

Ask HN: Is it time for a new Facebook? - Diamons

I feel that Facebook is too boring now. Too many memes, businesses, stuff I don't care about, etc.
Facebook used to be all about the individual user and as an avid Facebook user, I've gotten "bored" of Facebook. Does anyone else feel the same way?2
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gabipurcaru
Facebook:

    
    
        "[your friend] likes Salitos!"
        "[the same friend] likes Salitos!"
        ... a week later "[your friend] likes Salitos!"
    

"Man, I guess he really likes Salitos!". I've asked him about it, and it seems
he barely remembered liking their page. So yea, IMO it's time for a new
facebook

~~~
smartwater
It's time for a new Facebook because your friend doesn't remember clicking the
"like" button?

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27182818284
Facebook isn't going away soon, but do _please_ look into being the next
timesink for the web. It definitely feels ripe for a new timesink. People are
getting bored with Facebook, no doubt, but they still _use_ it daily. Surely
it will be disrupted in the future, (few of the original NYSE companies exist)
but not anytime soon. When Mark said there were other social networks, PG's
laughing response of "Not really" was correct. If half of Facebook's daily
users quit it'd only set them back a year or two. On top of that, Facebook is
in the great position of already having the chicken-egg problem solved, so if
they did want to move into, say, PayPal's area, they could do it. (Imagine if
grandpa can send his grand daughter money for school and see her picture while
he does it. Way more comfortable than PayPal. Not to mention they could
probably do better fraud detection, etc)

Again for emphasis, Facebook isn't going away. People share more than ever and
use it daily, but they _are getting bored with it_ so a new opening for
another timesink has been created. For example, all of the people I know that
use Pinterest also use Facebook. Pinterest is a newer timesink, but it doesn't
replace Facebook.

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argonaut
1\. Leave Facebook. 2\. Go to other social network. 3\. Realize none of your
friends are there. 4\. ??? 5\. Go back to Facebook.

~~~
mrkmcknz
It's interesting to see my younger cousins who are around 10-12 not actually
showing any interest in Facebook. They're by far the most connected any
generation has ever been at that age.

They use a mix of communication applications and media rich social networks
such as Instagram.

But I guess you could say Instagram is Facebook in one respect.

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6thSigma
I created a Facebook in 06 because a class required it. For the first 6 months
or so it pretty much only had my profile picture and one or two status updates
(much like my current G+ profile).

I was the only one of my friends who had a FB profile - everyone else was on
Myspace. I visited Myspace daily at the time.

I remember when the shift happened. More and more of my friend posted Myspace
bulletins with "Deleting my Myspace, add me on FB!" It seemed to happen all at
once.

I've seen a few of these 'leaving' declarations on my FB, but there isn't the
same rush. FB may be going through a Myspace fate at a much slower rate, or
perhaps we are in a new day and age where users will have profiles on many
different social networks. I tend to think it's the latter.

~~~
illuminate
Those of us who do so generally do so because we're sick of the noise and
forced interaction overload. We don't replace it, there's nothing with
granular enough options to filter out the drek. Shame about Diaspora not
coming into its own.

------
GFischer
My use case for Facebook is keeping in touch with friends and family abroad:
most of my family, college friends, coworker friends, etc... are now spread
around the globe.

We have a private group for my family, and I aggresively filter people and
software from my feed.

It works really well to keep "connected" and know what they're up to, but I do
try to call semi-regularly. It's hard on me since I can't afford to visit them
:( .

I probably should do a heavy culling of old classmates, but Facebook hardly
shows me photos of their babies anyways :) .

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soneca
I think the great problem Facebook solved was to remove all the noise that
exists in the real world while we are trying to keep touch with our friends
and acquaintances. But now it is bringing back the noise. Partly because of
this tendency that people must share and share and share, and share a little
more. Partly because it became so easy to keep in touch with acquaintances
that we now know that are some good reasons behind all the noise of the real
world. We have too many acquaintances these days to keep in touch with all of
them.

I've being thinking a lot about this because I am trying to solve this problem
of noise and focus in friendships with my startup.

------
Schiphol
Well, there is [Friendica](<http://friendica.com>) which is free software and
could become the new Facebook or anything else.

~~~
victorhn
Do some HNers have another recommendation of an already open source software
to build a custom social site - a la Facebook? I checked Elgg
(<http://elgg.org/>) and it looks good at first sight, but still looking for
other recommendations.

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bking
Facebook will go the way of every other "big" social network. It
overcomplicates its old vision and looses its fresh feel. Every new feature is
less effective than the last, getting lost in the sea of older functionality.
Facebook needs to pivot.

~~~
mrkmcknz
Public companies don't just 'pivot' like your average start-up.

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chris_dcosta
Yahoo was uncool years ago, but it's still going, so I can see FB doing the
same. The numbers are just too big to die, and although you/we may be bored,
it won't stop unless the money stops coming in.

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sp332
Why don't you just follow or friend more interesting people, groups, and
businesses?

~~~
Diamons
That sort of alludes to the problem though. I've been on Facebook for about 6
years now. When I first signed on, it was great because it was personal. Now
it's more about businesses and "Confessions" groups as well as meme pages.

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gesman
It's time for NO facebook.

~~~
deadfall
Yes, I agree. I am starting to dislike seeing people I went to school with and
their babies. Some babies are cute and some are hideous.

I started using twitter a lot more a few months ago after getting bored with
FB.

~~~
skim213
I got pretty sick of seeing a continuous picture stream of people's babies. A
lot of people have FB but I see less and less activity happening among my
friends.

------
schuylerlarson
I'm building it right now. Can't wait to show you guys!

------
pasbesoin
My (largely non-techy, for this population) friends are exiting it. Not
"publicly", but through ever decreasing presence. A minority remain and fill
up my news feed (along with the ads), but it and/or their posts are a
decreasingly interesting subset. (And, lately, non-personal pictures and
graphics... ever more of these.)

These are largely the "next older" generation, after the ten and twenty-
somethings that, per all the recent reporting, have moved on to Twitter,
Tumblr, or... I guess, the next "T".

So... I have no objective evaluation, but it's certainly becoming a less
interesting place to me, even to keep up with "non-technical friends".

Also... I'm increasingly hesitant to comment on public posts. People who
"market" themselves with public posts, further discourage my participation. (
_NOT_ that I want the post security setting indicator taken away. It's the
only thing that, when not public, prompts me to comment at all.)

~~~
argonaut
I recently graduated high school (for perspective).

1) Nobody I know outside of techy-majors (I'm in college now) uses Twitter. 2)
Everyone uses either Facebook or Instagram. 3) As many people use Tumblr as
people use Twitter (but not limited to just people interested in tech)

I am very wary when people assert that Facebook is not cool anymore and is
going to be replaced. Sure, it's not cool anymore. Then again, texting is not
"cool." It's basically assumed you have a Facebook in the same sense that it's
assumed you are willing to receive texts.

Keep in mind that all those meme-y, "Confessions"-type pages proliferate
precisely because they are addictive time-sinks for teenaged and college-
student users.

~~~
Iterated
Weird. I follow my friend's high school aged little brother on twitter and it
seems there are a lot of high schoolers on twitter. In fact, this guy
deactivated his Facebook and only uses his twitter and Instagram now. He lives
in Texas though, maybe Texans are behind the curve.

From what I've noticed it seems that Facebook is definitely far less cool than
twitter these days.

~~~
argonaut
I may have been a little harsh on Twitter :). I do think quite a few high
school / college students use Twitter. But here's a handy metric: look at the
# of people someone is following, and then look at the # of friends they have.
The difference is usually 7-8x. I'd wager there is a similar differential in
activity.

