ltamake

I absolutely agree. I would rather be told the bad news with all the facts than a sugar-coated "oh-we-were-hacked-but-its-not-our-fault-and-you-customers-are-screwed" response.

I use them for occasional code surfing.

I don't believe they have 800 million. I think an active account counting as "an account that has logged in within 30 days" is skewing the stats beyond belief.

They have more like 500 million active right now.

I got my Logitech Revue as part of a promotion by Google, and I agree with you -- I'm glad I didn't pay for it.

It just didn't do anything spectacular or exciting. The browser is cool, but I always have my iPad 2 with me at the sofa so it was rendered pretty much useless. Also, no apps (until now, if Logitech updates).

Paying $30 a month for 5 hours of use is really stupid.

Gonna be brutally honest here, those pricing plans are shit. Allow me to log in for an unlimited amount of time and lower the price a bit, and we'll talk.

And it's down.

This won't kill Facebook by any means. Terrible marketing, bad approach to social networking, and of course it won't make people stop using Facebook.

I think everyone hates Facebook because of their privacy and data mining issues, and I'm inclined to agree with those people. Facebook did sell out in that way, and I think even Steve Jobs knew that. But Zuckerberg didn't sell his company to Microsoft so maybe that's what Jobs meant.

I really hate how Facebook killed the competition because there's no place to go besides G+, and that seems to be targeting a different audience than Facebook. :(

Just because a company is big doesn't mean it has to sell out and stop caring about user privacy.

Well, patent trolls cause companies to spend more money on legal efforts than on innovating so I agree.

insert rant about how broken the patent system is here

>true tabloid Daily Mail

I seriously hope you're being sarcastic...

Interesting idea for donations. I'll give it a try once my PayPal account stops hating me.

Maybe add some alternate payment gateway support (e.g. WePay, Google Checkout, etc.)? :)

> Facebook doesn't force you to use their services, and if you do so voluntarily then it's on facebook's terms, though luck.

WRONG! Think about all the sites that have Like buttons. Facebook never showed me a form or a checkbox to use that, did they? Yet they're gathering information on the sites I go to and setting up "shadow profiles" (as europe-v-facebook put them).

You're right, Facebook doesn't make me use Facebook -- they're trying to force me to.

And sure, I can just use hosts to block the Facebook site, but I shouldn't have to do that just to stop them from tracking me.

It's not about morals, it's about the law as it is right now. And the truth is that Facebook is breaking our laws and need to be prosecuted for such.

As for your argument, why is that a terrible law? Why is it bad that users have a right to know what companies have on them? To be honest, I think it's a pretty bloody great law.

Facebook is a victim of itself. If it didn't track users in the first place, it wouldn't be in hot water.

I shouldn't have to block the domain to stop them from tracking me. They just shouldn't track me.

I'm not too impressed. The content is good, but they just seem to give you links to software and then say "Okay, just use this, this, and this and then you'll have an HTML5 app." It doesn't show me how I can use those bits of software. I can find more useful information on HTML5 through a Google search.

I wish I could be there to see Drew Houston. He's a role model for startups.

Primary example: the Like button. Even when I'm not logged into Facebook the button tracks where I go. I never checked a box to have the like button shown to me.

Also, agreeing to use a website does NOT give the website the ability to break the law. Otherwise, we could have drug-trafficking sites completely in the open with a box saying "By checking this box, you understand that we sell extremely illegal drugs, and that you will not take any action against this site."

I know, it's effing creepy.

I wasn't planning on sleeping tonight anyway!

Your opinion does not equate to everyone's opinion. I'm quite interested in his hosts file (because of blocking like buttons).

So this wouldn't be considered "patent trolling"? I know Microsoft has had quite a history with Android and I always assumed it was just them using their patents to make some quick money.

Great answer, by the way. Definitely cleared up a lot of questions I had.

I love the Snickers bar ad placement, as if it's trying to cover up the fact that that screenshot is fake.

But seriously, why do companies have to do this? Aren't they proud of the products they create? Why can't Samsung grab a screenshot of Android's own Maps app? Or is this a slash at Apple because of their lawsuit?

Very sad. His contributions to the world were huge. RIP.

Hah, same. It's like seeing someone spell out Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) or Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company (3M). Just kinda weird.

It /would/ make sense for Google. Think about how many customers Akamai has and the business they're in -- Google probably really wants a part of that.

Also, how would it make sense for Apple or Facebook to acquire Akamai? Apple's in the computer and mobile devices business (and has its own datacentre for iCloud to worry about), and Facebook has no use for Akamai outside of the services it currently receives as a customer. It would be stupid for either company to consider buying it at this point.

Just my opinion.

The OP mentioned that Facebook is a big corporation so they clearly must have secure data structures and invincibility from all attacks ever. I'm just pointing out that to support my point -- Facebook has the ability to fetch the data but really doesn't want to. Secure data structures have nothing to do with it, they don't prevent the fetching of data. And if Facebook is smart, they don't just throw things around randomly in the database without rhyme or reason.

#1: A large company called Sony recently had almost 100 million accounts stolen from PSN. We all assumed that because they're big, they wouldn't do stupid things like store our passwords or credit card numbers in plaintext.

If Facebook can't fetch data from its own infrastructure, I would be seriously worried, more so than I am right now.

#2: I understand them wanting to preserve trade secrets like facial recognition, but I still would like a general idea of /every single thing/ Facebook has on me. That's like a bank storing a bunch of information on me while refusing to disclose certain parts of my bank account because they're "trade secrets".

You're right, not everything Facebook does is bad. But they don't have the users' best interests at hand and when you need to worry about a site tracking you across the Internet simply because you have an account and they can, that's the time to worry. I'm surprised we haven't seen more lawsuits than the media is reporting.

Spotify will never be truly profitable. The labels are leeching whatever profit they make out of pure greed. It's a huge problem for any big streaming service, and it's just not worth it for investors.

I bought the book for Kindle and it's just an interview. Since the publisher is a YC company and Andrew is a cool guy, I don't feel bad giving up $5 for this.

I have a Yamaha DGX-500 that I bought from a bloke at my office. It works great and is compatible with FL Studio. Saves about 5 songs, though.