4 ms·
His guess at why Facebook won could easily be wrong.
by staunch 16y ago
His guess at why Facebook won could easily be wrong.
- joshu 16y agoYeah, I suspect that the "users weren't sophisticated enough" is bullshit.
- marckremers 16y agoI just wonder who the first hundred or so users of Facebook were, must be amazing to hop onto a site (and a story) like that so early, and to have seen it expand the way it did.
- friendstock 16y agoJust look for the users with the first 100 Facebook UIDs... e.g. Mark Zuckerberg has UID=4.
- rorrr 16y agohttp://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=4 http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=4 http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=5 http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=5 http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=6 http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=6 http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=7 http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=7 and so on
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- thinkcomp 16y agoMy user ID on the houseSYSTEM Facebook was 1; Mark's was 1,234. On Mark's Facebook mine was/is 82, and his was/is 4. I've commented on the experience of being involved and "amazing" is one of many adjectives one could use. It's striking how few people want to hear what I have to say, anyhow.
- revorad 16y agoAre you really working on FaceCash? It sounds like a parody.
- puredemo 16y agoYour comment struck me as prescient. I founded a "flash in the pan" social startup game that eventually went nowhere. But despite the end results, it was quite an interesting ride and there are some fascinating stories to tell. Unfortunately, only a couple people I know have cared to hear them. Most of my 300 or so Facebook friends don't even know what a startup is, let alone why they should want to hear stories about one. Obviously my experience is probably not nearly as interesting as yours, but I understand your sentiment. The vast majority of people simply don't seem relate to much that falls beyond their own preconceived worldviews. Anything beyond that horizon is foreign to them to the point of being meaningless.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- karzeem 16y agoI think it's more that when faced with a) a site where the stuff you want is surrounded by other things to wade through, and b) a site that contains only things you want, people prefer the latter.
- revorad 16y agoIf not wrong, it's really simplistic (probably for the sake of this news piece). I just finished listening to the Facebook Effect by David Kirkpatrick. It is a really good account of Facebook's history. It shows just how uncertain things were in the beginning. There were loads of little decisions along the way which made Facebook what it is. Zuckerberg, no doubt, turned out to be a visionary. But even he wasn't sure Facebook would last long, so he was hedging his bets with Wirehog. Before Facebook, he was already experimenting with random hacks. When he saw Facebook absolutely exploded as soon as he put it out, he doubled down on it. Wouldn't any hacker do that? I think Facebook's success lies in Zuck's ability to rally top people around him and to keep them focused on one vision, even when he's not clear what that vision is. Just "something big" seems to work until you figure out what it is. This news story probably doesn't do justice to Ting's story, but did he really give up without even a hard fight? Who said becoming a billionaire was easy? Edit: The coolest thing about listening to the book for me was that I found an old school friend of mine was a key early hire at Facebook. I hadn't spoken to her in years, but it was so cool to connect with her again. Of course, via Facebook.