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Facebook Vies To Become Your Homepage – And Why That’s A Big Deal

14 points by BvS 16y ago

BvS 16y ago
"But for many people, social networking sites are slowly taking over at least part of the role of search engines, which is mainly to retrieve information." Don't agree, they are rather take part of the role of tv.
- robryan 16y ago
  I'd tend to say more phone calls, SMS and to some extent instant messaging. You could say Twitter, being a broadcast medium has taken over TV more, but it compliments it more than anything.
robryan 16y ago
I think though we are moving away from the homepage though, I prefer how chrome displays the 8 most visited pages upon opening.
- NZ_Matt 16y ago
  I doubt my parents or sister would know how to change their homepage manually. These are the people that Facebook are targeting this feature at. Not tech nerds.
  - robryan 16y ago
    I don't really buy this kind of thing, not these days, sure there will be some percentage of people who are new to computers but in general I don't think so. Pretty much every program on windows/osx you ever interact with has an options display accessible from the top menus and pretty much all of them have the ability to change the homepage. Now I would agree that a popup like this give people motivation to change, perhaps that haven't considered it before, but I doubt many that have been using computers for some time would have trouble changing there homepage if motivated to do so.
- dpcan 16y ago
  My computer's browser opens to 3 tabs that pertain to my work and interests. My home computer, where my wife and kids use it all the time defaults to Yahoo. Different worlds.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
philk 16y ago
When you can tap your entire social graph for answers to your queries, sites like Facebook have the ability to push aside search engines like Google as the first site that springs to mind when people think about surfing the WWW to find information, connect to other people, communicate with friends, and so on. Am I somehow connecting to the wrong Facebook or something? Because whenever I log in all I get is dull status updates from people I somewhat know.
- pavs 16y ago
  The problem is you are relying on TechCrunch for tech punditry. Techcrunch is one of those tech blogs that has very little knowledge about technology.
  - brown9-2 16y ago
    Can you name some "tech pundits" that actually do have "knowledge" or at least make useful and accurate predictions? Seems to me like it's the kind of field where if you were good at it, you'd be doing something else with those skills...
    - pavs 16y ago
      Yes sure. Arstechnica, Engadget. Hell, even gizmodo does a better job. Have you never heard of tech journalist with tech backgrounds? Or finance journalist with economics background? I don't think a single TC bloggers have any tech background and they continue to spew out rubbish day in and day out.
  - robryan 16y ago
    I think it's more they feel the need to constantly be searching and suggesting what the next big thing could be rather than evaluating things on their merits.
- jsz0 16y ago
  At the risk of stating the obvious the Facebook you login into is entirely different than everyone else. It really depends on who your friends are. It probably also depends on how much satisfaction you get out of being a voyeur. That's a big part of FB's success.
citizenkeys 16y ago
Facebook is Microsoft's trojan horse to win two wars: search and mobile. Microsoft is a major investor in Facebook and thus far has been losing both search and mobile to Google. With Facebook as the home page, Microsoft becomes the de facto search engine for millions of people because Bing is already integrated into Facebook. Also, with more people communicating via Facebook mobile, Microsoft slowly but surely inches its way to winning the war on mobile through integration with Facebook on mobile devices.
olalonde 16y ago
I haven't used a homepage since browsers implemented the save tabs feature.
paul9290 16y ago
Facebook as stated they are not making a phone, but they didnt say they were not making a phone OS like Android. Im thinking a Facebook mobile OS makes sense. THose you want to talk(voice, text, IM, pics, etc) with are on your facebook now and they just released their new social inbox. This is all speculative but just maybe they'll do this?
- NZ_Matt 16y ago
  I can see this happening. A phone marketed as having Facebook OS will appeal to a huge market.
johndbritton 16y ago
I don't use a homepage at all, when I launch my browser it takes me to a blank page and I request what I want directly. I really don't like to be distracted by a default home page.
kellishaver 16y ago
I can already ask my friends if I want information that they may have. More over, there are at least a dozen ways I can do so in a medium that's not littered with daily horoscopes, stupid quizzes, Farm Mafia Mob Zombie Fish Wars, and photos of pets from people I barely knew in high school. Search engines are for things my friends don't know, or for those times when I don't want to bother those friends, because I know they're busy with more important things to do than sit on Facebook all day long.

14 points by BvS 16y ago

BvS 16y ago

"But for many people, social networking sites are slowly taking over at least part of the role of search engines, which is mainly to retrieve information." Don't agree, they are rather take part of the role of tv.

robryan 16y ago
I'd tend to say more phone calls, SMS and to some extent instant messaging. You could say Twitter, being a broadcast medium has taken over TV more, but it compliments it more than anything.

robryan 16y ago

I think though we are moving away from the homepage though, I prefer how chrome displays the 8 most visited pages upon opening.

NZ_Matt 16y ago
I doubt my parents or sister would know how to change their homepage manually. These are the people that Facebook are targeting this feature at. Not tech nerds.
- robryan 16y ago
  I don't really buy this kind of thing, not these days, sure there will be some percentage of people who are new to computers but in general I don't think so. Pretty much every program on windows/osx you ever interact with has an options display accessible from the top menus and pretty much all of them have the ability to change the homepage. Now I would agree that a popup like this give people motivation to change, perhaps that haven't considered it before, but I doubt many that have been using computers for some time would have trouble changing there homepage if motivated to do so.
dpcan 16y ago
My computer's browser opens to 3 tabs that pertain to my work and interests. My home computer, where my wife and kids use it all the time defaults to Yahoo. Different worlds.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

philk 16y ago

When you can tap your entire social graph for answers to your queries, sites like Facebook have the ability to push aside search engines like Google as the first site that springs to mind when people think about surfing the WWW to find information, connect to other people, communicate with friends, and so on. Am I somehow connecting to the wrong Facebook or something? Because whenever I log in all I get is dull status updates from people I somewhat know.

pavs 16y ago
The problem is you are relying on TechCrunch for tech punditry. Techcrunch is one of those tech blogs that has very little knowledge about technology.
- brown9-2 16y ago
  Can you name some "tech pundits" that actually do have "knowledge" or at least make useful and accurate predictions? Seems to me like it's the kind of field where if you were good at it, you'd be doing something else with those skills...
  - pavs 16y ago
    Yes sure. Arstechnica, Engadget. Hell, even gizmodo does a better job. Have you never heard of tech journalist with tech backgrounds? Or finance journalist with economics background? I don't think a single TC bloggers have any tech background and they continue to spew out rubbish day in and day out.
- robryan 16y ago
  I think it's more they feel the need to constantly be searching and suggesting what the next big thing could be rather than evaluating things on their merits.
jsz0 16y ago
At the risk of stating the obvious the Facebook you login into is entirely different than everyone else. It really depends on who your friends are. It probably also depends on how much satisfaction you get out of being a voyeur. That's a big part of FB's success.

citizenkeys 16y ago

Facebook is Microsoft's trojan horse to win two wars: search and mobile. Microsoft is a major investor in Facebook and thus far has been losing both search and mobile to Google. With Facebook as the home page, Microsoft becomes the de facto search engine for millions of people because Bing is already integrated into Facebook. Also, with more people communicating via Facebook mobile, Microsoft slowly but surely inches its way to winning the war on mobile through integration with Facebook on mobile devices.

olalonde 16y ago

I haven't used a homepage since browsers implemented the save tabs feature.

paul9290 16y ago

Facebook as stated they are not making a phone, but they didnt say they were not making a phone OS like Android. Im thinking a Facebook mobile OS makes sense. THose you want to talk(voice, text, IM, pics, etc) with are on your facebook now and they just released their new social inbox. This is all speculative but just maybe they'll do this?

NZ_Matt 16y ago
I can see this happening. A phone marketed as having Facebook OS will appeal to a huge market.

johndbritton 16y ago

I don't use a homepage at all, when I launch my browser it takes me to a blank page and I request what I want directly. I really don't like to be distracted by a default home page.

kellishaver 16y ago

I can already ask my friends if I want information that they may have. More over, there are at least a dozen ways I can do so in a medium that's not littered with daily horoscopes, stupid quizzes, Farm Mafia Mob Zombie Fish Wars, and photos of pets from people I barely knew in high school. Search engines are for things my friends don't know, or for those times when I don't want to bother those friends, because I know they're busy with more important things to do than sit on Facebook all day long.