Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by tim-projects 39 days ago
As a none American I point out that WhatsApp groups have functionally replaced old Facebook for a long time.
2 comments

Features of Old Facebook:

- It's a photo album. Anyone who can view your page can see your photos.

- You can also post status updates.

- It publishes a list of your friends. Anyone is free to check that out.

- Your friends can write on your wall, where anyone can see what they wrote.

- It publishes your biographical data: where you go (or went) to school, where you work, whether you're single, and if not what kind of relationship you're in.

- You belong to a number of "groups". The groups don't organize activities or act as chat channels; their purpose is that your page displays a list of the names of the groups to which you belong, and that list is an expression of your personality and/or ideological commitments.

Which of those do WhatsApp groups do?

"Groups" is New Facebook, the replacement for the Network pages.

Used to be there was a whole section of the site meant for connecting with people at the same college/university as you, that you were automatically included in based on your email domain. It had a calendar and events and was geared towards real-world interaction.

> "Groups" is New Facebook, the replacement for the Network pages.

"Groups" is 2004. Their domain was still "thefacebook.com".

You're thinking of something else, Groups didn't exist until 2010 (though I thought it was a bit earlier, like 2008 - I thought they came out about the same time the Network pages went away, while I was still in college): https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/oct/07/facebook-...

I do remember Friend Lists were much earlier though.

> You're thinking of something else, Groups didn't exist until 2010

No, I'm not thinking of something else. You are assuming that when I say "groups", I'm thinking of the feature called "Facebook Groups" in your link, which is a stupid thing for you to assume.

Here's a preserved screenshot of a 2005 page: https://www.shareaholic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/...

See the link in the left-hand sidebar saying "My Groups"?

All the bits that matter, I guess
Which are...?
I completely agree, my only issue with WhatsApp is that when I get a message, I need to read it immediately and its 50/50 whether its important or just a random link to something. For me at least, the reason Instagram messages work is I can ignore the notification because I know its definitely not important and just something funny to look at later.
This is an issue. iMessage needs a way for a group thread to be set and labeled as low-priority collectively and preemptively (not just individuals muting the thread).

My friends and I have silly group threads but they fizzle out fairly quickly because everyone is worried I think that they could be bothering people during the workday with a rather high-priority notification.

Instagram is better, like you say, because we can absorb the links and gifs passively.