4 ms·

"500 million monthly users" means users who are active at least once a month, which I think qualifies as active. That's not counting every registered account at

"500 million monthly users" means users who are active at least once a month, which I think qualifies as active. That's not counting every registered account at all (I'm not sure there's any official numbers on that but it's a lot higher than 500M). Sure it's arguable Facebook users are more engaged, but point taken. Facebook is cooler and on the rise in peoples minds. I'm not sure I see how Facebook Connect is any more easy to authenticate with than OpenID from a user perspective.

lux 18y ago
Not to beat it to death :) but I look with a bit of skepticism at their 500m active users. I'm not saying it's not a true figure, but I know I personally fall into that number since I log in about once a month to do something on a Yahoo Group for example, and while I'm definitely a monthly user I'm certainly not an actively engaged user, and Yahoo will have a hard time getting someone like me on board with their social efforts. I bet a substantial portion of their users are in the same boat. Maybe they use their mail or groups or sites or something else, but I think it will be tough turning that into a coherent social network just like I think Google would have a tough time doing the same with their user base, and their accounts have been synchronized across services from the get-go. All my friends and family are already on Facebook. They all use it actively, and daily, for posting photos, events, keeping in touch, pokes and eaves dropping, etc. It's the new email, it's the new IM, it replaces our need for flickr and a bunch of separate services, and so on. It provides a personal experience you don't get with Myspace et al, and you'd be hard-pressed to pull them away from that. If a site I go to, or they go to, has the little FB icon they can click it, they may already be logged in and simply click "allow this site to access my profile" or whatever. If not, they enter their FB login info which they'll remember because it's a) their email and b) a password they enter all the time, and they're off. Since the Connect portion is on Facebook already, Firefox may already pre-fill their login info too. Compare that to OpenID where you have to remember something that looks like a URL on top of your username and password for your OpenID provider. The fact is, average users aren't grokking OpenID (didn't Yahoo themselves just publish something to this effect?), and I personally think it's a failure in the design of OpenID itself, which makes it particularly hard to fix. The biggest play for OpenID right now I think is Windows Live becoming a provider. That may change things, but Yahoo being on board I don't think will do it. But we'll have to wait and see.
- timtrueman 18y ago
  Fair enough. (Are you a little smitten with Facebook? :P)
  - lux 18y ago
    Not really :) I tease my girlfriend because she's on it sometimes for an hour or more at a time, but it's 'cause she's using the chat mostly. I'm generally more antisocial online; I disable chat and basically use facebook to keep up with out of town family and to play chess/scrabble. I do think there's something important to people about what they've built though, which is something hopefully Yahoo and the others will be able to figure out too, but has so far eluded the other social networks. I like Yahoo, and I'm actually rooting for them. I'd really like to see Yahoo get back on its feet, and I hope it can do so independently of Microsoft. That would be great to see :)

lux 18y ago

Not to beat it to death :) but I look with a bit of skepticism at their 500m active users. I'm not saying it's not a true figure, but I know I personally fall into that number since I log in about once a month to do something on a Yahoo Group for example, and while I'm definitely a monthly user I'm certainly not an actively engaged user, and Yahoo will have a hard time getting someone like me on board with their social efforts. I bet a substantial portion of their users are in the same boat. Maybe they use their mail or groups or sites or something else, but I think it will be tough turning that into a coherent social network just like I think Google would have a tough time doing the same with their user base, and their accounts have been synchronized across services from the get-go. All my friends and family are already on Facebook. They all use it actively, and daily, for posting photos, events, keeping in touch, pokes and eaves dropping, etc. It's the new email, it's the new IM, it replaces our need for flickr and a bunch of separate services, and so on. It provides a personal experience you don't get with Myspace et al, and you'd be hard-pressed to pull them away from that. If a site I go to, or they go to, has the little FB icon they can click it, they may already be logged in and simply click "allow this site to access my profile" or whatever. If not, they enter their FB login info which they'll remember because it's a) their email and b) a password they enter all the time, and they're off. Since the Connect portion is on Facebook already, Firefox may already pre-fill their login info too. Compare that to OpenID where you have to remember something that looks like a URL on top of your username and password for your OpenID provider. The fact is, average users aren't grokking OpenID (didn't Yahoo themselves just publish something to this effect?), and I personally think it's a failure in the design of OpenID itself, which makes it particularly hard to fix. The biggest play for OpenID right now I think is Windows Live becoming a provider. That may change things, but Yahoo being on board I don't think will do it. But we'll have to wait and see.

timtrueman 18y ago
Fair enough. (Are you a little smitten with Facebook? :P)
- lux 18y ago
  Not really :) I tease my girlfriend because she's on it sometimes for an hour or more at a time, but it's 'cause she's using the chat mostly. I'm generally more antisocial online; I disable chat and basically use facebook to keep up with out of town family and to play chess/scrabble. I do think there's something important to people about what they've built though, which is something hopefully Yahoo and the others will be able to figure out too, but has so far eluded the other social networks. I like Yahoo, and I'm actually rooting for them. I'd really like to see Yahoo get back on its feet, and I hope it can do so independently of Microsoft. That would be great to see :)