Ask HN: what would make you switch from Facebook?
those who believe Facebook is just a stage in still evolving Internet and one day will be in MySpace shoes, whats your take on the future Facebook?
My girlfriend closed her facebook though, and it's amazing how much aggression people display when she tells them that. "What?! You don't have a facebook account? What's wrong with you?"
Then they go on and start bitching about how much time they waste on Facebook...
I already use other apps to share the kinds of events and connections Facebook wants me to put on their platform, and I falsified my profile so ads show up in a language I can't read. But I cant get al the way rid of my account, because not having one would be too inconvenient.
I suspect its going to stay this way for a long time, for the same reason I have a Yahoo account I never use.
That said, I am not in Facebook. I would consider joining a social network if it had meaningful/interesting conversations I would want to participate in. Sort of like Hacker News, but more geared towards any general meaningful topic, not just tech. Quora is as close as it gets, but even that is too much Q&A.. I just want general chat, like Reddit except a bit more serious.
I see it like shoes. You wear Nike, your friend wears Adidas, but you can still walk together. You can connect across networks, tag photos across networks, etc. You will have your personal page but it's really just a place to rest your head - your 'Newsfeed' aggregates all your friends activity from whatever network they're on. It won't matter what shoes you wear, just get a pair and go walking.
But like mcherm, I am bound by my connections to my relatives/friends with whom I would likely otherwise lose touch.
If somebody can create that, and make it easy for my mum to use, then I (and many other people I suspect) would spend considerable effort to get people to move over to using it.
The issue becomes whether the niche provides a compelling value proposition for people to deal with the beginning. I would argue that HN or maybe Reddit have the right type of environment where if they decided to add a social tier to comments stuff like I could add someone as a friend that it would take off.
Also, I think dating sites have potential to win here too. Site A could easily add a friend button and end up with network effects to keep people from going to site B. That could grow in to a real network.
The way I think about it is the same way I think about the universe. Without a doubt, with 7 Billion people on earth, someone will figure out a way to create network effects. From an investment standpoint I would be fearful to back anyone unless they had traction.
Instead, Facebook has focused on growth and Zuckerberg has maintained a huge ownership stake.
Indeed, MySpace was vulnerable to such a sale because it was a division of a larger company and its founders did not have the sort of control over its destiny that Facebook's founders have.