4 ms·

Facebook Turns 10: The Mark Zuckerberg Interview

68 points by tomashertus 13y ago

pkfrank 13y ago
The link points to the third page of the article for some reason. Here it is on one page-- http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/181135-facebook-turns-10-the-mark-zuckerberg-interview http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/181135-facebook...
- tomashertus 13y ago
  Ahh sorry for that! I was in the middle of reading and realized that it is worthy of sharing with HN readers:)
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
graeme 13y ago
Facebook messenger is indeed clever. I recognized Facebook as addictive, and blocked it. But people still communicate with me on there, so I installed the messenger app. So I'm still in the ecosystem. And when I message someone, I draw them in. FB messenger keeps me from sending messages by email, text, whatever other method.
- chaz 13y ago
  I frequently prefer FB Messenger because it is both desktop (web) and mobile, and it handles media. There are other cross-platform messaging services like Google Hangouts (GChat/GTalk), but I still can't attach a photo. Or there are ones like WhatsApp that focus on mobile, and are missing desktop/web. Apple iMessage is good, but it's only usable on iOS devices, which is not always what I'm using. And other cross-platform messaging products don't really have much adoption.
  - patrickread 13y ago
    You can attach photos in Hangouts. I do so on iOS and desktop all the time.
    - hresult 13y ago
      Android (obviously) has it too.
  - inafield 13y ago
    I use Trillian and avoid going to FB.
codegeek 13y ago
Nostalgia. Just realized I have graduated from college for 10 years now. fb was the hottest thing my senior year. good old days of writing stuff on ppl's wall. The "relationship status" thing was so cool specially when selecting "It's complicated". The best part was feeling part of a special group because we all had to use .edu email to register. I remember I graduated and immediately asked my friend who was still in college for his .edu email because I obviously didn't want to give up my account. How far have we come since then.
- justinzollars 13y ago
  awesome comment, if I could upvote twice I would.
  - bosstwizz 13y ago
    my favorite part was the bit about "relationship status"
- paulcnichols 13y ago
  I still sign in with my .edu email out of muscle memory.
- joelrunyon 13y ago
  Does anyone else remember the free-for-all that fb "walls" used to be? People would leave comments there and it was all infinitely editable so you could just go in & edit whatever comment your friend left & make it look like they had said something ridiculous. Changing the wall to something more similar to its current form was the first big "change" that I remember people complaining to FB about.
mckee1 13y ago
>The company is worth around $135 billion and will probably become the fastest in history to reach $150 billion Their market cap crossed 150B yesterday.
- interstitial 13y ago
  I can die happy now. What an accomplishment of the human race.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
colmvp 13y ago
Woah, didn't realize Facebook and Gmail (April 2004) were released around the same time.
- drcube 13y ago
  I got both at the same time, in fall 2005. I guess I'm a late adopter, but I remember having to be invited to Gmail. Facebook I just heard about from another friend in college around the same time.
pierrealexandre 13y ago
> With almost half the world’s Internet-connected population using the service, the company is facing the immutable law of large numbers and simply can’t keep adding users at its previously torrid rate. Pretty sure this journalist does not have a correct understanding of what the law of large numbers is. Very infuriating, even though I tend to find Businessweek's articles to be usually quite informative.
finishingmove 13y ago
I'm thinking that, by this time, Facebook already knows who you are, even if you log in anonymously. By that I mean, even if you don't log in at all.
k-mcgrady 13y ago
Never realised Facebook was turning 10. It made me realise how many years 'Facebook is dead articles' have been around with no indication it's even dying, kind of put them in perspective.
- loceng 13y ago
  No indication? The demographic group of teenagers aren't using Facebook nearly as much anymore.
  - gfosco 13y ago
    and yet, those revenue graphs just keep going up...
    - loceng 13y ago
      They still have a ton of users, doing a ton of impressions, and they have a ton of money to keep investing in the ecosystem.
  - k-mcgrady 13y ago
    People that started using Facebook as teenagers are now adults - and teenagers generally don't want to use the same service as their parents. So they probably aren't losing users, just not gaining them in one demographic anymore. However, consider Instagram. It's probably mostly used by teenagers and Facebook owns it.
smaili 13y ago
For those that were around during its initial release, it would be great if you could share your thoughts on why/how FB became so popular. Exclusivity? Seeding/inviting the site to social/popular people (like in The Social Network)? Simple UI? No ads? Another reason? Or just a little bit of everything? Very interested!
- JeremyMorgan 13y ago
  For me, it was definitely the exclusivity and the timing. MySpace was big, and it was cool for communicating and reconnecting but it still felt like a "kids place" to some extent. Many of my buddies from college were signed up to this and recommended it to me. I signed up and started being more active on it. It wasn't so much that it was only exclusive to people attending college, but just that it was not overrun by spazzy kids and animated gifs (at the time).
- RandallBrown 13y ago
  Facebook used to just be a profile system. You put up information about yourself and hoped other people would look at it. People could write on your wall (timeline now) and you could write on theirs. People at your university and your friends could see your profile. Nobody else could. I remember spending hours looking at other peoples profiles. They're a computer science major? I'm a computer science major. What kind of music do they like? WOW this is interesting. They also had this really fascinating "How you're connected" feature which would give you a list of friends that connected you to that person. You could pick almost any random person at the school (I went to a school with almost 40,000 students) and you would almost always be connected to them through your friends. MySpace, while offering many similar features, was annoying to use. Oh great, white text on a yellow background and emo music blasting on page load. It got to a point where I wouldn't ever click my friend's MySpace pages because I just knew it was going to be terrible. The exclusivity of it to college students was cool too. My friends at schools that didn't have facebook yet would be jealous of all the cool connections and groups we made on facebook that they couldn't do. Then, when it rolled out to their campus, they would do the same.
joelrunyon 13y ago
Link to single-page version of this article - http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/181135-facebook-turns-10-the-mark-zuckerberg-interview http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/181135-facebook...

68 points by tomashertus 13y ago

The link points to the third page of the article for some reason. Here it is on one page-- http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/181135-facebook-turns-10-the-mark-zuckerberg-interview http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/181135-facebook...

tomashertus 13y ago
Ahh sorry for that! I was in the middle of reading and realized that it is worthy of sharing with HN readers:)
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

graeme 13y ago

Facebook messenger is indeed clever. I recognized Facebook as addictive, and blocked it. But people still communicate with me on there, so I installed the messenger app. So I'm still in the ecosystem. And when I message someone, I draw them in. FB messenger keeps me from sending messages by email, text, whatever other method.

chaz 13y ago
I frequently prefer FB Messenger because it is both desktop (web) and mobile, and it handles media. There are other cross-platform messaging services like Google Hangouts (GChat/GTalk), but I still can't attach a photo. Or there are ones like WhatsApp that focus on mobile, and are missing desktop/web. Apple iMessage is good, but it's only usable on iOS devices, which is not always what I'm using. And other cross-platform messaging products don't really have much adoption.
- patrickread 13y ago
  You can attach photos in Hangouts. I do so on iOS and desktop all the time.
  - hresult 13y ago
    Android (obviously) has it too.
- inafield 13y ago
  I use Trillian and avoid going to FB.

codegeek 13y ago

Nostalgia. Just realized I have graduated from college for 10 years now. fb was the hottest thing my senior year. good old days of writing stuff on ppl's wall. The "relationship status" thing was so cool specially when selecting "It's complicated". The best part was feeling part of a special group because we all had to use .edu email to register. I remember I graduated and immediately asked my friend who was still in college for his .edu email because I obviously didn't want to give up my account. How far have we come since then.

justinzollars 13y ago
awesome comment, if I could upvote twice I would.
- bosstwizz 13y ago
  my favorite part was the bit about "relationship status"
paulcnichols 13y ago
I still sign in with my .edu email out of muscle memory.
joelrunyon 13y ago
Does anyone else remember the free-for-all that fb "walls" used to be? People would leave comments there and it was all infinitely editable so you could just go in & edit whatever comment your friend left & make it look like they had said something ridiculous. Changing the wall to something more similar to its current form was the first big "change" that I remember people complaining to FB about.

mckee1 13y ago

>The company is worth around $135 billion and will probably become the fastest in history to reach $150 billion Their market cap crossed 150B yesterday.

interstitial 13y ago
I can die happy now. What an accomplishment of the human race.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

colmvp 13y ago

Woah, didn't realize Facebook and Gmail (April 2004) were released around the same time.

drcube 13y ago
I got both at the same time, in fall 2005. I guess I'm a late adopter, but I remember having to be invited to Gmail. Facebook I just heard about from another friend in college around the same time.

pierrealexandre 13y ago

> With almost half the world’s Internet-connected population using the service, the company is facing the immutable law of large numbers and simply can’t keep adding users at its previously torrid rate. Pretty sure this journalist does not have a correct understanding of what the law of large numbers is. Very infuriating, even though I tend to find Businessweek's articles to be usually quite informative.

finishingmove 13y ago

I'm thinking that, by this time, Facebook already knows who you are, even if you log in anonymously. By that I mean, even if you don't log in at all.

k-mcgrady 13y ago

Never realised Facebook was turning 10. It made me realise how many years 'Facebook is dead articles' have been around with no indication it's even dying, kind of put them in perspective.

loceng 13y ago
No indication? The demographic group of teenagers aren't using Facebook nearly as much anymore.
- gfosco 13y ago
  and yet, those revenue graphs just keep going up...
  - loceng 13y ago
    They still have a ton of users, doing a ton of impressions, and they have a ton of money to keep investing in the ecosystem.
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  People that started using Facebook as teenagers are now adults - and teenagers generally don't want to use the same service as their parents. So they probably aren't losing users, just not gaining them in one demographic anymore. However, consider Instagram. It's probably mostly used by teenagers and Facebook owns it.

smaili 13y ago

For those that were around during its initial release, it would be great if you could share your thoughts on why/how FB became so popular. Exclusivity? Seeding/inviting the site to social/popular people (like in The Social Network)? Simple UI? No ads? Another reason? Or just a little bit of everything? Very interested!

JeremyMorgan 13y ago
For me, it was definitely the exclusivity and the timing. MySpace was big, and it was cool for communicating and reconnecting but it still felt like a "kids place" to some extent. Many of my buddies from college were signed up to this and recommended it to me. I signed up and started being more active on it. It wasn't so much that it was only exclusive to people attending college, but just that it was not overrun by spazzy kids and animated gifs (at the time).
RandallBrown 13y ago
Facebook used to just be a profile system. You put up information about yourself and hoped other people would look at it. People could write on your wall (timeline now) and you could write on theirs. People at your university and your friends could see your profile. Nobody else could. I remember spending hours looking at other peoples profiles. They're a computer science major? I'm a computer science major. What kind of music do they like? WOW this is interesting. They also had this really fascinating "How you're connected" feature which would give you a list of friends that connected you to that person. You could pick almost any random person at the school (I went to a school with almost 40,000 students) and you would almost always be connected to them through your friends. MySpace, while offering many similar features, was annoying to use. Oh great, white text on a yellow background and emo music blasting on page load. It got to a point where I wouldn't ever click my friend's MySpace pages because I just knew it was going to be terrible. The exclusivity of it to college students was cool too. My friends at schools that didn't have facebook yet would be jealous of all the cool connections and groups we made on facebook that they couldn't do. Then, when it rolled out to their campus, they would do the same.

joelrunyon 13y ago

Link to single-page version of this article - http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/181135-facebook-turns-10-the-mark-zuckerberg-interview http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/181135-facebook...