Comments on: Facebook lifestreaming – gateway drug or competition killer?

By: drewolanoff

drewolanoff — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 09:21:45 +0000

Mainstream wants services that make things easier. Its our job to teach and empower.

By: MartinSFP

MartinSFP — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 03:51:17 +0000

Yes- interesting to think of some of these services as 'boutique' and
specialist. I like it!

On 22 Sep 2008, at 22:24, “Disqus”

By: Jandy

Jandy — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 03:23:55 +0000

Interesting points. I think the thing about moving most of the Twitter/Friendfeed/Flickr-type services mainstream is that they're specialized at doing one thing well, so you have to use several services to do everything. (Say, Flickr for photos, Vimeo for videos, Twitter for microblogging, WordPress for long-form blogging, last.fm for music, FriendFeed to aggregate other services, etc.) But most mainstream people don't want to use several services, they want to use one. And Facebook does all of those things adequately, especially with applications, so most people will stay there rather than seek out the individual services that do individual things better.

Maybe it's the same thing that makes Wal-Mart so popular in the bricks-and-mortar world – the only thing it does really well is offering the ability to buy basics in every category at one place. As opposed to going several different places to get higher quality items at specialty stores.

By: MartinSFP

MartinSFP — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 20:17:25 +0000

Good points! Still, I'm not an 'early adopter' for the sake of being one of the first – I do it because I like to use the best system. Otherwise, I'd be using Identi.ca or Plurk instead of Twitter.

I *want* my friends to have the same enthusiasm for the best new communication methods that I do. But, hey, I'm sure some of my friends would like me to be interested in their enthusiasms, so I'll write futile blog posts about my frustrations instead!

By: chris

chris — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 19:56:58 +0000

I dunno, isn't Twitter right on the cusp now? Certainly seems to be picking up steam amongst non-geeks...

Oddly, I'd never imagined you'd have any particular desire, as an early adopter, for the systems you use to actually go mainstream - I just assumed you liked using them. Also, isn't that the whole point of early adopters, that you guys stick it out with all these different systems, while the mainstream moves far far slower? If everybody caught on instantly, you'd be out of a 'job'.

The other thing is, be patient. Facebook's UK dominance is only a year old, after all. I'd've thought, by the time the next thing 'goes overground', you'll be long gone, using something totally unimaginable along with your 8 techie mates, waiting for the rest of us to catch up again.