I Think Facebook Just Seized Control Of The Internet

http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/21/facebook/

by enki • 16 years ago

42 76 16 years ago

gojomo• 16 years ago

Facebook to Google: "Thanks for keeping the web warm for us, but we'll take it now."

gnaritas• 16 years ago

I think someone's lost touch with reality. Facebook hasn't seized anything and couldn't scare Google if their lives depended on it.

derwiki• 16 years ago

I think that's the attitude that has lead to the demise of more than one great company.

jrockway2• 16 years ago

OTOH, Google tried to be social by default (Buzz) and suffered massive backlash. So maybe that's not what people want after all.

aresant• 16 years ago

I wish they would have IPO'd before this, bet we'd see a nice bump in valuation over the next few months.

unignorant• 16 years ago

My thought is that sensationalist headlines are nothing new.

More seriously, I know enough people who disdain/distrust Facebook that this seems ridiculous to me. Then again, maybe I know the wrong people.

runevault• 16 years ago

I am the sort of person you are talking about (distrusts FB) and I do what I can to make others realize how evil they are. Case in point, somehow many people either missed the whole Beacon debacle entirely or have put it out of their minds until reminded. I will never understand how anyone can give ANY personal data (who friends are and so forth) to a company who has proven so... ruthless in using that data for personal gain without consideration of their user base.

vtail• 16 years ago

I have a proposal for HN: replace those triangles with 'Facebook recommend' buttons :)

izak30• 16 years ago

Please don't actually consider this. From most of the other comments, many of us don't use facebook

mercury• 16 years ago

i still dont use facebook that much.

joezydeco2• 16 years ago

I let my wife run my profile.

The once-in-a-while that I do use it, I can't figure it out. Are there two or three home pages? It's impossible to find anything. Maybe I just don't spend enough time there. <insert #geezertag here>

Vivtek• 16 years ago

Yeah, I've outsourced Facebook consciousness to my daughter.

techiferous2• 16 years ago

I find its user interface confusing. I'm used to cleaner, simpler, more task-focused web 2.0 sites.

brettnak• 16 years ago

Yeah, I don't either and really don't like to login to facebook at all. I definitely have an account, but I only reply to private messages and rsvp to events since that's how I get invited to a lot of things. I don't really mind facebook for that purpose, but I don't spend any free time there.

jamesjyu• 16 years ago

Then you will soon be in the minority of internet users. In a few years, Facebook has the potential to basically BE the web for most people.

sh1mmer• 16 years ago

That worked so well for AOL when they were the "internet".

techiferous2• 16 years ago

"be in the minority of internet users"

That's okay. If a popular product doesn't add value for me personally, then I shouldn't use it.

BrandonM2• 16 years ago

I was in this same camp a few months ago. Then:

1. I reached a critical mass of friends where every time I was on I could click on "Chat" and see a few friends on.

2. I started chatting with a Facebook "poweruser"[1] who said she was going to "teach me how to be cool" by using Facebook better.

3. Partly thanks to (2), I started updating my status a few times a week, whenever I had something interesting[3] to share.

4. People started commenting on and "Like"ing my status updates.

5. I realized that it was pretty cool to be able to connect meaningfully[4] with people in a way that I couldn't before.

I love creating and building things, but social interaction with people I enjoy is just as important to me. Facebook is an invaluable tool in that interaction, just as a great IDE is an invaluable tool in programming. Just like an IDE, Facebook is most valuable when you are using it to its full potential. If you don't have a large number of Facebook friends and you don't use Chat and status updates, it's easy to miss the point. Perhaps you've experienced the difficulty in explaining the benefits of emacs or vi to an Eclipse or VisualStudio user?

---

[1] I was at a Taco Bell one night after my friends and I left the bar, and somehow we started talking to a girl and her friends. I walked them home, she got my name, she added me as a Facebook friend, and now we chat on Facebook a few times a month. If not for Facebook, I probably would have never seen her again. That is what makes Facebook relevant, the ability to create new (and keep old[2]) connections that weren't even possible before Facebook got huge.

[2] Just tonight I was talking to a friend on Facebook when another girl said hello to me, a girl that I was good friends with a couple summers ago but haven't seen or talked to much since. Now we're probably going to meet up tomorrow night to catch up over drinks.

[3] For certain values of "interesting"

[4] With Facebook-as-it-is-now, it is possible to tell people that you are barely friends with, "I appreciate you and I'm glad to be friends with you," simply by Liking or commenting on a photo, status update, or shared link. It was hard to do that in the past without being drunk or creepy.

brandon272• 16 years ago

I would love to see more data behind their users, as in how many of their nearly 500 million users have even used the service? Added to their profiles? Created a friends list? Verified their e-mail address?

I have friends who have, combined, created hundreds of dummy facebook accounts that they do not use because while they do not have dedicated facebook accounts, they often want to see someone's profile or friend's list. So they hit "Sign Up", put in a fake e-mail address, fake first name, fake last name and register. Facebook makes this quite easy because they don't even require, last I checked, that you verify your e-mail address before you start using the site features.

drawkbox• 16 years ago

Facebook goes off of monthly active users. If you had logged in and done and action once this month. Same for monthly active users within games, if the user logs in, accesses the game that counts.

It is pretty clear how deep the social links are that Facebook is truly that big. All your friends from elementary to college, all your relatives, nearly everyone is on there. Your mom is probably on there. That tells that the numbers are real.

TheBranca18• 16 years ago

Your own personal experience with Facebook just isn't relevant when comparing it to 400-500 million people.

I've seen comments on here that people doubt Facebook is as strong as it is. For young adults Facebook is synonymous with the Internet.

I'd be interested in the numbers as well, but the whole idea that because most of us on here don't use it, it can't possibly be doing as well as everyone else says is pretty silly. It's like Avatar, yes it did gross almost three billion dollars world-wide, and yes it's not the greatest movie in the world but the money and in FB's case the userbase speak for themselves.

gfodor• 16 years ago

This is one more step toward the inevitable "major event" occuring in the mid 2010's regarding online privacy.

Sooner or later, we're going to trend backwards away from all this. Just like it's hip to be environmentally conscious now, it will be hip to be privacy conscious when the generation growing up giving away all their personal information grows to realize this ultimately can lead to an unhealthy world. This sense of enlightenment, that our natural impulses in the short term can have undesired consequences in the long, is the foundation of movements that define generations. Usually the thing that kicks it all off, though, is a major event that brings these long term consequences to the surface. I certainly hope for this one, it doesn't cost any lives.

troystribling2• 16 years ago

I dangers of online privacy have been in the news for the past 5 to 6 years since myspace et al. initially became popular. Since then more people have put more information about themselves online because they believe there is an advantage in doing so. Unless some 'major event' leading to the deaths of thousands of people occurs, which is very unlikely, I do not see the trend diminishing. In fact, I predict that within a decade if your job history and some social information about you is not readily available on the web your professional opportunities will be constrained and people will view you with suspicion.

Xichekolas2• 16 years ago

> ... because they believe there is an advantage in doing so

That is one possible explanation, but I think it is really simpler than that: People like to talk about themselves, and they like to find out what other people are doing and talk about that too.

jessor• 16 years ago

Depressingly enough, I don't see this happening.

samd• 16 years ago

In my opinion, Facebook still has a ways to go towards improving its actual site if it’s really going to be the long-term center of the web. (As in, the place you go to rather than Google.com.)

So they are saying that Facebook wants to become like Digg and Reddit? I just don't see that happening. Maybe if you're a power user who collects friends and has hundreds of people posting stuff you can do that, but it takes a large community to find all those interesting links. And the larger your community becomes the less personal it is and the more it becomes saturated with irrelevant stuff. So it seems that Facebook can be either a great place to find interesting stuff online or a personal place for you and your friends, but not both.

apsurd• 16 years ago

Compare the headline with the author's eventual written statement:

"In my opinion, Facebook still has a ways to go towards improving its actual site if it’s really going to be the long-term center of the web."

Sign me up for some techcrunch bannagee please.

sunchild10• 16 years ago

Here's my counter-prediction: 5 years from now, both Facebook and Techcrunch will be as relevant as MySpace is today.

philjackson• 16 years ago

Not that I disagree necessarily but what are you basing that on? A wish? A hunch? Myspace never tried to touch the entire internet like this.

sunchild10• 16 years ago

Fair question. I base my opinion (and it's an opinion) on history. I'm a relatively old man. I've been hearing about technologies that are going to take over the world for decades, and none have delivered for more than a few years.

I remember when Altavista was supposed to be the beginning and end of search.

I remember when Palm was the final word in mobile devices.

I remember when Friendster was THE social network to rule all social networks.

I remember when Hotmail was the be-all-end-all email.

I remember when Geocities was going to rule the Earth from horizon to horizon.

I remember when Yahoo! was synonymous with the Internet.

I remember when Kozmo.com was going to replace the governments of all civilized nations.

I remember when Boo.com had a bulletproof business model and first-mover advantage.

I remember when Go.com was going to be the portal to our shiny new future.

You'll have to forgive me for being a little skeptical. Sites like Techcrunch have been serving up this kind of myopic nonsense to the eager echo chamber for as long as I can remember, and they're rarely correct. None of them saw Google coming until it was too late. None of them told me that Apple was going to be the 7th largest company and a dominant player in music and mobile devices until Apple was the 7th largest company and dominant in music and mobile devices. No, it was all about revolutionary "game-changers" like Pointcast or WebTV or RealNetworks or something else that had a legitimate period of success but did not, in fact, have the lasting impact that was promised by sensationalist publications.

nl6• 16 years ago

Why?

At least Techcrunch provided some reasoning.

Your prediction is worded in a way that makes it hard to argue with, because "relevant" is so subjective. I know a lot of artists find MySpace VERY relevant.

However, to attempt a rebuttal, taking the Facebook case:

If Facebook is to become less relevant than it is now I would argue it's growth would have to stop, or at least slow down. According to the linked article it is currently accelerating, and usage of Facebook APIs OUTSIDE of Facebook is increasing enormously.

Growth like that doesn't just stop, unless there is some external factor.

So far, Facebook have proven themselves to be reasonable technically skilled, so I'll rule out technical problems.

It's possible some kind of legal issue could slow them (privacy lawsuits or something?). However, lawsuits take such a long time to play out that it would probably be at least 2-3 years before any negative verdict against Facebook would make them change what they are doing, and even then it won't shut down the site. If Facebook have 2-3 years more sustained growth it would be unprecedented for them to shrink from half-a-billion users to something less relevant than MySpace in another 2 years.

Another good counter-argument is the likely-hood of an IPO in the next 5 years. Apparently, Facebook had $700 million in revenue last year, and should do $1.1 billion this year (http://www.insidefacebook.com/2010/03/02/facebook-made-up-to...). If they IPO'ed now, with a P/E ratio of 20 (Google & Apple = ~24, Microsoft = ~ 17), then they'd be a $20 billion company. That buys a lot of relevance.

EDIT: Note that is a revenue figure, not an earning (as pointed out below), so the numbers are wrong. I'll leave it here, though, because the point is more important than the numbers - if (when) Facebook IPO's they will raise a LOT of money.

marciovm123• 16 years ago

I think you confused P/E ratio - the E stands for earnings (profit), not revenues.

Facebook's P/E ratio is almost certainly negative at this point, but they are growing so fast that P/E ratio is not a good way to predict their market cap.

sunchild10• 16 years ago

What is the basis for the "P" in your "P/E" calculus?

ericb• 16 years ago

> Growth like that doesn't just stop, unless there is some external factor.

Why? MySpace's growth slowed. Nothing grows infinitely--the math doesn't work. There is always a limiting factor that slows growth eventually, whether it be external or internal.

tjpick• 16 years ago

I just don't get quotes like (I see in the sidebar) "we are making a web where the default is social".

No shit Sherlock. The web has always been social and about sharing information. There's the <a> tag, one might say linking to your friends page is encouraged, and the "default" is no authentication. Meanwhile I, apparently, can't even read the facebook developer docs without signing up. Yeah, real social.

modsearch• 16 years ago

Does anyone know if we are supposed to rewrite our old FB Connect code using this new stuff? Seems much cleaner anyway

tokenadult• 16 years ago

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1283226

doron• 16 years ago

Its the relationship stupid.

Everybody is a friend, no colleagues, much less family, or people you admire. eliminating privacy and reducing relationships to simplistic formulas to be sold to marketers.

Fact is, all my relationships are complicated, not just one. including my relationship with facebook, one i'm not particularly attached to either.

hyperbovine• 16 years ago

I can live without facebook (in fact, I have never used it.) I could never live without the Google, and I can never envision a time when this will not be true.

What am I missing here?

whatusername3• 16 years ago

For my circle of non-tech friends.. Facebook has replaced email and IM. That's pretty big.

nl6• 16 years ago

And photosharing. And gossip magazines.

And sharing location ("I'm having beer at the pub. Come and join me")

Oh, and they use it for little things like product recommendations ("I need a new washing machine. what do people like?")

And then there's the whole "how do I fix my computer/car/whatever". Lots of people don't Google for it - they just ask on Facebook and wait for the original poster to Google it and reply to them

But yeah.. apart from these things it's pretty useless really.

mclin• 16 years ago

I've noticed in the last year or so that facebook doesn't work anymore for me. I'd txt a few days after sending a party invite on facebook and people'd be like, what invite? I think facebook got filled with too much noise.

iseff• 16 years ago

To be fair, before you used Google, you likely thought you could live without totally fine.

Perhaps if all your contacts, relationships, events, etc were already on Facebook, you might think you couldn't live without it.

jrockway2• 16 years ago

I don't really get Facebook. What is it? I left it alone for a few years, when it was basically a profile and a list of friends. Now when I log in, I don't know what to do. I don't know any of the people who are trying to friend me, and I don't see any way to do anything.

Contrast this with Google, where I can find information, get maps, check my calendar, listen to my voicemail, and chat with my friends.

I am not sure which one will "win", but I know which one is actually useful for me right now.

j_baker• 16 years ago

I thought I was the only one who found facebook totally user-unfriendly.

ismarc• 16 years ago

I've determined that Facebook is designed to have something to hold your attention for 45 seconds to 3 minutes on each page before something else shiny jumps out for you to click on it. It's a brilliant interface when you're dealing with people killing time. It's a horrible interface for anyone who actually wants to get something done.

fuzzmeister• 16 years ago

You should start a new account - the hand-holding in their registration process is very well done, helping you find all your friends and start talking to them.

justinph• 16 years ago

This is all very neat. But I'm not going to make my site's functionality dependent on Facebook any more than I'll make it dependent on Yahoo, Microsoft, or Google. There needs to be a way to abstract all this stuff so that if Facebook goes belly up tomorrow, I can still have the social features on my site. I'm pretty sure facebook doesn't want developers thinking about that, though.

greenlblue• 16 years ago

This is just creepy. Facebook is a profit motivated company and I don't understand why people keep feeding it data and not just any data but relevant, extremely profitable data for free! Google knows a bunch of stuff too but for some reason this seems way more creepy.

trobertson• 16 years ago

This is creepy because Facebook is making "private" information available to other private companies, who can do nearly whatever they want with it. Also, anybody can write a crawler to find the private information of thousands of people with little to no hassle. Google, on the other hand, keeps your data locked up for use in its advertising programs. Google doesn't hand your data over to other companies.

alexro• 16 years ago

The main point goes like this: I can't be friends with all smart people. Thus, HN and other 'neutral' sites gonna stay.

yanw• 16 years ago

Your internet identity in owned by Facebook, I don't like that, what if I wanted to delete my account, I'd lose my identity, my friend connections and all the stuff gathers on my FB profile, I don't think this should be the case and I don't think it's sustainable.

arihant2• 16 years ago

Well, Facebook just released a feature it thought will make life better for it's users, and it probably will. Nowhere did Facebook mention that one can't create something similar with their own social network.

Facebook is trying to do something really innovative here. That's solid entrepreneurship, which is why it's receiving such violent opposition, as usual. They are trying to jump to the next curve, and that's great. If other networks jump in, this could change the very basics of how we experience web, with or without Facebook. I think Facebook is just first company to start this, just like some company started 'e-mail'; that company didn't own the world's communication.

What I really want to see here is, how much are people willing to use their 'real' identities outside of facebook window. Because most of legit users on Facebook use their real names (I think), and there must be a reason that whenever somebody uses an id to comment on websites, it looks like 'pinkgur92twilight_meow'.

I Think Facebook Just Seized Control Of The Internet

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