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Case in point: in the 1990s, portals were big, and every popular website wanted to be a portal. Likewise, between 2006 and now, most popular websites integrate

by dictum 13y ago

Case in point: in the 1990s, portals were big, and every popular website wanted to be a portal. Likewise, between 2006 and now, most popular websites integrate social features. What people seek in Facebook, they'll start finding in more directed services. Facebook was made for a world where smartphones and affordable or free fast mobile internet access was rare. A shrunk version of the regular web version can be enough for adults who are already used to Facebook, but teenagers and children will flock to user experiences that explore the advantages and idiosyncrasies of smartphones. Maybe Facebook the company will own some of these new services and interface ideas, but Facebook the old timeline/friends/profile service will get obscured by the new, shiny, more intimate new services.

ForHackernews 13y ago
Facebook definitely seems worried about smartphones. They tried to make their own phone interface, and (despite some good reviews) it was a commercial disaster: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57583557-94/heres-why-the-facebook-phone-flopped/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57583557-94/heres-why-the-f...
southpawgirl 13y ago
Agree! Indeed, the comparaison with portals springs to the mind. While the amount of items (links, people, services, cultural niches) available increases, the need for more specialised and fragmented avenues of consumption increases. It's not difficult to imagine a scenario when one can pick and mix completely their online experience and still find their their social connections across different platforms, with the use of some meta tool, like an OpenId that also exposes the patterns of activities of one's friends. As a purely empirical, nonrepresentative sample, I can see that most of my friends on Facebook are fairly quiet nowadays and my own account is virtually dead. It's still quite useful to have a FB a/c in order to authenticate on other apps; maybe FB will transforms itself into the aforementioned meta-tool...? Until it's superseded by a more specialised one...

by dictum 13y ago

ForHackernews 13y ago

Facebook definitely seems worried about smartphones. They tried to make their own phone interface, and (despite some good reviews) it was a commercial disaster: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57583557-94/heres-why-the-facebook-phone-flopped/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57583557-94/heres-why-the-f...

southpawgirl 13y ago

Agree! Indeed, the comparaison with portals springs to the mind. While the amount of items (links, people, services, cultural niches) available increases, the need for more specialised and fragmented avenues of consumption increases. It's not difficult to imagine a scenario when one can pick and mix completely their online experience and still find their their social connections across different platforms, with the use of some meta tool, like an OpenId that also exposes the patterns of activities of one's friends. As a purely empirical, nonrepresentative sample, I can see that most of my friends on Facebook are fairly quiet nowadays and my own account is virtually dead. It's still quite useful to have a FB a/c in order to authenticate on other apps; maybe FB will transforms itself into the aforementioned meta-tool...? Until it's superseded by a more specialised one...