I have a few reasons for wanting to kill facebook: 1) It has too much power over peoples' social lives. Even if someone wanted to leave facebook, it would often mean a blow to their social network. For example, I recently moved, and it would be very difficult for me to keep in touch with people from back home unless I use facebook. 2) It is too difficult to compete against. Unlike other websites or software, where anyone with a good idea can take on the giants (firefox or gmail for example), social networks become exponentially more powerful as they gain active members. It is almost impossible to compete against facebook right now. In effect, facebook has a monopoly on the social network industry, and it's time someone trust-busted their ass. 3) Personally, I think Mark Zuckerberg sounds like a jerk, and I don't think his idea is so brilliant that he deserves the $20 billion that his company is currently worth. So how can anyone kill facebook? I'm not sure if it would work, but here's my idea - create an open standard protocol for social networking. After all, we have standards for emailing, texting, and IMing, so why not have one for social networking? Honestly, social networking is not so complicated that it can't be standardized. If there were a standard protocol, then all the little guys could combine their critical masses to compete against facebook. A start-up wouldn't be an isolated void of 5 members - it would become no different than starting a new email or chat client. If it was good enough, smart enough, innovative enough, it could compete. I know facebook wouldn't adopt such a standard, but I don't think people would mind maintaining two accounts if they knew that the second one meant they could communicate with potentially dozens of other social networks without having to sign up for each one. Thoughts?

So, basically one of your reasons for wanting to see the company fail is that he thought of it before you did, implemented it, and is making a profit?


1. It has as much power over your social life as you want it to. Currently most of my social life planning is done on facebook. Why? Because everyone I make plans with either was already there, or were convinced to setup an account to easily post and read info in a form that is easier to work with than old style email lists.

2. Facebook has no 'monopoly'. There are other social networks out there, and its monopoly is no more powerful than Myspace or Twitter.

3. The fact that you don't think he deserves what he has earned on the basis that you think he is a jerk,... makes you the real jerk.

Disregarding the fact that you contradtict yourself - you want to "kill facebook" while you wholeheartedly acknowledge its importance in your life, there's one thing you can do: take a step back, delete your account and spend the time you gain reading or with friends. Social networks are exactly as important and powerful as you make them out to be (and yes, if you make them out to be powerful, they can be VERY powerful). However, in reality they have no control over our lives that we could not give up and keep living as if nothing happened. Just try it. I promise you won't be harmed. If you're worried about keeping in touch - there are other means: your phone, your IM client and perhaps most importantly, your snail mail address book.

>> Personally, I think Mark Zuckerberg sounds like a jerk, and I don't think his idea is so brilliant that he deserves the $20 billion that his company is currently worth.

Hitler killed 50 million people. I hardly think worrying about one abitofabastard who owns some equities qualifies as anything extraordinary or ill-deserving. The guy struck gold, possibly thanks to the fact that he's a bit of a bastard. Sorry, but IMO this is one of those cases where, if you don't like what you're seeing, you look the other way. And yes, you can do that.

Those are some pretty harsh responses to a pretty innocent idea.

Let me clarify - I'm not upset because someone came up with the idea of Facebook before me. There are lots of simple ideas out there that have become incredibly profitable. And I don't want to kill facebook just because I think Mark Zuckerberg is a jerk - that last point was intended more as a joke than anything.

I also don't have a problem with social networking. I think it's very beneficial to society. It's not a contradiction that I want to "kill" facebook and yet acknowledge it's role in my life, because I think any other good social networking client can fill that role.

What I have an issue with is the monopoly that Facebook has on the social networking world. A monopoly that doesn't need to exist and shouldn't be tolerated any more than a monopoly on email clients or internet browsers. Competition brings improvement, but the way the social networking world currently works, competition is very difficult.

That's why I think an open source protocol would be beneficial. It would help little guys with good ideas have a fighting chance.

If you want to kill facebook, sign-in to Facebook and be yourself. Tell others how much more fun you have when you're not sitting behind the computer like a retard. (no offense to you).

Quote: Original post by irreversible
Hitler killed 50 million people.

I call Godwin's Law. As early as third post.

Quote: What I have an issue with is the monopoly that Facebook has on the social networking world.

<bender>Have you ever tried just logging out of Facebook, sitting down with your children, and hitting them?</bender>

And there are many other social networks, some close to size of FB. So monopoly isn't a problem here.

You really don't need to kill Facebook as they're already working on it themselves. Their greedy policies are currently interfering with Zynga's greedy ambitions and war is close on the horizon. Everyone is going to lose.

An enemy of my enemy is...

I have many issues with Facebook that really hack me off, but this isn't the time or place.

Quote:
1) It has too much power over peoples' social lives. Even if someone wanted to leave facebook, it would often mean a blow to their social network. For example, I recently moved, and it would be very difficult for me to keep in touch with people from back home unless I use facebook.

True, I have found this; Facebook is the only way in which people communicate and some of my friends have even got rid of their mobile phones, who needs them when you've got Facebook? Those who have kept them are all "...via Facebook for iPhone" this and "via Mobile Web" that - they're just using Facebook apps on the move instead of texts and calls.

This leads to things like "just got on a train 2 go home (5 minutes ago via Facebook for Android) - 3 people like this". Who cares? I actually don't like being connected when I'm on the move, put the phone away and actually take a look at the world. Oh, and that "Like" button... urgh. Vacuous, vacuous, vacuous.

I get people from school adding me - we actually hated each other, and chances are they only want to see my profile to a) boost their own friend count and b) try and find something to take the piss out of. When I closed my account, I gave advance warning and people who never ever contacted me over Facebook were all like "No, you can't leave", "Don't quit", "How will we contact you?" - if you were real friends, you would have asked for (and been duly given) alternative means of contact.

I suspect the day will come when your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, you can just Facebook the RAC and they'll come out to you. /s

Quote:
2) It is too difficult to compete against. Unlike other websites or software, where anyone with a good idea can take on the giants (firefox or gmail for example), social networks become exponentially more powerful as they gain active members. It is almost impossible to compete against facebook right now. In effect, facebook has a monopoly on the social network industry, and it's time someone trust-busted their ass.

I remember a few which have gone under:

1) FriendsReunited
2) Friendster
3) Hi5 (seems to have changed quite dramatically from its original form)
4) Orkut (still around, but apparently pants)
5) I remember a shockingly bad UK based Facebook clone called "StudentsAllTogether" around 2006. It disappeared from the web after about three months.

MySpace is still going relatively strong, but AOL might be shutting down Bebo if they can't find a buyer. Everybody I know who uses Bebo are in the UK and I've got an American cousin who's never heard of it.

Quote:
3) Personally, I think Mark Zuckerberg sounds like a jerk, and I don't think his idea is so brilliant that he deserves the $20 billion that his company is currently worth.

Mark Zuckerberg apparently sends out multiple copies of internal communications, each with an alternative but deliberate difference or error (maybe a comma here, typo there, different choice of words), so that he knows where any leaks came from if anything surfaces on the web. Not even Steve Jobs does that; it's paranoia of a pretty high order.

Facebook isn't public so currently there are no stocks or shares to trade in order to make serious money off it as a shareholder.

Quote:
So how can anyone kill facebook?

You can't. It's too big and too popular, plus your grandma 300 miles away might get upset and embarrass you on your own Wall if you dare consider it ;-)

Quote:
I'm not sure if it would work, but here's my idea - create an open standard protocol for social networking. After all, we have standards for emailing, texting, and IMing, so why not have one for social networking? Honestly, social networking is not so complicated that it can't be standardized.

There are some moves towards this. Diaspora is a new, open source social network platform. Okay, it's not a standard or protocol but I see no reason why people couldn't build their own using something like OAuth so you can use the same details to log into each one.

Quote:
If there were a standard protocol, then all the little guys could combine their critical masses to compete against facebook. A start-up wouldn't be an isolated void of 5 members - it would become no different than starting a new email or chat client. If it was good enough, smart enough, innovative enough, it could compete.

Hmm, might be a case of "Too many cooks..." and maybe be a little bit like Android. People use Android, but there's too many different versions running on too many different handsets, and too many varying degrees of support. This just leads to people getting irked; it's not like Linux where anybody can upgrade different bits, you usually have to wait to get the new version pushed out to you if you ever get it and chances are your phone manufacturer's fiddled with it.

iPhone OS - the same code running on a load of devices and released at the same time. No biggie.

Quote:
I know facebook wouldn't adopt such a standard, but I don't think people would mind maintaining two accounts if they knew that the second one meant they could communicate with potentially dozens of other social networks without having to sign up for each one.

I think that would be like Apple vs. the World. Apple would happily not care as they release iShite which is identical to, but inferior feature wise, to a device you've owned for years and thrown in a load of proprietary technology and vendor lock-in.

Facebook would be the same; thriving on a brand name and bollocks to the underlying details. It's not "cool" to use an open-source social network like Diaspora as most people won't know or care of the implications of going open like that, they'll still carry on happily uploading dodgy phone photos of themselves and their friends drunk at University, they'll still upload their dumb statuses, they'll still be playing some garbage game and so on.

However, as many people are already on more than one social network, I suppose you might be right about people happily maintaining two accounts.

I've got more I wanted to say but, remember, this isn't the time or place.

Quote: Original post by LockePick
An enemy of my enemy is...

...my enemy's enemy. No more. No less. (Rule #29).

If by 'compete' in the social space you mean 'copy,' then yeah, it's difficult. If, however, you've actually got something substantially new to bring to the table, then bring it.

Quote: Original post by ukdeveloper
Mark Zuckerberg apparently sends out multiple copies of internal communications, each with an alternative but deliberate difference or error (maybe a comma here, typo there, different choice of words), so that he knows where any leaks came from if anything surfaces on the web. Not even Steve Jobs does that; it's paranoia of a pretty high order.

That actually sounds like a decent security method. Paranoia is only a bad thing when it has too negative of an impact on productivity.


Then again, I've worked along side intelligence agencies, so maybe I'm overly biased.