4 ms·

In other words - the Internet. You don't need to do all those things in a single place, or even in multiple places, but all owned by the same company. The fact

In other words - the Internet. You don't need to do all those things in a single place, or even in multiple places, but all owned by the same company. The fact that people want to use Instagram, Vine, Snapchat and Whatsapp is proof many people don't want a single service for everything. It's just unfortunate that Facebook happens to have acquired many of those.

rimantas 11y ago
> In other words - the Internet. Can you explain a bit more, because it sounds really strange.
- castell 11y ago
  In the mid nineties many early web users had their own web space with a "fancy" (back then) static website in Frontpage/Dreamweaver, it was more or less hassle free. Back then the ISPs usually provided free webspace and free email accounts. If everyone has access to a hassle free webspace with social/cloud software (blog, image sharing, file directory), then there would be less need for a central service. Obviously, things have changed. Maybe the OP is talking about that.
- tracker1 11y ago
  I think where it makes sense a couple different social networks will come to rule the roost, so to speak. Facebook may well evolve into most of them. You have close friends/family, loose friends, alumni, acquaintances, clubs, and other interest groups. I think that those other interest groups will probably come to break off into custom sub-sites with their own message boards and chat. I think clubs are well suited to discovery by FB, meetup and the like, but a bit too restricted in practice. The corporate attempts to gather "likes" is B.S. mostly. What you want potential coworkers to see isn't the same as friends/family... In the end it's all muddled currently, and I think things may break apart a bit in the near future.
- pjc50 11y ago
  It's a series of tubes that let you communicate information, but that's not important right now.
jug 11y ago
Yes, Facebook is realizing this and that's why they're doing these rounds of purchases rather than trying to build something own and extend Facebook.com. Ironically enough, I don't think they always prefer to strengthen their own brand because they understand the psychology behind end user decisions. Thinking of it, it's interesting how long ago Facebook last changed functionality-wise. I don't like them that much, but I do think Facebook does a decent job of predicting trends. That's also why I think we'll have Facebook around for a long time. In a few years, people may not even think of that they're using Facebook services since they've further specialized and added various apps, all under the Facebook umbrella but only on the back end. I think Facebook is even on their way of breaking out the friend contacts part from their main site, with Messenger.com now an own website, and other Messenger platform changes like games. I think that where Facebook wants to go is to no longer require any user to actually use Facebook to stay in touch (we now have Messenger, Groups, Snapchat, Instagram), so that Facebook only becomes a place that pulls them all together (except for sensitive users like youth who don't want Snapchat to get involved with parents). For those who fancy that.
- castell 11y ago
  > except for sensitive users like youth who don't want Snapchat to get involved with parents That's a common tipping point that lead to unfavorable side effects.
jsprogrammer 11y ago
> proof Is there a service that does everything? I don't see how you connect your proof to what people actually want. It seems more likely that people will just use what is immediately available to them.
ajkjk 11y ago
I really want to be able to do PARTS of these apps all in one place. They can keep their individual responsibilities after that. To be a bit dramatic, I get frustrated whenever: - I have to choose between identity platforms to sign up for a site. I wouldn't be sad if there was an option (e) that was open source, transparent, not planning to monetize me, and easy to integrate with lots of various apps and services. - I have to come up with credentials to a new website - I have to remember what apps and services I've signed up for - I have to save data on two different distributed file systems that don't interop. - I have to connect with the same person on two different platforms. Or, I have to decide how much of my life I want a person to be able to see on two different platforms. - I have to figure out if I'm okay with the privacy and security of various platforms on which I have an identity. - I have to fill out a form with data I've already given to a service on the web. - I discover that a friend uses a service I also use and I just wasn't aware of it. - I have to choose between text, email, snapchat, FB message, gchat, Skype, Whatsapp, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram based on what (I've memorized) a particular friend or colleague uses. I don't mind the different services doing different things. Users do want to use Instagram for Instagram things and SnapChat for SnapChat things. I just don't like the part where they're all mostly standalone but solving the same problems over and over and forcing me to jump through the same hoops over and over for no benefit. But I don't trust any existing system to aggregate these responsibilities either. I barely and reluctantly trust Google/FB/Twitter enough to use them for identity services across multiple sites, just because the alternative is so painful that I have to.

rimantas 11y ago

> In other words - the Internet. Can you explain a bit more, because it sounds really strange.

castell 11y ago
In the mid nineties many early web users had their own web space with a "fancy" (back then) static website in Frontpage/Dreamweaver, it was more or less hassle free. Back then the ISPs usually provided free webspace and free email accounts. If everyone has access to a hassle free webspace with social/cloud software (blog, image sharing, file directory), then there would be less need for a central service. Obviously, things have changed. Maybe the OP is talking about that.
tracker1 11y ago
I think where it makes sense a couple different social networks will come to rule the roost, so to speak. Facebook may well evolve into most of them. You have close friends/family, loose friends, alumni, acquaintances, clubs, and other interest groups. I think that those other interest groups will probably come to break off into custom sub-sites with their own message boards and chat. I think clubs are well suited to discovery by FB, meetup and the like, but a bit too restricted in practice. The corporate attempts to gather "likes" is B.S. mostly. What you want potential coworkers to see isn't the same as friends/family... In the end it's all muddled currently, and I think things may break apart a bit in the near future.
pjc50 11y ago
It's a series of tubes that let you communicate information, but that's not important right now.

jug 11y ago

Yes, Facebook is realizing this and that's why they're doing these rounds of purchases rather than trying to build something own and extend Facebook.com. Ironically enough, I don't think they always prefer to strengthen their own brand because they understand the psychology behind end user decisions. Thinking of it, it's interesting how long ago Facebook last changed functionality-wise. I don't like them that much, but I do think Facebook does a decent job of predicting trends. That's also why I think we'll have Facebook around for a long time. In a few years, people may not even think of that they're using Facebook services since they've further specialized and added various apps, all under the Facebook umbrella but only on the back end. I think Facebook is even on their way of breaking out the friend contacts part from their main site, with Messenger.com now an own website, and other Messenger platform changes like games. I think that where Facebook wants to go is to no longer require any user to actually use Facebook to stay in touch (we now have Messenger, Groups, Snapchat, Instagram), so that Facebook only becomes a place that pulls them all together (except for sensitive users like youth who don't want Snapchat to get involved with parents). For those who fancy that.

castell 11y ago
> except for sensitive users like youth who don't want Snapchat to get involved with parents That's a common tipping point that lead to unfavorable side effects.

jsprogrammer 11y ago

> proof Is there a service that does everything? I don't see how you connect your proof to what people actually want. It seems more likely that people will just use what is immediately available to them.

ajkjk 11y ago

I really want to be able to do PARTS of these apps all in one place. They can keep their individual responsibilities after that. To be a bit dramatic, I get frustrated whenever: - I have to choose between identity platforms to sign up for a site. I wouldn't be sad if there was an option (e) that was open source, transparent, not planning to monetize me, and easy to integrate with lots of various apps and services. - I have to come up with credentials to a new website - I have to remember what apps and services I've signed up for - I have to save data on two different distributed file systems that don't interop. - I have to connect with the same person on two different platforms. Or, I have to decide how much of my life I want a person to be able to see on two different platforms. - I have to figure out if I'm okay with the privacy and security of various platforms on which I have an identity. - I have to fill out a form with data I've already given to a service on the web. - I discover that a friend uses a service I also use and I just wasn't aware of it. - I have to choose between text, email, snapchat, FB message, gchat, Skype, Whatsapp, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram based on what (I've memorized) a particular friend or colleague uses. I don't mind the different services doing different things. Users do want to use Instagram for Instagram things and SnapChat for SnapChat things. I just don't like the part where they're all mostly standalone but solving the same problems over and over and forcing me to jump through the same hoops over and over for no benefit. But I don't trust any existing system to aggregate these responsibilities either. I barely and reluctantly trust Google/FB/Twitter enough to use them for identity services across multiple sites, just because the alternative is so painful that I have to.