baratunde.com - Latest Comments in My beef with Facebook: so much untapped possibility

Re: My beef with Facebook: so much untapped possibility

HotelBooker — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 05:00:27 -0000

Facebook evolution is extraordinary. They had big competitors when they started however they have dominated easily

Re: My beef with Facebook: so much untapped possibility

Singapore Hotel — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 11:26:59 -0000

Facebook has evolved. I'm hoping to see them get listed so that I can invest in the company.

Re: My beef with Facebook: so much untapped possibility

baratunde — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 18:40:05 -0000

thanks for all the replies folks. i'm in the middle of moving so apologize for my delayed responses. here goes

@todd. a real email feature might be nice, but the short answer to why facebook doesn't let you pop your mail is that you'd be spending time NOT on facebook. You would see no facebook ads when you were reading POP emails. Even Yahoo, champion of web apps and access, charges for pop email. they want your eyeballs

@justin, you wrote

"Your list of wants is basically boiling down to this: “can I have the internet inside facebook, please?” (but with auto-complete)."

funny and true, but your call for ground-up development and standards ignores the fact that no matter how open a system I build/take advantage of, it is worthless if no one is there to use it. I don't use facebook for fun. I do it because the people I want to communicate with are there, and they are not willing to work with my right now to cobble together the equivalent of an open social network / event manager / messaging platform / internet application storefront / discussion board.

Yes it is true that I could individually manage all those pieces, but I guarantee you, only a handful of the people I'm trying to reach would follow me.

Re: My beef with Facebook: so much untapped possibility

A-Dawg — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 14:15:19 -0000

I can share many of your grievances, back in the day (when THEfacebook was for only college students) it was like a "super stalkernet" used to track down babes.

Re: My beef with Facebook: so much untapped possibility

Tinu — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 06:44:24 -0000

I understand where you're coming from - even minor celebrities (those known for blogging only) or small business owners have similiar problems. Maybe this is where Facebook can make some money = setting up custom access and packages for business and fan use.

I'll say one thing for Facebook as far as staying connected to what you're doing -- if it wasn' for Facebook, I wouldn't be following you as closely. That much I'm grateful for.

Re: My beef with Facebook: so much untapped possibility

Kenya — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 01:22:46 -0000

Hey, I'm a regular person and I don't much like Facebook. I absolutely hate MySpace but at least I know how to use it. My problem with the apps on Facebook is that they are not truly integrated. I installed the Twitter app so why do I still need to update my Facebook status separately? And if I already have photos on Flickr and videos on YouTube why should I upload them again into Facebook. (I know there are several Flickr apps but the photos are not integrated into Facebook's photo albums.) What's the point? I don't get it.

Re: My beef with Facebook: so much untapped possibility

Justin — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 01:12:24 -0000

Your list of wants is basically boiling down to this: "can I have the internet inside facebook, please?" (but with auto-complete).

This is the problem that will sink facebook. They are shooting for the moon and they are missing, they aren't even getting out of earth orbit. The seduction of a borg-like website that knows a lot about you and can auto-complete a bunch of fields is hiding the fact that behind this shell there is insufficient substance. Meanwhile the internet as a whole is going on with the job of building from the bottom up. Your feature lists are already there and well understood outside facebook. I'm sure facebook thinks that they can solve their problems by building from their interface downwards (or inwards) to provide some of these missing features but that is a huge task, it will be beyond them. Even providing a single app, gmail, within facebook, is beyond them. Meanwhile outside facebook the rest of us will continue to show that the right approach is to evolve internet standards, interoperability and infrastructure richness, because this evolution will inexorably overtake facebook.

I think those that can see this, can grok the implications of "inexorable" in the last line I typed, are not particularly interested in facebook no matter how much web2.0 blog pixels are wasted on talking about it.

Re: My beef with Facebook: so much untapped possibility

Todd — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 23:23:39 -0000

Agreed on almost every count.

In particular, they really should just go ahead and make the messaging system a real email account. Their interface it pretty slick, but why can't I just pop those messages down to my Gmail like everyting else?

And I can't tell you how often I wish I could be in the Boston AND the DC network. That's where all my friends and clients are! Maybe I should just switch back.