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Site Lets You Simulate a Facebook Hack, Goes Viral at PennApps
- gailees 14y agoTIME decided to write about our shift from Buddy Hack to Hack My Facebook
- gailees 14y agoOur new pivot doesn't include any of the encouragement against the spirit of the Facebook platform or the fake "defriend all" button that our original app contained.
- polkunus 14y agoWow, anything gets in the press these days. It's a 20 min, 1 page website. Get over it guys.
- gailees 14y agoHave you tried it....it's actually quite a good time :)
- tlrobinson 14y agoSays the guy who made it...
- gailees 14y agoI built this product, because several times I wished something like it existed; now, I enjoy using it. Yes, I'm biased, but I didn't just build this app just to build it; I built it for my own use, and I think it's fun to use :)
- mattberg 14y agoi am confused, why would you want to do that to your own Facebook account???
- gailees 14y agoTry it. It's hilarious. Also, if you read the TIME article, originally it was intended to be used on your friends Facebook's when they left it open at your house or left their laptop for a moment when you were working next to them. Then we got a lot of backlash about that; we realized it was even funny to do one of the hack flavors to yourself. For some reason, people enjoy being hacked on Facebook as long as it isn't malicious.
- mattberg 14y agoso i assume the app could be used in a similar method to your previous concept, but with all of the backlash (especially from Facebook) you had to make it seem like you would want to hack yourself?
- flatline 14y agoAs someone who is older than the college age crowd, it seems pretty inane. I'm sick of political posts so would probably ignore those in someone else's feed. Having kids or dropping out of school to do a startup don't sound like crazy ideas to me, either. I actually think the idea is pretty funny, but the options are unimaginative, or perhaps I'm just too far distant from the target demographic.
- staceyisboss 14y agoSometimes I wonder if this kind of thing is a complete waste of talent. Smart kids, wasting it on stupid webpages.
- gailees 14y agoI mean....if nothing else, we are learning from the experience, but I definitely don't think it's a waste of our time.
- staceyisboss 14y agoBut it is because no one will ever even use it.... spend time on something that people will use or that has meaning
- drivebyacct2 14y agoAnd what are you building today? Jesus, what a derisive attitude.
- gailees 14y agoSometimes it's great to build, just to build. If I was worried about spending every single waking moment of my life in the most productive way possible, I would not even get to live, nor would I sleep very much haha.
- gailees 14y agoStacey, we've already had hundreds of people use the site and have received great feedback from many of our users. Sure, it's not something people use every day, but I definitely think it brings some good-hearted humor into people's lives. Even if it just brings people a few laughs, I'd say that this product has meaning, and that I am proud of it.
- freehunter 14y agoI wrote a Hello World program today. No one will ever use it, so must have been a waste of my time. All along I thought I was building experience and learning the language. You're on the wrong site if you think utility is a factor in choosing a project to work on. The hacker mindset is that a project is worth doing just because it's possible to do it, not necessarily because there's any good reason.
- johnpmayer 14y agoWow. As somebody who has participated in PennApps in the past and actually visited this year for the Friday night kickoff, let me just say that it is a damn shame that this is getting so much of a negative reaction because there are so many other great projects that came out this year. https://www.hackerleague.org/hackathons/pennapps-fall-2012/hacks https://www.hackerleague.org/hackathons/pennapps-fall-2012/h...
- gailees 14y agoHow are we clowns? People actually use and enjoy using what we built at PennApps; why should that be looked down upon? We had fun building our hack, and people have fun using it.
- johnpmayer 14y agoSo let me retract that after reading some of the other posts - in the end what you guys did was still pretty slick and I'm sure you learned a lot. So sorry for being reactionary myself.
- gailees 14y agoThank you. I'm glad you understand. We weren't trying to downplay any of the other apps at all; our app just caught some traction, and we were happy about that.
- thekevan 14y agoI really don't understand the difference between this app and me posting a status on Facebook saying I am pregnant, then coming back later and saying, "I'm not pregnant, I got hacked."
- gailees 14y agoIt's a lot quicker, and we've already done the work for you.