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Can Anything Stop Facebook? Absolutely. Facebook is the new AOL. A "training wheels" site for the rest of the internet. The cycle of new sites taking market s

Can Anything Stop Facebook? Absolutely. Facebook is the new AOL. A "training wheels" site for the rest of the internet. The cycle of new sites taking market share away from the leaders will be a regular ongoing event, much like the boom-and-bust cycle in silicon; and like the weather. As interoperability increases, as it has been doing with emulation layers, virtual machines and dual-booting, new sites will offer "translation stages" to help everyone keep possession of their data. This day is here already, with "inter-CRM" transfer sites. The scrapers and data-porting sites will stay on the attack; each new market leader will have to win on their merits, rather than according to their walls. Walls, dang. That went out with East Germany, one would hope. Here's to a better future, to all 450,000 of my best friends.

parenthesis 16y ago
Facebook can be seen as the new AOL. "Hey, there's this thing I can use on my computer to keep in touch with friends, events/celebrities/companies of interest to me, and where I can play games …" "Oh, yeah, I've got that too; you mean the internet, right?" "Duh, I mean Facebook!" However, I think there's a proper place, and need for something like Facebook. Going to a blog, or a company's website, or a forum, or whatever, is like reading a particular magazine, or going into a particular shop, or going to your usual club, or whatever. You know exactly what you want, and you go do it. Going to Facebook is like walking along the corridor, or street, or hanging out in the staff room, or town square. You randomly bump into friends, co-workers, acquaintances, and just say hi, or exchange gossip, or recommend to each other whom to talk to too, what events to attend, where to shop, what was on TV last night, the weather … . And then you go back to doing proper, specific stuff. Facebook doesn't hold a huge appeal for me personally, since I don't do much of the real world things it provides the online equivalent of. But for most people, doing those things, whether on or offline, is an essential sauce to their lives.

parenthesis 16y ago

Facebook can be seen as the new AOL. "Hey, there's this thing I can use on my computer to keep in touch with friends, events/celebrities/companies of interest to me, and where I can play games …" "Oh, yeah, I've got that too; you mean the internet, right?" "Duh, I mean Facebook!" However, I think there's a proper place, and need for something like Facebook. Going to a blog, or a company's website, or a forum, or whatever, is like reading a particular magazine, or going into a particular shop, or going to your usual club, or whatever. You know exactly what you want, and you go do it. Going to Facebook is like walking along the corridor, or street, or hanging out in the staff room, or town square. You randomly bump into friends, co-workers, acquaintances, and just say hi, or exchange gossip, or recommend to each other whom to talk to too, what events to attend, where to shop, what was on TV last night, the weather … . And then you go back to doing proper, specific stuff. Facebook doesn't hold a huge appeal for me personally, since I don't do much of the real world things it provides the online equivalent of. But for most people, doing those things, whether on or offline, is an essential sauce to their lives.