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My opinions are my own and I can't speak for Facebook as a whole (or in any capacity, really, which is why this will forever remain an anonymous post). I think
by theblueadept111 15y ago
My opinions are my own and I can't speak for Facebook as a whole (or in any capacity, really, which is why this will forever remain an anonymous post).
I think Google will gain some traction initially, but what we're working on in my group is light years ahead of the Facebook you see and use today, and probably not the same direction that Google is (or can be) heading.
Yes, we've had our stumbles with privacy, but will Google be any better? Any legitimate complaints that I've heard are either something we're resolving or is an inherent problem that any social networking site will face.
Am I worried about attrition of users as Google ramps up? Not really. It's too much work to maintain multiple social networking accounts and at the end of the day, all your profile are belong to us.
- reso 15y agoYou may want to rephrase that last sentence. I doubt it was your intention, but it sounds a little arrogant.
- kelnos 15y agoIt may, but I think it's a refreshingly honest view. Facebook -- perhaps rightly so -- feels like they have people locked in to their service.
- clarkbox 15y ago" and at the end of the day, all your profile are belong to us." i think this is the exact sentiment that makes FB vulnerable in many ways. as i user, i dont want a company controlling my personal bits that just shits on the user base with an arrogant attitude "we have your personal info already". What drives internal innovation if everyone goes around thinking "fuck these fish in this barrel"
- gigawatt 15y agoAssuming you meant "vulnerable." If so, agree completely. If the company that Facebook overthrew, with hundreds of millions of users, can lose over 90% of its value in a few years, there's no reason Facebook is immune. Facebook's new motto: It's like fucking fish in a barrel.
- VladRussian 15y ago"Facebook's new motto: It's like fucking fish in a barrel. " sounds like directly from Zuck's mouth
- reso 15y agoHave you ever heard Zuck speak? He doesn't talk like that.
- VladRussian 15y agoof course he is a polite, accurate boy enjoying simple quiet pleasures like cutting throat of a goat or taking the head off a chicken.
- shmulkey18 15y ago"Have you ever heard Zuck speak? He doesn't talk like that." Dunno about talking, but he sure does IM like that: http://boingboing.net/2010/09/14/damning-zuckerberg-i.html http://boingboing.net/2010/09/14/damning-zuckerberg-i.html ZUCK: yea so if you ever need info about anyone at harvard ZUCK: just ask ZUCK: i have over 4000 emails, pictures, addresses, sns FRIEND: what!? how'd you manage that one? ZUCK: people just submitted it ZUCK: i don't know why ZUCK: they "trust me" ZUCK: dumb fucks ... FRIEND: so have you decided what you are going to do about the websites? ZUCK: yea i'm going to fuck them ZUCK: probably in the year ZUCK: *ear
- ern 15y agoThat was how he IMed in 2004 when he was 20. People change.
- shmulkey18 15y agoAs evidenced by his recent interest in killing animals, I suppose.
- reso 15y agoI doubt he actually works at Faecbook. I can assure you that is not the sentiment prevalent in the office.
- magicalist 15y agoI know a few people at facebook and it is certainly possible he works there (this kind of attitude seems slightly more prevalent amongst newer hires), but I agree it definitely is not the general sentiment around the company nor amongst most of the people making strategic decisions.
- 9999 15y agoLooking at his account history, I get a troll vibe from him.
- shadowfox 15y agoThe problem is of course that people will believe what they want to believe
- rryan 15y ago> at the end of the day, all your profile are belong to us. Tell that to MySpace?
- hook 15y agoThis may just be my favourite HN comment of all time.
- zdrtx 15y agoI really doubt that this guy works for Facebook.
- andrewmunn 15y agoActually he sounds like a fairly typical Facebook Brogrammer.
- jcfrei 15y agoit won't be for long until people realize what amount of information facebook collects - and that it shouldn't be allowed to do so. privacy might not be such an issue right now, but it will be in the future. the consequences will be simple - the government will intervene and limit the amount of information facebook (or any social network / service / etc.) can collect. don't get too excited about your employer...
- ctide 15y ago"Yes, we've had our stumbles with privacy, but will Google be any better? Any legitimate complaints that I've heard are either something we're resolving or is an inherent problem that any social networking site will face." I would argue that Google will be better because it's clear they've made privacy the most important part of their offering. By making circles one of the topmost items, they take something that most people don't even know Facebook can do (post statuses to specific groups of people) and make it the standard method of sharing. While it certainly can be overcome with UI, it would require some massive changes to Facebook to make it anywhere near as prominent as it is with G+.
- saulrh 15y agoit certainly can be overcome with UI, it would require some massive changes to Facebook Agreed here. I've known for a long time that Facebook had near-identical groups functionality, but the interface is simply so painful to use that I barely even notice it. G+, on the other hand, has created a simple and intuitive privacy interface, and everything clearly shows who can see it. They haven't just made privacy an important part of their offering, they've also made privacy easy and obvious. As password-reuse statistics show, it doesn't matter how good your security is if people refuse to lift a finger to use it.
- qaexl 15y agoThere's a persistent myth that Facebook Group is the same as Google+ Circles. They are nowhere near each other. In fact, Google+ does not have the equivalent of Facebook Groups, unless you count in the older Google Groups. Facebook Group is closer to Google Groups or Yahoo Groups or any one of the dozens of forum-type sites. You create a space in which people join. It creates a venue. Google+ Circles is much closer to Livejournal friend filters. You have overlapping contexts but no single, formal venue that you join. Psychologically and sociologically, it works differently. It takes a lot more engineering work to get circles implemented than it does Facebook Groups (as it is implemented today). I've been revisiting sending messages to specific groups of people in Facebook, outside the Groups context: - To send to specific people on Facebook, you specify them directly. There are no pre-defined lists of people. Further, you have to jump extra hoops to do this, by clicking on the tiny lock icon, and then clicking on custom, and then typing in the names of the people you want to send this to. You have to do this for every single post you want to send out on a limited scope. Clearly, the Facebook UX designers want you to send it out to everyone. - You can do the equivalent of private message to a group of people for an ad-hoc group. The last time I tried that, I hit its biggest limitation. I wanted to add more people into the running thread and it would not allow me to do that. Fortunately, everyone involved are current Livejournal contacts and we moved the conversation over there. Google+ does not allow you to add more people or circles to a running thread, but it does allow you to add more people into the circles which are dynamically computed into existing threads. As it should work. - Google+ Profiles lets you specify exactly which part of the profile is viewable by which circle + people. You may not want your business phone number available to your drinking buddies, and you may not want your home phone number available to your business contacts. - Google+ has a tool that lets you view what your stream looks like to other people. Admittedly, this is somewhat buried in the site. - saurih brings up a very good point, "it doesn't matter how good your security is if people refuse to lift a finger to use it." A large % of the people in my circles are using it as public posts -- either thinking it in terms of Twitter-public, or they don't really care to. One of the people on there twigged on an insight: public posts on Google+ are meant for things that are relavent to everyone. People tend to post publicly and ignore much of the circle functionality; and as such, the interface will feel clunkier because you're not making full use of it. On the other hand, all my friends who are expats from Livejournal and had been itching to ditch Facebook for something that provides this granularity of social contexts have set up the different streams. In any case. Google+ scratches an itch I had. I'm glad it is here. It is the right tool for me, whether or not it is the right tool for the vast majority of Facebook users.
- bdhe 15y agoIt's too much work to maintain multiple social networking accounts If you truly believe it is going to be all or nothing Google, then this article (http://www.allfacebook.com/the-one-google-plus-feature-facebook-should-fear-2011-06 http://www.allfacebook.com/the-one-google-plus-feature-faceb...) and the HN discussion (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2715521 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2715521) makes me think Google will have the upper hand. IMHO, Google is getting closer to one true online identity and one place to do everything online with their offering of Google+ than Facebook.
- fossuser 15y agoI agree. Google already had all of the services down and well done, they just needed something to unify them. Google+ makes everything fit together and with Google's already prominent position on the web it is quite the formidable opponent.
- stanmancan 15y agoat the end of the day, all your profile are belong to us. That one line was enough to convince me to delete my Facebook account again, once and for all. Thank you.
- VladRussian 15y ago"to convince ... again" or "to delete ... again" ? I mean have you tried to delete already ? :)
- __rkaup__ 15y agoWas thinking the same. Fuck any company with that level of lock-in.
- uvTwitch 15y agoI take it you don't use gmail as your email provider then?
- 1010011010 15y agogmail doesn't lock you in... so I am not sure what your point is.
- uvTwitch 15y agoMy point was that Facebook don't also provide email services. Perhaps lock-in is too strong a term, but it's certainly convenient enough to discourage using anything other than gmail - and means that google will own a much larger chunk of your online identity than Facebook does now.
- FaceKicker 15y ago> My point was that Facebook don't also provide email services. Incorrect, as of a few months ago. Every(?) Facebook user now has an email address: <userID>@facebook.com. You can send messages to external email addresses from the messages tab.
- stanmancan 15y agohttp://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=2715787&whence=item%3fid%3d2715702 http://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=2715787&whence=item...
- malbs 15y agoLike others, I question whether this guy actually works for Facebook, but the "all your profile are belong to us." has done it's damage, because while perhaps you don't work there, it's highlighting a culture I know to be there. You're more likely to be a google+ team member, simply genius!
- theblueadept111 15y agoYou got me, I'm a google+ engineer. I don't always pretend to work for Facebook... but when I do I'm an arrogant prick.
- politician 15y agoWell played.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- Hisoka 15y agoIt's funny. Google Profiles actually exposes your email addresses to harvestors: (ie profiles.google.com/GMAIL_USERNAME). Google+ at least fixes that.
- kschrader 15y agoAt the end of the day, I wonder if it really matters what Facebook does. Once Google gets everyone on Plus then that omnipresent black bar will be at the top of every Google site, constantly sucking you back in with alerts of what's happening in your social stream. People will de facto head to Plus whenever they search, check finance, check their Gmail, look at their calendar, etc. Ultimately, it's going to be hard for Facebook to compete with that level of constant activity.
- AJ007 15y agoDon't worry, the US DOJ Antitrust Division will soon be to your rescue.
- nwmcsween 15y agoThe thing I like about google+ is all the things I usually use are built into one 'platform' (gmail, videos, images, google apps) which in the end saves me time and allows me to lazy. I don't know how it will fare with the less technical inclined but for me, I like it.
- shmulkey18 15y agoFB employee: - "but what we're working on in my group is light years ahead of the Facebook you see and use today" - "at the end of the day, all your profile are belong to us." Nice. With that kind of attitude, I hope that your group FAILS.
- silverlake 15y agoWow, some people are really overreacting to the humor in the last sentence. He's just saying that people are likely to maintain only 1 primary social networking account, which is FB right now. There's no compelling reason for a significant fraction of FB's 600M users to switch to Google+.
- justdep 15y agoall your profile are belong to us. You had me until this.