Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by puppybeard 5138 days ago
> 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.

1 comments

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).