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Comment by paulnelligan | Hacker News Reader

I really hope they kick facebook's ass - Google is a company which allows other smaller companies to grow and build on their system, they're inclusive ... it's near impossible to build a serious business on a facebook app (outside of farmville type games) - any serious app (photo sharing, better socialization etc.) that gains any kind of popularity on facebook gets shut down without compromise.

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Exactly this!

It almost feels like a political issue--with all of the longterm controversy and animosity that Facebook has stirred up amongst us, we've been quietly waiting for something like this to happen. I'm glad to see that so many of us appear to be rallying around what appears to have the potential of being a "Facebook killer".

I shouldn't be so emotionally invested, but after years of Facebook acting like assholes to all of us, I hope Google lays complete and utter waste to them. Facebook has under no uncertain terms been trying to swallow up the web, and before seeing this level of competition I thought they stood a chance of accomplishing that goal. Perhaps not anymore.

I deleted my Facebook account a long time ago, and I honestly am not interested in social networking after that experience. I'm not sure whether I want to do the Google+ thing long term, but I'm definitely going to join if for no other reason than to get all of my friends to. Maybe I can get some of them to migrate completely. I trust Google a hell of a lot more than Facebook. (Perhaps I shouldn't, but I do.)

I wonder what this holds for their upcoming IPO? People are fickle and can ditch a service rather quickly (MySpace, hotmail/yahoo->gmail). Even with the wealth of photos and memories Facebook has accumulated for many users, I don't think it will be able to retain them by touting that data alone.

This is going to be very exciting to watch. What a good show you've put on for us, Google!

It's how facebook started, and it's how facebook will finish ... Zuckerberg's mantra appears to be 'kill anyone that looks like competing' rather than 'collaborate and succeed' ... My gut says that the collaborators will win the day.

Facebook has done everything that can to turn into Twitter + Flickr for people who know your real name.

You can't use apps, look at friends apps, or do anything else interesting.

Facebook has made itself a social address book, and dragged down everyone who bought into their "platform".

I hate facebook's photo-sharing. There are only two things it does reasonably OK-- resize large photos and caching the photos you're likely to view next. The new interface overlay with the black background is really annoying, I don't know anyone who likes it and quite a few who hate it passionately.

I'm not a huge fan of the overlay, but it's obvious that the advantage to it is not during the time that you are actually looking at the photos, the advantage is when you finish looking at the photos you are back on the page that you started on.

I suspect they noticed a lot of people look at a profile, say "oh look an album", start clicking through and then decide they were done and go back to their feed. This design makes it more likely you will return to where you left off (without having to push back a million times) to finish reading the profile that you were already looking at.

I wonder if they noticed how angry people get when don't figure out that to go back to the album they have to click on the album name as it appears way in the bottom left corner in the area that looks bolted on like it doesn't belong. I wonder if they noticed how annoying it is to not be able to visit the album selection page from viewing a photograph. I wonder if they noticed how many people have to scroll down in order to see the comment thread. I wonder how many people have trouble finding or using the "like" and "comment" buttons given that the way they appear here is different from every single other instance in the entire application.

Yes, the advantage you point out is valid. It just comes with a whole pile of downsides and I can't believe they would do that for that one minor use case. I was with a friend the other day who was getting so irritated that when I said "just hit f5" to restore the old interface she was so happy she made me dinner in gratitude.

The only other advantage I can think of is that the previous-photo button is more mobile-friendly.

>I deleted my Facebook account a long time ago

Did you hit the gym too?

I would also be wary to build a business on Googles good will. They are shutting down many API from finance, news search and translation.

Google do have a preannounced path throught deprecation to termination and they claim [w]herever possible, the documentation includes suggested alternatives designed to help you achieve similar functionality — whether it’s a new version or related offering.

http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2011/05/spring-cleaning-for-s...

In the case of the translation APIs, they were clearly broken and facilitated content spamming, and the replacement APIs appear to be serviceable.

There is no "replacement API" for Google translate.

I thought they announced that they were going to launch a paid Translate api?

Esrauch is right — but they have not announced details.

That is right, at least not yet. I have a vague recollection of reading some details of how the substitute API would work, but that must be spurious since Google have officially left the matter open to now.

You mean no google replacement translation API? What about bing or mygengo or wordlingo?

It's not like Google is known for being any more responsive to questions from people who get affected by its automated systems, though.

true, but at least they're transparent and they allow people to grow with them, which is better for everybody.

that said, I think they could make a fortune out of paid support.

You mean, not responsive by humans. Facebook's responses, even when given by humans, are appalling. I thought it was just me, but here:

http://forum.developers.facebook.net/viewtopic.php?id=100175

http://forum.developers.facebook.net/viewtopic.php?id=103438

http://forum.developers.facebook.net/viewtopic.php?id=91182

http://forum.developers.facebook.net/viewtopic.php?id=88452

On the other hand, i never had problems with google that were not solved in a reasonable timeframe (but i am still waiting after 9 months for facebook to unspam our domain that was an empty page). Adsense will even assign a human to correspond with if you have enough traction.

Right there with you pal. Anxiously waiting to google's APIs. (they are mentioned here http://www.google.com/intl/en/+/policy/)

I can't express how sick i feel doing facebook apps in the past year, it has been nothing but disappointment and anger (but still makes the money due to huge traction).

Google has a much better track record of fostering developer ecosystems and a much better understanding of how to deal with app spam. Hope they do their best to create a good web app ecosystem.

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