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Facebook Has Reached Its Microsoft Bing Moment -- History Shows the Results Won't Be Pretty (cnbc.com)
As we noted recently, Facebook continues to duplicate every core feature that rival app Snapchat adds to its service. A new report, which cites multiple Facebook employees, sheds more light into how Facebook operates. The company, the report claims, created a "Teens Team" to figure out how to grab teenagers back from Snapchat, and has been up front about its tactics within the company: The internal mantra among some groups is "don't be too proud to copy." Matt Rosoff, an editor at CNBC says this whole tactics by Facebook is nothing new in the tech industry. From the article: Flash back to the early 2000s, when Microsoft was the undisputed king of the tech industry, with two unassailable monopolies -- operating systems and productivity apps for personal computers. It faced a lot of competitors, but the one that scared it the most was Google, which was in a completely different business. Google didn't start by creating alternatives to Windows and Office, although it did so later. Instead, it created a suite of online services -- first search, followed by email and maps -- that threatened the entire purpose of a personal computer. Why rely on Microsoft software running locally when you could get so much done with web apps? Microsoft's response? Trying to build the exact same service that made Google famous -- a search engine, first known as MSN Search, later rebranded to Bing. Eleven years later, Bing is a small minority player in search, with less than 10 percent market share on the desktop and less than 1 percent in mobile.
Best porn image search engine there is. Beat that, Google!
Ironic that Facebook isn't learning lessons from the masters of copying ideas.
I use MySpace, so I avoided all this drama.
So I still don't have a facebook account.... can I stop wondering do I or don't I?
All of this has happened before and will happen again.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Or maybe it's the other way around? Maybe all these little nothing apps want to be Facebook?
Seriously, why is there a;; this bitterness when Facebook adds a totally obvious feature that some Wannabe IPO thought they had exclusive rights to? Please...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Remember WhatsApp copying Blackberry Messenger? And all the iterations of IM app from ICQ, AIM, etc?
Teens have zero money. I would focus on the bigger market.
Eleven years later, Bing is a small minority player in search, with less than 10 percent market share on the desktop and less than 1 percent in mobile.
The summary appears to imply that Bing went from being a major player to a small player in the search engine market. Bing has always been a minority player. The reality is that the 10 percent market share represents growth, considering that Bing was a non-existent presence in the market 11 years ago, so the analogy is fatally flawed.
You can't just copy your competitor and expect their userbase to come back to you, and why would they when they already have what they want with Snapchat? You need new ideas, and I don't think Facebook is capable of that if all they can do to fight back is steal other peoples' ideas.
The company, the report claims, created a "Teens Team" to figure out how to grab teenagers back from Snapchat,
In related news, an "Ex's" group is created and meets to figure out how to lure back the person that left them. Reports indicate that candy and presents will play a predominant role.
Let's see, I'm a teen, my parents and relatives are all on Facebook and I'm going to actively use the platform why?
The interesting part of all this is that Bing was created not because Microsoft wanted to be in the search business - but because search was lucrative enough for Google to allow them to grow into a threat to Microsoft's core OS and Office monopolies. Bing is there to cut Google down to size more than to build up Microsoft. And, to the extent that Google actually had ambitions to take Microsoft head on, I guess they were right. Though who knows - if Microsoft hand never tried to damage Google's revenue stream, maybe Google never would've gone after Windows and Office. But the Google guys were nothing if not ambitious.
You could also make the point that Android was more an attempt to keep Microsoft from buying their way into mobile search than any kind of attempt to take on Apple. But all these companies counting on network effects to maintain near monopolies seem to have to take on all comers. Monopoly power, for all the head start it gives you, are not invincible.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
Look, no matter how much you talk it up, it's not a thing.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
It seems every day there is another story on /. about Facebook copying Snapchat. No new information about it, really. Just more complaining.
But really Facebook's approach is the right one based on game theory. When you're in a race and you're behind (like Snapchat is in user base), it's in your best interests to innovate to try to make up the distance. When you're ahead, it's in your best interest to maintain the status quo, and do exactly what your rivals do so that you maintain your lead while minimizing risk.
I'm sure Snapchat hates it. But it's sound logic.
Am I mistaken or didn't Facebook buy Snapchat? How can Snapchat be Facebook's rival app if Facebook owns Snapchat?
Facebook offered to buy Snapchat for a reported $3B but the offer was rejected by Snapchat CEO...
Karma: Bad
Facebook did not buy Snapchat. They tried to in 2013 but Snapchat said no. Facebook did buy Instagram, which is what you're probably thinking of.
I have no idea what you are talking about. Google maps loads instantly for me. It doesn't do much beyond map related functions, so I'm not sure where you are getting "bloated" from.
The interesting part of all this is that Bing was created not because Microsoft wanted to be in the search business - but because search was lucrative enough for Google to allow them to grow into a threat to Microsoft's core OS and Office monopolies. Bing is there to cut Google down to size more than to build up Microsoft. And, to the extent that Google actually had ambitions to take Microsoft head on, I guess they were right. Though who knows - if Microsoft hand never tried to damage Google's revenue stream, maybe Google never would've gone after Windows and Office. But the Google guys were nothing if not ambitious.
You could also make the point that Android was more an attempt to keep Microsoft from buying their way into mobile search than any kind of attempt to take on Apple. But all these companies counting on network effects to maintain near monopolies seem to have to take on all comers. Monopoly power, for all the head start it gives you, are not invincible.
No... just, no... Google has never been a threat to Microsoft's OS. Their mobile division, definitely, but never their OS division. As far as Office goes, they have been a minor pest, at best, with their email service. Google did win the search war and they have had huge success with mobile, but have had a hard time turning Android into anything resembling the financial returns that Apple is getting from their mobile business.
As for any comparison between Facebook and Bing, it falls down on it's lack of merit alone. Bing has never been popular, nor has it had critical mass. Facebook has a critical mass that will be very difficult to overcome. When your grandmother, mother, cousins, uncles, friends, etc. are all on the same service people aren't about to jump ship.
Snapchat may be popular with teens for inter-personal sharing, but they still use Facebook to communicate with a wider audience. That's why Facebook is mimicking their capabilities. It's also likely why it won't work. Teens have always sought out their own way of communicating with peers, whether it is language or a separate app. But as they get older, they will and do use Facebook for the simple reason that Grandma isn't using Sanpchat, but she is on Facebook...
MS was still around.
No kidding. That and every freaking thing that you comment on or like gets broadcast to all of your friends/family/coworkers. So I just stopped interacting with Facebook, which means I just don't go there any more.
And for the love of god, stop changing the default search order. Just put the things that I've liked (And not the things you think I'd like) in chronological order.
As I recall, (and somebody can correct me if I'm misremembering), when Netscape came out with their browser, Microsoft pooh-poohed the whole thing publicly while scrambling to put together Internet Explorer. Employees at Netscape were really worried about Microsoft with good reason. Then Microsoft bundled IE with their OS so naturally users of MS automatically started using it, and that was the end of Netscape, the innovator.
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
Google has never been a threat to Microsoft's OS. Their mobile division, definitely, but never their OS division.
What about all the people (younger folks especially) who are no longer buying/using desktop computers since their phones do everything they need?
Reprise the theme song and roll the credits!
After the way Facebook has influenced politics around the world, Facebook's end can't come sooner.
The difference with Microsoft is the monopolistic power they got because IBM adopted their OS for the IBM PC.
It is a complicated story, and there are a lot of questionable anecdotes about it, such as how Gary Kilmer, who wrote CP/M was out flying when IBM execs came around to see him, and the execs were miffed enough to go with Microsoft. Or the story that Bill Gates' Mom was on some charitable committee and heard from an IBM exec on the same committee that IBM was looking for an OS.
The IBM PC was an overpriced, slipshod piece of hardware even by the standards of the time. Maybe IBM just wanted something to connect to their mainframes as they were focussed on that end of the Computer business. However, because it had the letters IBM on it, laymen who didn't know any better bought it, and it had MS-DOS on it. (Which wasn't particularly good.) When the clone makers came out, IBM didn't stop them, and they were allowed to use MS-DOS. This became the standard. When people came out with Apps like WordPerfect that weren't MS, MS was able to 'enhance' MS-DOS to make the competitive apps not work anymore.
The result was to hurt the nascent industry in my opinion. (I know, shakeouts and oligopolies were inevitable, but I think MS got too powerful too soon with too little effort.) Microsoft was going to capture the server market too, at least for small networks, but fortunately, there were enough knowledgeable technies working in the back offices of those small business to subvert their PHBs and put linux and/or FreeBSD in and escape being monopolized by Microsoft.
I shudder to think where we'd be now if MS had captured the server market.
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
The issue with Microsoft, Facebook, and increasingly, Google, is that they have no intention of respecting their users. People feel locked in to Windows and Office, and would gladly jump ship due to Microsoft's abusive attitude, if only they could. Network effects keep a lot of customers stuck there. If people felt good about Microsoft, they'd use Bing and be happy.
The same goes for Facebook. They could have treated their users (note I don't say "customers") well, and they wouldn't face such a challenge from upstarts like Snapchat. But if Snapchat offers any way to reduce dependence on Facebook, people will jump for it.
Google is increasingly alienating its users in the same way, with the attempt to force Google+ down our throats being only the most egregious recent example.
I hope the next big innovator will be a company that learns how to treat people with respect. They will wipe the floor with these jerks, and good riddance.
I always mod up spelling trolls.
When will Bing run on my Zune?
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
Bing is still up and running?
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Exactly.
They are comparing Facebook to Microsoft's Bing, but you could just as easily compare them to Microsoft's DOS, Windows, or Office.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
The keyboard was indestructible. The case was a tank. The monochrome monitor displayed 25 rows of 80 columns, including upper and lower case letters.
Unfortunately, the IBM PC also included a few deliberate sandbags.
IBM never figured this was their last entry into the PC business. It was supposed to be a trial balloon. They had a zillion reasons to cripple the first edition, both in terms of processing power and in terms of memory expansion capacity.
By the way, did you actually use a TRS 80, Commodore PET, or Apple II? I used all three. Realistically, these all sucked for any serious purpose—except for learning the difficult art of programming the hard way.
It was just the other night I realized how starting my programming career on a TRS 80 with the notoriously unreliable tape drive influence my programming style for years to come.
No, BASIC did not ruin me. (I also picked up APL, several dialects of assembler within a year, rudimentary Pascal, some LISP, some FORTH, and most of C just as soon as I could get my hands on it.)
What did ruin me was the inability to curate a subroutine library of my favourite helper code. It just too took long to merge one chunk of code off cassette into another. (I believe the merge mode was that whatever new BASIC program you loaded just wrote right over top of any existing line numbers.) The TRS 80 was the computer I could use at school for free, which I did after school every day. Never had one at home until much later.
There was a certain kind of robustness you just didn't worry about, because every single program was pretty much home-cooked from scratch. At most, one might load something vaguely similar and then cannibalize some of the common bits.
Agile, look out—you ain't gonna need it. Every line of code ended up written in the least general way possible, so long as it sped up the code entry process.
Fortunately, I never had to use a cassette drive on an IBM PC.
On the IBM PC, I still had to multi-pass the compiler by switching floppy disks during the compile and link cycle, but that's a whole other story.
You know, the "standards of the time" included Heathkit, and Hewlett Packard (back when that still meant doing the right thing), and Tektronix, and later Compaq. The hobby computers were junk in part because everyone knew it was going to be a brisk ride. SOMEDAY SOON THERE MIGHT EVEN BE LOWER CASE. Basic economics.
Except for the IBM sandbag trick. That was old school economics, a first sour taste of something us hobbyists had not yet had to worry about.
That was the true legacy of the original IBM PC. It was the first coldly calculated, deliberate consumer diss. We all hates it forever for exactly that one thing.
Without a search/directory tool, much of the web we want to access is inaccessible.
Original post compares this to a photo-swapping app that allows you to put cats ears on people, as if that's somehow a commercial threat.
Now either Snapchat thinks Slashdotters are a viable market for their nonsense and are chucking Bizx a bundle for fake content... or one of the editors really likes those cat ears.
I heard a similar story about Gates copying at least some of his basic interpreter from somewhere else. Don't remember where for sure, but I think it was supposed to be Heathkit. Anyway, the anonymous coward is right to point out that it's not proven. One would probably have to look at the source code of various sources to do that, and who is going to bother with that now. I would like to know because if he did, it would reveal a lot of hypocrisy on Gates' part since he fumed so much over any sort of piracy of Microsoft's code. I do think Gates had an authentic fascination with computers that was very 'nerdlike'. He appeared in an episode of Computer Chronicles hosted by Stewart Cheifet which was modeled on a game show. Various Big Names in the home computer industry formed 2 teams, East Coast (which were all dressed up in coats and ties) and West Coast (who had taken off their coats and ties.) It was a computer trivia contest and Bill Gates did very well for the West Coast team.
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
When they get real jobs they'll find they can no longer do what they need on their phones.
That's bullshit for a lot of reasons, starting with "duh all communication can be used for cheating" and going to "millennials actually hook up less frequently than their parents' did."
Your ad here. Ask me how!
While the desktop FB client is relatively free from the Snapchat nonsense the phone app is becoming horribly cluttered. Seemingly everyday a new "feature" is added that takes away from the core FB concept and relegates that screen real estate to functionality the FB client is not seeking.
In short, FB is running the very real risk of alienating adult users who simply do not care about all of shiny objects and prefer simplicity in their lives.
Caution: Contents under pressure
"Good artists copy, great artists steal."
... it's a global mental illness.
That aside, we all know that what Facebook does should be a regular Internet protocol and service and not some commercial website. The only reason FB took off and still is going strong is because E-Mail and Usenet and to some extent IRC are so very shitty and we, the Inet and FOSS community haven't built a viable modern communication service yet.
And no, Diaspora is an implementation of a non-service and not really a replacement. Yet.
Once a protocol and service that does what FB does is finished, FB eventually willbe replaced.
My 2 eurocents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
This. Every change to Facebook, and in particular to the iOS app, seems to make it a little bit harder to either get to the chronological or view, or to stay there. I couldn't care less about what's "hot", I want to see what's been posted since last time I looked.
How many others of you have noticed how Google Maps has gone from something relatively useful, to the bloated piece of crap that it is now, which takes a geologic age to load or really do anything, even on a fast computer with a fast internet connection?
Yep. I think a lot of the google stuff is designed based on the idea that everyone has gigabit ethernet to use on their bus based commute, with a side order of the Apple style of you're a right old saddo if you don't upgrade your computer often enough.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
So delete your account and use something else. Your continued use is a message to FB that what they are doing is ok.
SC are trying to be a social networking company now and FB is trying to be an image sharing service.
I have excellent Karma and I am not afraid to Troll it.
The beauty of /. is that I don't know if this is someone being incredibly pedantic or an ironic troll. I'm leaning towards the latter, but either was I got a laugh.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
So Google's Android profit over the last 7 or so years equals 1 quarter of Apple's profit? I'm sure they're ecstatic.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
What about all the people (younger folks especially) who are no longer buying/using desktop computers since their phones do everything they need?
I love watching young people spend 10 minutes to send 2 messages back and forth.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
No... just, no... Google has never been a threat to Microsoft's OS.
Absolutely. Google's reach into search and web definitely threatened MS's business models. There's a reason MS hasn't really had success growing into any new related market that's opened up. Web - dead. Mobile - dead. Tablets - dead. Worse, email and documents are moving away from MS, because they no longer control the majority of devices people use to view and edit them with. They now have to be compatible with other OSes and apps, and if not, their market share will continue to shrink.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
There are those trapped in Facebook and are just angry :( . That sucks. You make "friends" that don't use anything else to communicate or at least tell you that they prefer Facebook. Or, you need it for work or business so you have no choice. Or, it's the only way to make a long-distance relationship work, be it intimate or platonic. Do you spy on your kids with it? You know they have have another account, right? Does it make you cool? But, if you use it because you enjoy it...what flavor of Kool-Aid do you like?
All communication can be used for cheating but if you were to use regular SMS, you're an idiot. Supplying a platform with profile pics and personal information is what makes it tempting. Any app (Tinder; owned by Facebook) that has a swipe left or right is basically saying, "Do I find him/her sexually attractive or not?" I have a friend that went on one date with a guy she met with Tinder and as soon as she kissed him, he whipped it out. No joke. Actually, I don't have a friend with a Tinder that doesn't have a horror story like that or not a complete sexual deviant. Apparently, because I hate Facebook, I'm not cool enough, in case you're thinking I'm bragging about the deviant part.
Millennials do hookup more than their parents did, it's just what they call "hooking-up" and what their parents believed it to be is much different and people don't live as far away from each other. The language for flirting is much different; example "What's up" for older people is "How are you?"; younger people think you just flirted with them. I've even asked a more "with it" friend of mine about it and she was like, "You can't just go up to a girl and ask that or text that to a girl you just met." I couldn't believe it. Instead of having non-committed sex with lots of partners like the previous generation, they are having non-committed sex with a shorter list, aka the classic "FWB." I know people that don't view oral as sex for goodness sake. They get on dating apps and figure that stuff out after a few dates here and there. The frequency is more, but the diversity is less, probably because they think it's safer that way. Birth control and no condom fun with very little STD risk, I guess. It's also why they are taking much longer to get married. They can't find the "right one" because they don't know how to commit and work things out, using "career" and "school" as an excuse. And, why would they bother trying when they know they can get their rebound endorphin fix from one of their other "friends" or are attractive enough to just make new ones. You wouldn't believe how many dating profiles I've seen that say "I don't need [insert app] to have sex. I could just ask a friend," I guess to make the point she is looking for a long term relationship, but you still know she isn't lying about the sex part.