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Ask HN: Upsides and Downsides of Facebook Integration

3 points by hendler 18y ago

Dear hackers, No one here can sanely deny the power of Facebook. Whether you market a whopper, print pictures, plant a garden, or send gifts - the opportunities seem boundless. So far, Facebook also seems fairly open - open apis, access to their users, open source software. As my company considers different levels of integration with Facebook, I would love to hear opinions and experiences about whether Facebook has been a great opportunity, or something less beneficial for your projects. -- EDIT -- More specifically, I'm interested in opinions on the difference of "owning" your users vs. letting facebook manage identity and the network. If a freemium startup has anything of value - I would think it's "their" users. The discussion between creating a closed, gated community and opening up is finished I think. Open up. But facebook presents other opportunities and other risks that I'd like to hear more about. -- end EDIT -- Thank you!

Spyckie 18y ago
A suggestion - your question is too vague. At the very least, tell us if you're looking at Facebook for mass marketing or integration with your site. Without any context, I'm going to assume you're asking about Facebook as a time waster. It does have tremendous power to draw people who already waste a lot of time to waste more time. In this aspect, the opportunities here are terrible because this market is already flooded with games, social comparisons, or super poking your friends to death.
- hendler 18y ago
  Thanks for the feedback. The question is vague. I'm most interested in shared user-bases. Facebook owns the network of users, and apps feed from this network. I'll try to clarify my question.
  - Spyckie 18y ago
    Since I feel bad about no one answering - You already recognized that opening up is the trend. Using Facebook is really about the target audience that you're going for - Facebook users have particular expectations and habits online. You get the expectations of the user base by associating yourself with Facebook. This may be useful for a fun application, or even a social application, but beyond that and it gets complicated. For instance, I wouldn't connect any business application to Facebook; linked-in is opening up their api and it may be a better market space for business applications (even though I dislike that crowd). A business application connected to Facebook is for the wrong crowd, and won't take advantage of the viral aspect of using a large existing user base. People also don't look for business applications on Facebook. Think about your target audience first, and then go after them where they congregate.

3 points by hendler 18y ago

Spyckie 18y ago

A suggestion - your question is too vague. At the very least, tell us if you're looking at Facebook for mass marketing or integration with your site. Without any context, I'm going to assume you're asking about Facebook as a time waster. It does have tremendous power to draw people who already waste a lot of time to waste more time. In this aspect, the opportunities here are terrible because this market is already flooded with games, social comparisons, or super poking your friends to death.

hendler 18y ago
Thanks for the feedback. The question is vague. I'm most interested in shared user-bases. Facebook owns the network of users, and apps feed from this network. I'll try to clarify my question.
- Spyckie 18y ago
  Since I feel bad about no one answering - You already recognized that opening up is the trend. Using Facebook is really about the target audience that you're going for - Facebook users have particular expectations and habits online. You get the expectations of the user base by associating yourself with Facebook. This may be useful for a fun application, or even a social application, but beyond that and it gets complicated. For instance, I wouldn't connect any business application to Facebook; linked-in is opening up their api and it may be a better market space for business applications (even though I dislike that crowd). A business application connected to Facebook is for the wrong crowd, and won't take advantage of the viral aspect of using a large existing user base. People also don't look for business applications on Facebook. Think about your target audience first, and then go after them where they congregate.