
The Fourth Facebook Goldrush Just Started - jeremyliew
https://medium.com/@jeremyliew/on-your-marks-get-set-go-the-fourth-facebook-goldrush-just-started-100093c16ec8#.g8v1ktkq6
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nutmeg
I think he is more on the mark about streaming video than conversational
commerce / bots. If you are a regular Facebook user, you can get an idea of
where they are headed with the notifications that get greater priority and
what is more likely to appear in your feed.

I have noticed greater visibility of Events and Live Video streaming. When a
friend starts a live stream, I get a notification that shows up on my lock
screen.

I'd put my money on Facebook going into video in a big way. Maybe they will be
the one streaming sports games around the world.

~~~
cableshaft
I don't know, just by the articles that have been bubbling up on HN lately,
the dam seems about to burst on chatbots.

I'm seeing more an more articles about them. Amazon (via Echo/Alexa),
Microsoft (via bot framework), and Facebook all seem to think it's about to
become big, and I saw an article about China's mobile experience that
suggested it's already pretty big over there.

Developers seem to be less interested in it, but businesses seem to be pretty
hot on it.

~~~
rajacombinator
Just the current in vogue snake oil to sell to khaki wearers. Devs aren't
interested because they know they don't work.

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trimtab
Yes, you too can be the next startup to place your complete destiny in the
hands of an organization that owns the walled garden you are sharecropping,
that can watch your every monetizing success, copy it without penalty at any
time of their choosing and then cut you out going forward.

You better have completed your "liquidity event" before that happens.

~~~
nostrademons
Pretty much every startup is forced to work under those conditions. Microsoft
and Apple grew up in the shadow of the IBM monopoly, and Apple was almost
killed by it. PayPal was a feature of EBay's, with 90+% of their users being
EBay sellers. Google and Facebook grew up under the IE monopoly - Microsoft
had total control over the channel to their users. Twitter's product was
copied by Facebook a couple months after it came out.

Big companies aren't in the habit of leaving virgin territory where new
startups can take root, and every startup needs users.

The startups that succeed are the ones who make their userbase passionate
enough to resist the initial competition from the big company who they're
sharecropping on, long enough to build footholds on _other_ competing
platforms that'll give them leverage.

~~~
trimtab
The difference is that in this case Facebook controls the complete platform
including access to the customers that your startup requires to survive and
prosper.

Paypal had independent access to markets. It just grew fastest via eBay
because it solved a problem that eBay initially could not.

Clone PC makers had independent BIOS and MS-DOS so IBM could not snuff them.
It finally lost when it tried to move PC users to the PS/2 platform and
customers would not follow.

Microsoft negotiated and blocked exclusive licensing and control by IBM of MS-
DOS before the first IBM PC shipped.

So yes, you can succeed _if_ you have a way out of the inherent trap of being
just another sharecropper. And to do that you better have negotiated a much
better deal where you have options that cannot be easily blocked that are not
being offered to everyone else. But you cannot expect to win much _if_ you
accept the publicly offered terms.

Facebook's terms of use for their platform allow them to cut you off from
"your passionate users" at Facebook's whim.

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hackuser
Unless I misunderstand, conversational commerce bots seem to want to solve the
problem of the interface between users' natural language and software's logic
(i.e., it's an application of NLP).

But I doubt AI will be good enough to do that, and I expect that I'll still
have to think about fitting my words to the software's understanding. Why
would these bots work better than Siri?

~~~
LouisSayers
In my mind it's not really solving any 'problem' at all... We have a browser,
and we have Google... It's generally pretty easy to buy stuff online, so
what's the problem??

~~~
hackuser
I know several people who lack the skills to buy things online. For others
it's a chore. Finally, what if by lowering the barriers for customers, you
could increase sales 5%? 10%?

~~~
LouisSayers
Sure, it *might increase conversions - I'd hope that FB have tested this
assumption... Will be interesting to see how this turns out

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hacknat
"Conversational commerce" No thank you.

~~~
greyman
Why? I am looking forward to it. For example now, if I order a hotel, I might
book it via phone or email, and then I get a notification email about the
order. And... let's say one year later I want to book again - I think it is
more convenient if I can do it via chat application, where I would just chat
with the hotel, and whats most important, the previous communication is still
there in history and I can refer to it - while with email, there is no
continuity of my relationship with that hotel.

~~~
LouisSayers
It's called a browser... Why stay in FB to do this?

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palakchokshi
I think more than conversational commerce the true power of BOTs will be
conversational planning assistance within chat. Imagine a personal assistant
always available in your chats with friends that can help you plan dinners by
finding restaurants everyone would like, making reservations, booking movie
tickets, putting the event on everyone's calendars, sending reminders, giving
directions to locations when you leave for the event, etc. now that's powerful
and useful.

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visakanv
I have always wanted this, so badly.

~~~
palakchokshi
Here's how I envision that use case with a bot called JEEVES.

ME: Hey have you guys watched Zootopia yet?

FRIEND 1: Nah I want to but didn't have the time. I'm free tonight if you want
to go.

FRIEND 2: Yeah count me in too

ME: JEEVES find us a movie theater close to us that's playing Zootopia
tonight.

JEEVES: There are 3 theaters close to all of you that's playing Zootopia
tonight. Theater 1 at (map)Location 1 is playing it at 9PM, Theater 2 at
(map)Location 2 is playing it at 8:30PM, Theater 3 at (map)Location 3 is
playing it at 10:PM

ME: you guys wanna get dinner before the movie?

FRIEND 1: Sure

FRIEND 2: Nah having dinner with GF's parents today.

ME: JEEVES find us some chinese restaurants near Theater 3.

so on and so on.

JEEVES can then book tickets, make a reservation, put the event on calendars,
send restaurant location to just the 2 people who agreed to have dinner, send
reminder in the group chat, etc.

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estefan
How does the company behind Jeeves make money?

~~~
aaronbrethorst
How do OpenTable and Fandango make money?

~~~
palakchokshi
Exactly! Monetization through partnerships with service providers or affliate
programs or service promotion (e.g. a new chinese restaurant opened if you
would like to try it)

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andrewfromx
if u have an hour, watch
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tABT6GdygnI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tABT6GdygnI)
and listen for the distribution strategy part. This is a wide open one.

~~~
cylinder
Can someone provide a narrower indication of where that part occurs?

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andrewfromx
it's the "Scalable Distribution Model" part of the talk [https://scontent-
sjc2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/t31.0-8/12...](https://scontent-
sjc2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-
xpa1/t31.0-8/12967969_10153301467347723_2157682125892638625_o.jpg) 15:56 but
then there's more at end

~~~
cylinder
Thank you

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cylinder
But if you want to cash in on this you need to create compelling content more
than be a hacker. The top Snapchat Stories are not there because of hacking.

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zeveb
I remember back in the old days when bots were enabled by open protocols …

~~~
mmastrac
We've had IRC and eggdrop (among many other bots) for decades but we've
dropped the ball - it's just never been a priority to build nice interfaces on
top of these things.

Heck, when I was working with a distributed startup we were using Skype group
chat which was actually surprisingly good. Almost Slack good at times. The
Skype API was powerful enough to build a bot, but clunky and nowhere as good
as the APIs available today. I wrote eggdrop code decades ago and it was
fragile and picky.

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kin
There's a lot of cool bots I can come up with but I none that I think you'd be
able to monetize. For example, if I'm in a group chatting away, it'd be cool
to have a bot collect certain posts that I can reference later instead of
having to scroll/search. Or, I can ask the bot to live blog a certain event
(or if there's video show a certain event) and we can live discuss.

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pjc50
"Conversational commerce" has a critical problem: in whose interests is the
bot operating?

Is it an unbiased-as-possible purchase agent working on your behalf, or it is
a salesman on commission? Will it route you to the best option or the one that
makes the most money for its owners? How do you know?

Currently the nearest thing I do to conversational commerce is Skyscanner and
Digikey-style selective refinement.

~~~
tdkl
I'm pretty sure that Facebooks in the first place.

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hackuser
I'm not a Facebook user. I like to think I'm still well-informed as a
professional in the industry - i.e., I understand this major platform -
because I know what social networking is about and how Facebook works on a
technical level. Am I wrong? What don't I understsand by not being a user?

~~~
sbov
I say all of this who has been out of the Facebook scene for about 4 years, so
things might have changed:

At any given point in time Facebook favors certain integrations more than
others. By not being a user you are more likely to waste time on integrations
that are less useful than other ones. Before you design Facebook integrations
you should become a user and observe these things.

Beyond being a user, unless you're also an active developer in the ecosystem I
doubt you actually understand Facebook. There's lots of behind the scenes
changes that you won't notice as a user but as someone who relies heavily on
Facebook traffic, you will notice. So beyond becoming a user, you should also
look at other successful companies and see how they handle integrations to get
an idea of where the playing field currently stands.

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return0
Doubtful, because NLP is not yet at the point where it can help users faster
than a normal website. If that was the case, google would be there already.

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tdkl
It was posted couple days ago, that people are sharing less and less private
things from their lives on Facebook.

So now they'll start live streaming it instead ?

~~~
type0
Yes, ever heard about LifeLogger?

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type0
All that shines is not gold

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YngwieMalware
Nah

