Hacker News: axavier

New comment by axavier in "Six steps to effective Facebook advertising at $0.01 CPC"

axavier — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 21:28:00 +0000

Unclear how effective this would be when you need to target more narrowly on a certain demographic (i.e. only USA). Still very interesting - will have to try something simple myself.

New comment by axavier in "Gmail: Trap my contacts now (warning when exporting contacts to Facebook)"

axavier — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 13:33:10 +0000

http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/26/orkut-slows-hemorraging-to-...

Relevant quote from Google:

"Mass exportation of email is not standard on most social networks - when a user friends someone they don’t then expect that person to be easily able to send that contact information to a third party along with hundreds of other addresses with just one click"

Lets recap:

1. Users use data exporter en masse to abandon Orkut.

2. Google breaks the exporter. Supposedly a bug, coincidentally when people are actually now using it.

3. Google changes the exporter so emails are no longer included.

4. Google says social networks shouldn't be expected to allow mass email exportation.

5. 12 months pass

6. Google breaks the gmail exporter to Facebook. Social networks apparently are now expected export all e-mails. Press eats it up.

Look, I'm not arguing that email exporting should or shouldn't be allowed. I don't really want my friends giving my email to Farmville so they get a golden banana, but it's not the end of the world. What I don't get though, is people talking about this like Google is some godly force of good, championing the rights of users against the evil Facebook.

Please. Google is getting scared, and made a calculated (albeit hypocritical) business decision to try and slow down Facebook's growth. The rest of this is BS PR spin and Techcrunch sensationalism to fan the drama fires.

New comment by axavier in "Google on why Orkut should not export email contacts (10/26/09)"

axavier — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 03:53:56 +0000

Relevant quote from Google:

Lets recap:

1. Users use data exporter en masse to abandon Orkut.

2. Google breaks the exporter. Supposedly a bug, coincidentally when people are actually now using it.

3. Google changes the exporter so emails are no longer included.

4. Google says social networks shouldn't be expected to allow mass email exportation.

5. 12 months pass

6. Google breaks the gmail exporter to Facebook. Social networks apparently are now expected export all e-mails. Press eats it up.

Please. Google is getting scared, and made a calculated business decision to try and slow down Facebook's growth. The rest of this is BS PR spin and Techcrunch sensationalism to fan the drama fires.

New comment by axavier in "Facebook Slaps Google: “Openness Doesn’t Mean Being Open When It’s Convenient”"

axavier — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 00:51:32 +0000

Google did break the Orkut data exporter, then completely removed it when people were trying to switch out of Orkut. I'm not sure how that's accusing them of committing a crime they didn't commit - it's a fact.