5 ms·

Do you think you'll still be using Facebook, and/or Twitter, 10 years from now?

by dgallagher 17y ago

HSO 17y ago
That's actually a really interesting question.
TweedHeads 17y ago
Yes
TweedHeads 17y ago
No
CalmQuiet 17y ago
If I had the genius to be able to conceive the next quantum leap in social web processes then I'd be able to answer this question. How many of us could envision the impact of a FB or Tw even 5 years ago?
- TomOfTTB 17y ago
  I think I could. 5 years ago Friendster was popular and people were talking about blogs and rss. Facebook and Twitter are just iterations of those same concepts. Which is my answer to the original question. I think the same concepts will be around 10 years from now but on the question of "will it still be Facebook and Twitter" I think that all depends on how well they deal with the issues that still plague these services (most notably the signal-to-noise ratio on both services) One way or the other I think the idea of broadcasting information about yourself and having others be able to subscribe to that is here to stay..
chime 17y ago
Funny you ask, I just deactivated my Facebook account this morning for an unrelated reason (too much junk and drama, too little utility). I don't have much need for Twitter/Digg/Flickr/TechCrunch either. But I log into HN and reddit every single day. Five years ago I commented on Fark/Mefi forums diligently and ten years ago it was IRC and Yahoo chat. I think what it really boils down to is a good, intelligent crowd with decent moderation system. Social sites end up having little of that and a lot of useless banter.
- anatoly 17y ago
  What made you abandon mefi for reddit? I've never had time for mefi, but from casual browsing had the impression that its quality was higher than what I'm seeing at reddit.
  - chime 17y ago
    I love Mefi and the crowd is extremely intelligent but the threaded commenting system on reddit is way better for following topics. I still visit Mefi few times a week and go to Mefi meetups in St. Pete/Tampa. If HN didn't have this kind of threaded commenting system, I wouldn't be on it either because I don't have time to go back to all the various comments I've posted to manually check if someone replied to my post 30 comments below.
tjogin 17y ago
Some people will, some people won't — unless of course either service shuts down due to lack of revenue, in which case nobody will. The subject of this article is such a strawman's argument though, and a very weird one at that. Who ever claimed that Facebook or Twitter would be around forever? What will be around forever is the basic human behavior to want to communicate and stay in touch with others.
gojomo 17y ago
Something like them, yes -- with much of the same functionality within some larger superset, and perhaps even a direct line-of-descendence from Twitter/Facebook to whatever I'm using in 2019. I was using features similar to the profile-page/friend-messaging/doing-field cores of Facebook and Twitter in 1999, so why not 2019 too? But in 1999 the profile-page was generic web-hosting; the communication via email/IM/chat; the doing-fields only in IM and chat. There are things which make the current incarnations special and new: - the convenience and trust/privacy controls provided by the explicit social-graph - the importance of reverse-chronological logs/blogs/feeds - the public visibility of Twitter - most especially: the mass-adoption But their core features are far older than 10 years, and the future of related functionality will extend many decades forward.
- madh 17y ago
  We've heard it all before, but I think the real value of Facebook is the "Social Graph." Most services are more interesting when made relevant to your social connections (e.g., Flickr, YouTube, Yelp, Games). Facebook Connect does this pretty well, especially considering how many people are on Facebook. Facebook.com is a bit of a headache at times with status updates, unnecessary app notifications, and a generally increasing noise level (aside-- anyone else notice this lately? the 'home' feed is much less customizable or interesting than before.). Also the monocultured look and feel of Facebook.com is dull at times. But importing Facebook friends into Yelp, fantasy sports, Netflix, Xbox Live and other services would be really useful and convenient for me, I think, in the long term.

Do you think you'll still be using Facebook, and/or Twitter, 10 years from now?

HSO 17y ago

That's actually a really interesting question.

TweedHeads 17y ago

Yes

TweedHeads 17y ago

CalmQuiet 17y ago

If I had the genius to be able to conceive the next quantum leap in social web processes then I'd be able to answer this question. How many of us could envision the impact of a FB or Tw even 5 years ago?

TomOfTTB 17y ago
I think I could. 5 years ago Friendster was popular and people were talking about blogs and rss. Facebook and Twitter are just iterations of those same concepts. Which is my answer to the original question. I think the same concepts will be around 10 years from now but on the question of "will it still be Facebook and Twitter" I think that all depends on how well they deal with the issues that still plague these services (most notably the signal-to-noise ratio on both services) One way or the other I think the idea of broadcasting information about yourself and having others be able to subscribe to that is here to stay..

chime 17y ago

Funny you ask, I just deactivated my Facebook account this morning for an unrelated reason (too much junk and drama, too little utility). I don't have much need for Twitter/Digg/Flickr/TechCrunch either. But I log into HN and reddit every single day. Five years ago I commented on Fark/Mefi forums diligently and ten years ago it was IRC and Yahoo chat. I think what it really boils down to is a good, intelligent crowd with decent moderation system. Social sites end up having little of that and a lot of useless banter.

anatoly 17y ago
What made you abandon mefi for reddit? I've never had time for mefi, but from casual browsing had the impression that its quality was higher than what I'm seeing at reddit.
- chime 17y ago
  I love Mefi and the crowd is extremely intelligent but the threaded commenting system on reddit is way better for following topics. I still visit Mefi few times a week and go to Mefi meetups in St. Pete/Tampa. If HN didn't have this kind of threaded commenting system, I wouldn't be on it either because I don't have time to go back to all the various comments I've posted to manually check if someone replied to my post 30 comments below.

tjogin 17y ago

Some people will, some people won't — unless of course either service shuts down due to lack of revenue, in which case nobody will. The subject of this article is such a strawman's argument though, and a very weird one at that. Who ever claimed that Facebook or Twitter would be around forever? What will be around forever is the basic human behavior to want to communicate and stay in touch with others.

gojomo 17y ago

Something like them, yes -- with much of the same functionality within some larger superset, and perhaps even a direct line-of-descendence from Twitter/Facebook to whatever I'm using in 2019. I was using features similar to the profile-page/friend-messaging/doing-field cores of Facebook and Twitter in 1999, so why not 2019 too? But in 1999 the profile-page was generic web-hosting; the communication via email/IM/chat; the doing-fields only in IM and chat. There are things which make the current incarnations special and new: - the convenience and trust/privacy controls provided by the explicit social-graph - the importance of reverse-chronological logs/blogs/feeds - the public visibility of Twitter - most especially: the mass-adoption But their core features are far older than 10 years, and the future of related functionality will extend many decades forward.

madh 17y ago
We've heard it all before, but I think the real value of Facebook is the "Social Graph." Most services are more interesting when made relevant to your social connections (e.g., Flickr, YouTube, Yelp, Games). Facebook Connect does this pretty well, especially considering how many people are on Facebook. Facebook.com is a bit of a headache at times with status updates, unnecessary app notifications, and a generally increasing noise level (aside-- anyone else notice this lately? the 'home' feed is much less customizable or interesting than before.). Also the monocultured look and feel of Facebook.com is dull at times. But importing Facebook friends into Yelp, fantasy sports, Netflix, Xbox Live and other services would be really useful and convenient for me, I think, in the long term.