Hacker News Reader

Right. That's a good summary.

My broader question was: As more time shifts toward mobile, will the dominant social network be something created first for mobile, or will it be Facebook?

So far, FB mobile feels like a pretty unimaginative port of their website, and not the sort of thing that was imagined first for mobile.

Will that be enough, will Facebook change things up, or will it be disrupted by something mobile-first?

View on HN

I think if there's any challenger to Facebook as the dominant social network, it could well be WhatsApp.

They're gathering a very large network of teenage users, completely avoiding the web, and becoming an alternative to both Twitter and email for group messaging.

When you look at what they provide, it's pretty much everything I use from Facebook, without the noise.

I've noticed a lot of penetration of WhatsApp here in the Netherlands. It's quietly exploding.

I find the fb_timeline feature strange to use on my desktop/laptop, but it's possible that some permutation of it could be the superior implementation for Facebook's mobile strategy.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com