

Facebook Changed Everything, It’s Not A Fad, and I’m With Zuck - katzgrau
http://codefury.net/2012/05/facebook-changed-everything-its-not-a-fad-and-im-with-zuck/

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jpxxx
It's the [shortest|simplest|easiest] electronic link to keeping up with family
for hundreds of millions, and that is a network effect beyond all network
effects.

While grandparents have grandchildren, Facebook endures.

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throwaway_87
I was enjoying the Facebook dissenter's comment until I reached the last word.
It sort of defeated whatever persuasive import he had gained up to that point.

What's interesting is the blogger feels the need to engage such a comment. And
he's certainly not the only one. If it's not a fad, if the quoted comment is
way off the mark, if Facebook is all the great things we are told it is, then
why is he arguing against a comment like this? No need to argue with fools,
right?

But is anyone really sure what the heck Facebook is? It's a web developer's
wet dream is what it is. Beyond that, who knows?

The arguments will continue, as they should. The jury is still out, though
some investors have already reaped hundreds of millions from curious
advertisers while we're deciding. They'll have cashed out long before we come
to a final decision.

My personal opinion is that human communication through the internet,
including photos and video, and achieving global internet connectedness of
everyone, not just nerds, is definitely not a fad. Nor is is it something new.
We've all been working toward this for many years. But doing it all, even the
most personal parts, through Mark Zuckerberg's website? As in the "I think I
will fuck them in the ear" Mark Zuckerberg. I'm just not sure I can call this
a practice that is going to continue indefinitely, as other alternatives
arise. There are better ways to do this sort of internet-enabled sharing and
commmunication. To think they will never be made as user-friendly as Facebook
seems to be ignoring inevitable forward progress.

Historically, Facebook may stand as the first proof we had that we could all
coordinate with our friends to exchange contact information and photos in one
central repository. Now that we have everyone's email address, it will be easy
to coordinate and move the party elsewhere when the right alternative appears.

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afhof
Sure, people like all the things the author listed, but the author doesn't say
why /Facebook/ isn't a fad. Didn't Friendster or Myspace have huge amounts of
personal data before they went under? The author mentions it briefly with
Myspace, but he doesn't really elaborate. How much longer will it be until
another even more innovative and capable company comes along and eats
Facebook's lunch?

~~~
katzgrau
I'm saying it's not a fas because of how tightly integrated they are in both
the internet and people's minds.

MySpace had a bunch of local bands with ugly profile pages. It was basically
the next Xanga, LiveJournal, DeadJournal, etc. It never moved on.

Facebook exposed APIs that developers could use to build on top of them.
Facebook is a major part of the foundation of the social internet. And as long
as Mark's on the job, I'm betting it'll stay that way.

~~~
mnicole
MySpace was just as integrated into people's lives at the time. LiveJournal is
still a behemoth and houses an innumerable amount of thriving communities. I
would go so far to say that with Zuckerberg at the helm, people will continue
to be wary of the future of FB and their data.

All it is going to take for someone to surpass FB is the ability to pull the
user's info in from it, make it a cleaner experience they have more control
over and find a better way of advertising to or otherwise monetizing from
users.

Look at what hype alone did for Diaspora. People are grasping to get away from
Facebook, they just need somewhere else to go.

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puppybeard
> It passes boredom

So does cutting your toenails

> It maintains friendships, > It resurrects old friendships, > It sparks new
> friendships

No, people do those things. It's a medium for that interactions, but hardly
the only one.

> It’s extendable, > It’s integratable

Those are both pretty clever. The quality of work that utilises this capacity
may vary, but that's not FB's fault.

> It’s a social news feed

Yep, quite cool for that

> It’s a world news feed

Only if you consider celebrity gossip to be world news

> It’s a chat platform

It's a horrible chat platform

> It’s a media sharing platform

Love that side of it

> It’s a company of talented hackers

Their mobile apps suggest otherwise, to be honest

> It’s a place where small business promote themselves

Pretty cool for that. Used wisely, it's a great return on investment, based on
what I've seen people I know doing. My sister is a wedding photographer and
she gets tons of jobs through it.

> It’s the only place that some businesses promote themselves (not even a
> website)

That's true, but I find that to be a pretty horrendous user experience. The
Wall / Info / Page structure for company pages is just dire. Even web pros
like me have trouble getting the info they want.

> It’s Google’s big problem to solve

I dunno. General Motors have stopped advertising with them, and I've heard a
lot of people say the return on investment isn't great on FB ads compared to
google ads.

> It has created a massive queryable, crowd-sourced, graph of people, places,
> and things of the world

That's very unattractive to me, I don't like the thought of the shared details
of my life being someone else's commercial product.

> They’ve captured 1/7th of the world

If you think having lots of customers online is a mark of quality, I suggest
you listen to Bruno Mars' "The Way You Are", the highest selling song on
digital, ever. Popular means successful, it doesn't mean good.

> They asked for all of your info, and you gave it to them

How is that supposed to be attractive? And a lot of people actually give fake
info, speaking as someone whose facebook profile is named after a tractor and
shows up as the wrong gender.

~~~
katzgrau
I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but in terms of 'successful' vs
'good', Facebook isn't good, it's awesome.

And GM's decision isn't a big deal. Facebook will definitely try to address
problems in terms of ROI. Like I said in other comments, a lot of this has to
do with my belief in the management team (the 'bergs).

------
hansy
True Facebook "blew the door off of what everyone thought social networking
was," but at what cost?

What does it mean when "half of Americans think Facebook is a passing fad"
coupled with other reports of unhappiness among Facebook users?

Nobody doubts Facebook was a game-changer, but perhaps the alleged troll
mentioned in the blog post is onto something. Perhaps many users are in for a
rude awakening after they have been given enough time to evaluate their lives
and relationships pre/post Facebook. As a long-time Facebook user myself, I
often wonder if the connections I've made over the years through Facebook have
been a byproduct of hype and excitement vs. intentional steps taken to manage
my relationships.

As an entrepreneur I share the same scoped viewpoint a software developer
would have regarding Facebook. The ability to reach the masses quickly,
especially with the help of friends, is godsend. As a user I have good and bad
days. Some days I have great conversations with all my friends all over the
world in one place. Other days, I feel like a ghost, watching others passively
from a distant.

I certainly can't speak for any other Facebook user, but should I conclusively
ever find out the service causes me more pain than happiness, I will never use
Facebook again. The mere fact that I would even consider the notion that
Facebook may have ruined my real world relationships is a cause for concern.

------
rblion
I believe Facebook has definitely made the world a smaller place by creating
an intuitive social interface for the Internet. Part of me wants to see their
momentum disrupted by some new disruptive start-up, but how can I when Zuck is
still very much a start-up CEO who just so happened to reach astronomical
heights at a very young age. As long as they continue to find ways to find
ways to help users live better lives, they will have my vote too. I believe in
Mark and trust that he will not trade great user experience for a few billion
more dollars. He deserves to be here more than MySpace or all the other no-
name networks.

Interesting to see what will happen next. I hope this really isn't the death
of Silicon Valley like many people are saying...

~~~
loopdoend
Am I missing something? I thought Facebook was the company that brought us
wide-ranging privacy violations, mass narcissism and FarmVille spam, I wasn't
aware that they were making people's lives better. Judging from the number of
hours people waste staring at their wall and worrying about how many people
liked their photos I will have to disagree with you.

~~~
rblion
I didn't say it was 100% positive. Just that it has done more good than bad if
you ask me. Think of all the millions of people who keep in touch with most of
their multi-faceted social networks via Facebook. Organ donor program too.

What else do you think a social network could do to help people? They create
the tool, people use them how they CHOOSE to. Narcissism, apathy, and
ignorance are cultural problems that need more than 'startup solutions'.

~~~
loopdoend
Yeah, but Facebook has a way of magnifying those cultural issues and causing
narcissistic behavior in people who would not otherwise be narcissistic.

I think that not making friend counts or like counts such a prominent feature
on the site would go a long way toward helping that. Even on Kickstarter
projects I get to see how many hundreds of friends on Facebook the organizer
has. I think to myself that if I were to create a Kickstarter project I would
have to go join Facebook and start collecting friends, lest I look unpopular.
This is very unappealing to me.

~~~
katzgrau
I'd think most Facebook users don't care about the # of friends they have.
Some definitely do, but I'll go out on a limb and say those are the shallow
types I'd rather not be friend with anyway (but whether they compose the
majority of the world is probably a good debate!).

A lot of my post was truly speaking from the heart. Facebook is great. I check
it once daily to see what my friends are up to or if anyone messaged me. # of
friends? Who cares. There's a 1:1 relationship between my Facebook friends and
the people I'm friends with in real life.

Some celebrities accept anyone as a friend, but you have to take that for what
it is: self promotion and relationship building. That Facebook account is
probably unusable.

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twelvechairs
The problem with this post is that instead of taking the articulate arguments
of why facebook might become less successful in the future and arguing against
them, it more or less says 'Heres a troll who agrees with you, so you must be
wrong'.

Later we get 'Heres a list of [fairly random] things about facebook'. So what?
These may or may not be relevant to the future of facebook but aren't
explained at all in these terms by the author.

If you want to write a blog post about something like this, please explore the
issues more and don't just fill it with opinion and conjecture.

~~~
katzgrau
I guess I just piped my thought stream to standard output, but it's basically
everything I feel not only as an investor but a user.

Why does a blog have to me anything more than opinion and conjecture? The
article was provoking enough that you joined the discussion.

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thunfischbrot
> It maintains friendships

> It resurrects old friendships

> It sparks new friendships

No. Facebook does none of those things. All these are activities which can be
facilitated by using tools such as a telephone, face-to-face meetings, e-mails
or facebook. Facebook does not execute these activities automatically.

It increases discoverability, so that it does become easier for you to find
former friends or collect more information about new acquaintances. Whether
that makes us depend on it, I doubt it.

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miratom
Facebook would have been nothing if it weren't for the popularity of Myspace.
Facebook also would have been nothing had Myspace continued to innovate and
grow, giving users fewer compelling reasons to switch.

~~~
toemetoch
I'm not sure whether innovation and growth is the key to success in this
field. Looking at the trends it seems like there's a natural saturation point
where you reach max penetration, followed by an exodus. I really doubt it's
possible to keep the ceiling going.

trend for myspace: <http://www.google.com/trends/?q=myspace>

trend for facebook: <http://www.google.com/trends/?q=facebook>

~~~
katzgrau
I don't think you can compare MySpace and Facebook. MySpace never really
innovated. They never had a platform or began to do what Facebook did. They
got bought out and lobotomized.

Facebook started sprinting and never stopped.

~~~
toemetoch
You're right. I posted it because the Myspace<->FB comparison is often used
and I wanted to illustrate the trends for something that
grows/saturates/declines.

