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For the most part I think Facebook's success can be attributed to these factors rather than any groundbreaking inventions. 1. Ivy League beginnings. It was eas

by codexon 17y ago

For the most part I think Facebook's success can be attributed to these factors rather than any groundbreaking inventions. 1. Ivy League beginnings. It was easy to scrape together an audience due to the Ivy league exclusivity at the beginning. This solved the chicken and egg problem in a field dominated by MySpace, LJ, Friendster, Xanga, et al. 2. Harvard background: its easier to raise funding just because of the name. 3. MySpace's utter lack of progress especially by the time it was bought out by Murdoch.

unalone 17y ago
I couldn't disagree more. Facebook did several incredible things.
- codexon 17y ago
  I will have to disagree with you. Their biggest technological achievement was the Facebook app platform. While this was indeed an "incredible" thing, the question is, did this help make Facebook what it is today, or even attract a sizable audience? The answer is most resoundingly no. Facebook was already very popular by the time most of these unique things were made, and in the case of Facebook apps, it even put off some users who were annoyed by its spammy nature.
  - unalone 17y ago
    They haven't done things perfectly (apps), but they did a few things that were enormous, not technologically but conceptually. They had a few incredibly brilliant ideas that made them as lasting and as sticky are they are.
    - Retric 17y ago
      Face book is going to be "dead" (ok, shrinking) in 10 years. If you look at social networks they are only sticky in the short term. Facebook's growth has hidden the fact that the average user does not stick around for 2 years and at 300 million users they just can't keep replacing people. And as people stop showing up it becomes less useful to those who stick around. The pattern is simple, a new site shows up that let's you exchange info with people you have not talked to in a while. So you sign up and chat for a while, but you don't really care about those people so after a while going to the site becomes an annoying time sink and so you drop it. For a site that just has your core friends. But then you don't talk to people for a while and... The only long term niche is to become the psudo holiday site, where people occupationally show up to chat with their extended social graph, but you don't really spend much time there. So, lot's of people, few page views. PS: The people that "love" social sites and want to keep up with all their friends will jump ship as soon as something else becomes popular with most of their friends.
      - unalone 17y ago
        I know I got scolded for this in the other thread, but I disagree, and I'm working on a longer refutation of that "social network pattern." So give me a bit and I'll have a response for you.
      - netsp 17y ago
        Time will tell I suppose. You may be right but Facebook's size and appeal outside of the normal social networking site market might make it different.
        Retric 17y ago
        True. However, I don't have 10 thousand friends so I am not positive how shear size is all that important.
        unalone 17y ago
        Size doesn't matter. Utility does. If Facebook were to start completely over again against the current competition, I think they would still rise to prominence without much trouble. What makes Facebook different, in short, is that while other services offer a place to talk, Facebook is built as a utility in a way other sites aren't. It's the new big communication medium. The people that use it are using it as a replacement to email and IM. That's a huge deal, because it suggests Facebook has the potential to last as long as email has. Your suggestion that people abandon things all the time is countered by AIM, which has been the prominent IM service for a decade.
        netsp 17y ago
        Size matters if you need it to become an enabler. You can't get sick of email and leave, for example. Backpackers are constantly using facebook to keep track of their rapidly evolving social sphere. You can rely on most of those you meet being on facebook. This lets you be confidant that you will be able to use facebook to meet up at a later time or organise to do something at some later point. It doesn't matter if you like writing on people's wall in this case. It's hard to backpack without it. That's a consequence of size. If facebook is how office drinks get organised, you need ot be in on that. (size doesn't matter so much for that though)
- mynameishere 17y ago
  Like copying Friendster? Or was it geocities? Awesome achievement.
  - unalone 17y ago
    If it had copied either, your snarky answer would have warmed my heart. So which of those two sites introduced the live feed to the Internet? Which one was based on granular privacy control? Or had the idea of connecting a "wall-to-wall" to handle discussions back and forth? Or created one of the most innovative ad systems since Google? Or added semantic data to its user relationships? Or created miniature overlapping networks for organizing?
netsp 17y ago
0. Understanding relationships between people and making everything about that. Facebook friends are people you know. Of your three., number 1 is most interesting mostly because it is part of 0. By concentrating effort in one place, they solved the chicken-egg problem in a better or, at least, a unique and hard to replicate way.
- codexon 17y ago
  There was really nothing more to discover about relationships that late in the social network game. At that point in time, Facebook's networking features were equivalent to Myspace and Friendster, and still is today for the most part aside from some fancy bells and whistles. The only way you could break into the market was to find a niche, and the Ivy league exclusivity at the beginning was that niche. Facebook was not a pioneer in this field as evidenced by sites such as ConnectU and Orkut.

by codexon 17y ago

unalone 17y ago

I couldn't disagree more. Facebook did several incredible things.

codexon 17y ago
I will have to disagree with you. Their biggest technological achievement was the Facebook app platform. While this was indeed an "incredible" thing, the question is, did this help make Facebook what it is today, or even attract a sizable audience? The answer is most resoundingly no. Facebook was already very popular by the time most of these unique things were made, and in the case of Facebook apps, it even put off some users who were annoyed by its spammy nature.
- unalone 17y ago
  They haven't done things perfectly (apps), but they did a few things that were enormous, not technologically but conceptually. They had a few incredibly brilliant ideas that made them as lasting and as sticky are they are.
  - Retric 17y ago
    Face book is going to be "dead" (ok, shrinking) in 10 years. If you look at social networks they are only sticky in the short term. Facebook's growth has hidden the fact that the average user does not stick around for 2 years and at 300 million users they just can't keep replacing people. And as people stop showing up it becomes less useful to those who stick around. The pattern is simple, a new site shows up that let's you exchange info with people you have not talked to in a while. So you sign up and chat for a while, but you don't really care about those people so after a while going to the site becomes an annoying time sink and so you drop it. For a site that just has your core friends. But then you don't talk to people for a while and... The only long term niche is to become the psudo holiday site, where people occupationally show up to chat with their extended social graph, but you don't really spend much time there. So, lot's of people, few page views. PS: The people that "love" social sites and want to keep up with all their friends will jump ship as soon as something else becomes popular with most of their friends.
    - unalone 17y ago
      I know I got scolded for this in the other thread, but I disagree, and I'm working on a longer refutation of that "social network pattern." So give me a bit and I'll have a response for you.
    - netsp 17y ago
      Time will tell I suppose. You may be right but Facebook's size and appeal outside of the normal social networking site market might make it different.
      - Retric 17y ago
        True. However, I don't have 10 thousand friends so I am not positive how shear size is all that important.
        unalone 17y ago
        Size doesn't matter. Utility does. If Facebook were to start completely over again against the current competition, I think they would still rise to prominence without much trouble. What makes Facebook different, in short, is that while other services offer a place to talk, Facebook is built as a utility in a way other sites aren't. It's the new big communication medium. The people that use it are using it as a replacement to email and IM. That's a huge deal, because it suggests Facebook has the potential to last as long as email has. Your suggestion that people abandon things all the time is countered by AIM, which has been the prominent IM service for a decade.
        netsp 17y ago
        Size matters if you need it to become an enabler. You can't get sick of email and leave, for example. Backpackers are constantly using facebook to keep track of their rapidly evolving social sphere. You can rely on most of those you meet being on facebook. This lets you be confidant that you will be able to use facebook to meet up at a later time or organise to do something at some later point. It doesn't matter if you like writing on people's wall in this case. It's hard to backpack without it. That's a consequence of size. If facebook is how office drinks get organised, you need ot be in on that. (size doesn't matter so much for that though)
mynameishere 17y ago
Like copying Friendster? Or was it geocities? Awesome achievement.
- unalone 17y ago
  If it had copied either, your snarky answer would have warmed my heart. So which of those two sites introduced the live feed to the Internet? Which one was based on granular privacy control? Or had the idea of connecting a "wall-to-wall" to handle discussions back and forth? Or created one of the most innovative ad systems since Google? Or added semantic data to its user relationships? Or created miniature overlapping networks for organizing?

netsp 17y ago

0. Understanding relationships between people and making everything about that. Facebook friends are people you know. Of your three., number 1 is most interesting mostly because it is part of 0. By concentrating effort in one place, they solved the chicken-egg problem in a better or, at least, a unique and hard to replicate way.

codexon 17y ago
There was really nothing more to discover about relationships that late in the social network game. At that point in time, Facebook's networking features were equivalent to Myspace and Friendster, and still is today for the most part aside from some fancy bells and whistles. The only way you could break into the market was to find a niche, and the Ivy league exclusivity at the beginning was that niche. Facebook was not a pioneer in this field as evidenced by sites such as ConnectU and Orkut.