delete facebook account, start facebook competitor. what?

I think Google could make a FB killer by releasing an open source app engine app that allowed users to exchange notifications with their friends. Users could use Google's version or host their own modified version. Communication would take place between app instances via an open api implemented by each app.

The advantage of this would be that non-technical users would have a very FB-like experience, while more technical users could modify the app to suit their own preferences, and then share the app source with others.

The important thing would be to keep a standard api so that the different app versions could communicate.

Facebook is an incredible product that has done some truly innovative things in the social networking space. Forgetting the lessons they've learned is not a recipe for success.

In addition, this article assumes that Facebook isn't the way to solve the problem... It assumes that going through that pain will provide insight that nobody had before, and that Facebook wasn't already designed to fix the same thing.

And finally, it assumes that finding a better solution will 'kill' Facebook, whereas I think it's much more likely to be taken down by a site that knows how to market.

I think his point is that the next Facebook is going to be a paradigm shift from the current social networking climate, and you can't well start a paradigm shift if you're part of the current paradigm.

Absolutely, but don't forget that technology builds on itself. It's an iterative process. I just don't see how throwing out all the data is a good idea.

In the spirit of making something that people want: who wants a Facebook-killer? Not the users.

So why make a Facebook-killer?

That's like saying "Why make the iPhone when everyone's already happy with their Motorola Razrs"

You have a good point, there. Everyone is talking about what will dethrone FB, but we tend to forget there 600M people who love FB. Just as Microsoft, and Google, FB is here to stay, for a very very long time.

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