

Ask HN: is it possible to ignore Facebook? - Tichy

Personally I still have no big interest to invest time into Facebook, in fact, I rather resent it. But I suppose the main market for whatever web app I could think about would be Facebook people (because almost everybody is on it). I worry about reinventing the wheel, that is, creating something that Facebook people already do all the time. Is there a way to keep somewhat up to date on what is happening on FB, without becoming involved myself?<p>Also, would it still make sense to just create nice services, even if what they offer can also be had on Facebook? Just hoping that there are enough people who don't like the FB way, for example?<p>Naturally, if I would launch a site now, I would also offer Facebook connect, likes and all that. It's more about understanding how people network these days (I prefer Twitter myself, or used to prefer it before their commercialization push).
======
kylebragger
Yes, I think it's very possible. I've used Facebook Connect in projects before
and I have an account with friends I've accumulated over the years (so
therefore my News Feed is fairly active), but I have little interest in being
an active participant; I probably log in for non-development related matters
about once per month to skim updates, clear out notifications, and so forth.
The problem is, it's hard to ignore the ease with which one can be up an
running on a FB Connect-enabled site, though I actually prefer using Twitter
OAuth "signin with Twitter", since Twitter is something which I use much more
than FB.

------
solsenNet
It's never good to be purposefully out of touch. go deep in get-it-ness. But i
have noticed w/ non-traditional facebook users the appeal of fb is directly
related to how active your friends are, you may not like fb because your
social network does not like it.

