Introducing Graph Search - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/about/graphsearch "Graph Search is designed to show you the answer and not links to answers." <comment><USER2> This is an important step for Facebook and I'm surprised no one has really mentioned it (all ~50 comments so far are about the graph search).

The big thing here isn't graph search, or the fancy searching per se. The big thing here is this:

> "and meet new people, too."

This is huge. Huge!

Facebook from the start was envisioned as a sort-of dating platform but that part of it got swept under the rug real quick. Throughout Facebook's history _meeting_ people with Facebook has been a slim thing. Typically it was always one way:

Meet in real life -> Add on facebook.

It's only a matter of time until Facebook tries to make it the other way around. It seems they're explicitly avoiding the "dating" route, which may or may not be wise (dating sides have some weird connotations among some groups of people). It looks like they've finally found their solution.

The amazing thing here isn't Graph. It's that Facebook is going to change its paradigm so that meeting new people is a viable goal of going on Facebook.

So eventually we'll be meeting people through Facebook, starting with meetup.com style interests. That's big.

<comment><USER3> > This is huge. Huge!

Quite the opposite, in my opinion. People don't like being bothered by strangers on Facebook. It's weird and creepy, especially so when it's a guy contacting a girl. This could be seen as a disincentive to share if you don't want your face popping up on search results for people outside your immediate network.

It also makes friends who are ignorant or careless about privacy more of a liability. If they tag you in something that's set to 'public', that thing could now be seen by far more strangers far more frequently. There's no good solution to this: You can harrass your friends about their tagging habits, waste countless hours un-tagging yourself every month, or delete your profile altogether.

I could see it being useful if you could give it commands. Something like: "Invite all friends who like Game of Thrones to my Game of Thrones Event on Sunday at 8PM". Then again, that could just increase the amount of noise on Facebook and drive people away even faster.

<comment><USER4> > People don't like being bothered by strangers

People love being bothered by strangers. Just try it. Make any half-funny observation about the world around you to a random stranger in the line, at the hairdresser... just not when they're actively doing something. Weather the surprise, repeat what you said if necessary, allow them to come up with a response. If they don't, follow through yourself.

At first it seems like you're a crazy person talking at others. But after a minute (though it'll feel like a little longer) most people will happily talk to you.

And don't think of it as "bothering". You're diverting your precious attention to them. The thing that every website and channel on the planet wants from you.

That used to be just normal, polite behaviour BTW.

<comment><USER5> > At first it seems like you're a crazy person talking at others. But after a > minute (though it'll feel like a little longer) most people will happily > talk to you.

Yes - but if you watch _very_ carefully you'll notice their eyes darting nervously about, trying to find the nearest exit, and a small frown appear as they attempt to calculate the whether staying in the line is worth it, and the likelihood of you attempting to sell them something or attempt violence if you make your excuses.

In other words - if some random guy starts talking to you in a line, you will tend to make small-talk in return. Whether you like it or not.

<comment><USER6> That is not my experience at all. Sure, some people will feel uncomfortable, but it shows right away, and I stop. Some people are more open and return the joke, keep the conversation going, etc

That's always nice, for everyone involved (or so I like to think).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Graph Search seems like strange branding to me. I almost didn't click the link because I thought "Graph Search" was a new API and not a user-facing product (to be fair, the context was a posting on HN so I was predisposed to think API). Graph Search's real focus appears to be on the use of natural language and the presentation of/interaction with data. The "Graph" is almost the least interesting about it.

<comment><USER8> Is it called that because it is leveraging many feature from the OpenGraph API? Could I accomplish similar things with the API?

<comment><USER9> I think they chose the name as an homage to the name of how the data is represented from an engineering standpoint. A graph is a data structure that has many nodes connected together. In this case, a node is a person, photo, location, etc, and the edges represent how they are related to each other.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So basically facebook is what facebook was 7 years ago when you could click on a word in a profile and find out everyone else in your (college) network that also had that listed.

I'm glad they brought back functionality they removed forever ago.

<comment><USER11> +1

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Crazy.. I developed a Facebook Graph search about a year ago using FQL queries. It works very similarly to how Facebook implemented their Graph Search. I even put a voice recognizer on top of it. Glad to know that my crazy ideas aren't so crazy after all :)

Link to demo video: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=g...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ge1mH6xqSQc)

<comment><USER13> Release it as open source and BOOM :D

<comment><USER12> I might... It would need a big clean, but what personal project doesn't?

<comment><USER13> Or not. Doesn't be ashame, it works great (or at least it seems to work great). Meanwhile, upload to any server to give it a try. I really want to test it, and I think it should receive more buzz ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> They're going to have the same problem wolfram alpha has, since in the space of "all queries" only a tiny, tiny fraction of them are going to be ones that Facebook can resolve. Now, it might be less of a practical problem since the use cases for FB search are pretty clear and obvious, unlike W|A. But it doesn't sound like this is an open-ended search engine. Imagine typing say "shoes for sale on amazon" and getting "Sorry, Facebook doesn't know how to answer this query." It will quickly pigeon hole the product.

Also, similar to W|A, there is value in the _queries themselves_ since they are mini-algorithms. If someone comes up with a clever query to get FB to say, find me people who I actually might want to hire, it could be valuable. I really hope they build an API on top of this so that startups can build products around novel queries.

<comment><USER15> > tiny fraction of them are going to be ones that Facebook can resolve

maybe the rest they are going to forward/proxy to Bing.

<comment><USER16> Interesting, I wonder how many people would start using this as there only search engine.

<comment><USER17> That is FB's plan :-)

Not a bad idea. Perform a search, highest ranked results are for friend's content, then fall through to Bing results. The Bing search API (from Azure marketplace) which I use from Clojure and Ruby applications yields good results and since Google no longer offers search APIs, Microsoft gets that business.

<comment><USER18> Exactly. The less people are reliant on Google, the less power the entire Google+ model has to survive.

On year from now, trying to convince someone to use Google+: "But it's accessible from the google homepage!" "I don't google anymore, I just search facebook"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> 1\. Weird marketing, the word "Graph" doesn't mean anything to average people. Just call it "Facebook Search". Also these cold hyper emotional sounds kinda turn me off, even Apple has more friendly ads. Did they steal the music from some apocalyptic space movie trailer?

2\. Interesting problem, to make all that data available to natural search queries. Definitely an attack on Google who still can't really answer natural queries what Marissa Mayer was talking about ages ago.

3\. There is just stuff from Facebook what I think is problematic because people don't share everything on Facebook. If they can expand it onto the whole web, it would be a game changer, but also way more difficult to solve.

4\. I can't think of a query I would use this for other than testing it. If I search for Apple, I want to the Apple website. So I think this is more a solution on the search for a problem. Maybe they figure that out when it's out there.

<comment><USER20> >The word "Grap" doesn't mean anything to average people.

You can say that again!

<comment><USER19> I swear that was unintentional, fortunately I could still edit it XD

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is pretty futuristic, it's SQL for non-techies that pulls from Facebook data. The most inquisitive, but not enough to be a programmer and deal with FQL and code, will find this really useful since they can finally make use of all the objects they've acted upon and entities they've acted with.

It makes Facebook data actually... purposeful.

The next step is still to match purpose with intent to make that money.

<comment><USER22> Our startup is very excited about this part, since we let people earn bounties based on the intelligent connections they can make between people they know and a business offering a particular service or deal. We are curious whether it will be open enough for us to suggest or run searches for an authenticated user to suggest who they should share a particular offer with.

<comment><USER21> I don't doubt they open it to their platform but at the same time... remember what happened to people playing on Microsoft's Windows platform in the 80's/90's. And from the scuttlebutt I've heard about dealing with FB execs, they're much better at analyzing data, have clout, leverage, money, power, traffic, so it's hard to deal.

<comment><USER22> I would not recommend anyone pin their entire business model on this; but it certainly comes at a nice time for some companies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I guess i don't get why I should care.

I either have to unfriend people to get it to give me stuff i care about (since it appears to have no way to explain i don't give a shit what my grandma thinks about sushi in palo alto), or it's giving me answers that don't seem better.

I understand they needed to improve their site/internal search, and this looks great for that. But it just doesn't seem like that big a deal to me. What am i missing?

<comment><USER24> You're not missing anything... that's it. Facebook CEO rolls out search feature.

While I do think that the feature is pretty interesting, I don't think it warrants reporters flying in from all over the country to cover the event. I'd be pretty upset right now if I flew in from a news organization NYC to cover this.

<comment><USER25> Oh man, I know. I would be furious. Now you have to somehow justify that $10k trip by forcing yourself to make search sound cool and draw views. Now you have to spend your time trying to figure out WHY this feature is worth anyone caring about past a search for "What 18 year old females have recently gotten out of a relationship?"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Facebook is one of the few things in this 'ideologyless' world that really makes my blood boil.

From the promo video:

      -The world feels smaller…
      Yes, I joined the freaking World Wide Web to narrow my world view.
      -On Facebook, when two people make the same search, they get completely different results!
      That's a feature?

People can't freaking decide where they wan't to eat or go to the movies for themselves?

What's maddening to me is that we are allowing someone like Zuckerberg, who obviously has many talents, but making friends is not one of them, direct our social lives. The sad thing is that it's getting harder and harder to ignore it, from work to friends. I fear that someday I might be forced to join this freakshow.

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm torn. On one side I really like it, it reminds me of the old People Search feature Facebook used to have. On the other side for third party developers especially those who try to make the Facebook experience better, I'm afraid this is reinforcing the point you should not build 100% on platforms.

I'm sure there are many who have had this idea or are building this currently. Facebook Heroku templates given for new developers to start with, hit on the four main areas that Graph Search seem to provide.

Another example would be a query like

        movies liked by people who like movies I like

In FQL the closest I would have gotten was

       SELECT name, page_id from page where page_id in (SELECT page_id from page_fan where uid in (SELECT uid2 FROM friend WHERE uid1 = me()) and profile_section='movies')

And even then FQL was unstable

So then you wonder, why use an app with an unstable query built on an API filled with bugs when I can faster get the result using facebook.com?

<comment><USER28> I would be torn too if people used my app, but I like this. Building your own app has it's limits. I built a facebook app to show mutual likes sorted by likes because facebook's pages browser only showed mutual likes sorted by friends. The FQL to do this is slow and unusable if someone has many hundreds of friends and likes. Plus, some friends don't allow apps to query their data, so the result is incomplete.

My feature request would be to allow us to create and share custom FQL and views computed and rendered by facebook. Then, friends don't have to give permission to apps to access their data and facebook runs the query faster.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Imo, this is a very smart move if the execution lives up. It gives an incentive to put up even more (structured) information to Facebook, such as Likes/people tags/etc., because now there is a more permanent point to it: it can be discovered by someone much later and become useful and interesting, as opposed to it being interesting merely up to a day on the News Feed and then disappearing forever somewhere deep in your timeline.

In other words, it makes building your profile feel additive and even useful.

<comment><USER30> The marketing value of a Facebook like just soared.

I feel like a Luddite for it incentivising me to _remove_ stuff from a wall I want to be a place for actually interested friends to check out my photos and not a collection of metadata for marketers

<comment><USER31> Wouldn't it be neat if there was an "anonymous like" that you could use for the benefit of your friends and yourself, but that would be prevented from being revealed in a way that was traceable directly to you? I.e. differential privacy for the facebook crowd.

For me, the potential negatives of leaving a very precise data shadow for marketers and state actors to remember for all time often outweigh any potential benefits, for a whole range of 'codify yourself' opportunities even outside Facebook (e.g. GoodReads, Amazon Wishlist, YouTube subscriptions, etc).

<comment><USER22> "Anonymous like" #featuresyouwillnevereversee

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> My first Graph Search will be:

 _Find people on Facebook whose first name begins with Robert'); DROP TABLE users;--_

<comment><USER33> Be careful. You might face 35 years in prison :-/

<comment><USER34> Too soon, man; too soon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> This product doesn't make sense at all.

I can just query useless data from my peer group or the friends of friends group. Data which I already know and not care about.

But I cannot ask the really interesting questions about all Facebook users:

"Show me all female singles nearby with at least 30 profile photos each"

"Show me all female singles nearby which love to chat and respond messages within 2 hours on average."

"Show all females within one mile and poke them all automatically"

This thing is as it is half-baked: the name, the product, just everything -- far away from being "huge".

BTW, those kind of looking-for-female-singles-in-my-city-queries were very easy in FB's early days for quite a long time. Then, I poked them all in my city and got a conversion (poke2reply) of about 1:15.

<comment><USER36> By that description, it sounds like Facebook did a good move in restricting this, as well as removing the ability to do it awhile back.

Seriously, females are human too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Great, now I have even more reason to stop tagging friends, like fewer things, tighten my privacy restrictions, and tell friends to stop tagging me or checking me in to places.

I have no interest in my personal info being used for their search engine, nor do I want friends of friends (i.e. strangers) to contact me just because I like the same TV show or went to their favorite restaurant.

<comment><USER37> If you don't want friends of friends seeing stuff, why don't you just set your privacy to friend's only?

<comment><USER3> You can't control your friends' privacy settings. If they tag you in something and have their own privacy settings wide open, anyone will be able to see it.

<comment><USER38> From what I recall you can stop friends from tagging you in photos on FB.

<comment><USER39> You can make tag approval mandatory, but people can still tag you and you will be bombarded with spam about that tag until you remove it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Not sure if anyone has mentioned this yet, but if you watch the video on the bottom part of the page with Zuck, one of them explicitly says how this product competes with Google. Something about how if two people search for Apple on Google, they'll get the same results, but if they search Apple on FB Graph Search, they'll get personalized results. It's really interesting from a technology perspective the way that search is becoming personalized, and we've definitely seen Google eyeballing search personalization, but it's been limited pretty much to geo and the limited info on G+. Facebook is uniquely positioned to use the volume of data on each person to provide more meaningful results.

From a revenue perspective, I think this is definitely competitive to Google. Not saying it will succeed, but businesses will definitely see value in advertising to hyper-specific segments and personal groups. It sounds strange to say, but I do think UI and speed will be key components of whether FB GS will do well. Search is a convenience market, and if FB GS isn't convenient, Google is always one click away.

<comment><USER41> > one of them explicitly says how this product competes with Google. Something > about how if two people search for Apple on Google, they'll get the same > results, but if they search Apple on FB Graph Search, they'll get > personalized results.

Except that's not true. Google personalizes results for users and also sometime integrates social aspects (through Google+).

If I search for pizza I see a map of pizza places close to me, their average reviews, links to find out more, photos, etc etc. I don't know if a Facebook friend once at a slice there, but I also don't care whatsoever and would rather not see it to be honest.

<comment><USER42> >Google personalizes results for users and also sometime >integrates social aspects

Right, except this doesn't actually work unless all of your friends work at Google.

<comment><USER11> You don't have to use Google+ news stream if you want to get personalized search results, if that's what you're trying to imply (by friends working at Google). Search personalization is achievable by other means if necessary: past searches, searching while logging in with Google account, YouTube searches. Facebook is essentially trying to do the same, with much less product spectrum and more desperation as it gets more boring and uncool.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> problems:

1\. it treats data from all friends (presumably) equally. Presumably in real life you weigh opinions of different friends differently.

2\. search can only take place on information that your friends are willing to share publicly (or at least with all their "friends"). Presumably in real life opinions you get from people you know will be way different if they know it is a private exchange.

3\. isn't this all a bit high on the autism spectrum? The idea that to find out information about the likes and dislikes of your "friends", you log onto a computer and do what amounts to a database search, rather than just ASK YOUR FRIENDS ???

<comment><USER44> Good points.

With number 3, if you just ask your friends, there's no chance for advertisers to get involved in that transaction. Facebook is a business where the things you express to friends and family are the currency with which you pay for the service.

"Free and always will be" is a lie when factoring in your personal views, information, recommendations, and content are the currency used.

You can always leave FB, but you'll be losing connections you depend on for emotional and social reasons. Facebook knows this, that's why they have you by the balls.

As an outsider, I'm seeing a new wave of business-reliance on FB which will mean the FB logo spreading to every shop, ad, website etc. From the local bakery to bike shop, "Find us on Facebook" posters clumsily displayed in big fat graphics. More than ever, I'm not interested in joining.

This new business-reliance will alienate those who joined to connect with people.

Future generations hopefully won't tolerate such a blatant sellout of personal connections, a stupid hi-jacking of the word "like" - which once belonged to people who liked things.

Marketing and search engines don't belong as an invisible force underlying your communications with close friends or family. That is so wrong it's poisonous.

Zuckerberg said it best: "dumb f--ks".

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> This is Facebook trying to become Google. +1 for ambition. But lousy product and mostly meh. It's not a Google killer.

People go to Google to search for lots of stuff they want to know more about. Movies, sports, homework, whatever. And when they need that particular mouthwash, where do they think of first? Google. And thus the power of AdWords. The habit of general searching causes you to turn to Google when you're seeking a product.

Mark Z is smart, and recognizes this dynamic. So he's trying to create a destination for your search queries. The problem for him is that people already have a habit he needs to break. And what he's offering as an incentive to break it is pretty weak tea. How often will the average user (grandma in Peoria) turn to Graph Search? Not often enough to break her Google habit.

+1 for effort and ambition - but I doubt this is going to be much more than hype.

</comment><comment> shock-value Some of the examples in the promo videos are pretty far-fetched. I mean, does anyone really give Facebook any information about which dentist he or she goes to? I've never even seen a post from someone talking about going to the dentist, let alone including the dentist's actual name!

<comment><USER46> No, but if lots of people who aren't associated with you have liked a specific dentist, then that dentist would be top of the search for dentists in your town.

One of the side effects of people actually using graphsearch would be that businesses need to have more likes than their competitors, to enhance their FB SEO. Therefore, we'll likely see even more FB ads for nearby businesses trying to get you to like their page.

<comment> shock-value You touch on a related point... ranking a business by number of likes is pretty useless. Facebook is going to have to introduce some kind of point rating system like Yelp or Netflix for this to be useful at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Interesting to compare against Path (they announced search on 12/20 - <http://www.wired.com/business/2012/12/path-social-archive/>):

Path: search personal events; discovery via proximity (nearby)

Facebook: search graph events; discovery via common interest

Seems like facebook trying to hone in on cases like dating (discovering people with common interests), and interest discovery (ie, restaurants that others like). Path seems more about making most of personal time (creating life events) in the context of a social environment.

<comment><USER48> It seems like Facebook graph search has a lot more functionality, or maybe I just can't discover how to do everything that Path can do with search.

I did discover that it can do delightfully strange things like if you search for "snow" it finds all the moments that happened when it was snowing, even if the moment does not have the word "snow" in it. So it must link location and weather history with moments, which is pretty cool!

So Path has a lot of potential. I think the search interface just needs some work to expose more functionality like Facebook is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Facebook's intent is really obvious - they are trying to replace "raw" Internet with the Facebook layer, and people would do all interactions: social, searches, shopping through their layer. This would render other companies like Google, Yelp, you name it obsolete. The problem however is in the details: how can anyone trust Facebook with their private data, searches etc. considering all the privacy issues, lack of user's control over their data, etc.? Once you're in the Matrix, you cannot unplug. That's what Facebook is trying to bring to the users.

</comment><comment><USER49> I don't understand why people think this is going to be useful.

The inbuilt assumption is that people care enough about the data to want to search it frequently and thoroughly. I don't think that is true. Facebook is mostly ephemeral junk data that you don't care about; this has been true ever since they changed their UI to the Twitter-style "what are you thinking right now?" input / streaming.

In order for search to be useful they first have to backtrack heavily on what their entire platform is about. Which would be hard.

</comment><comment><USER50> "Everyone on Facebook who isn't blocked by you can search for you, but what they can see in search results about you depends on what's shared with them.

Search results respect your privacy settings, whether it's info you've shared, or posts with tags of you that others have shared."

My Facebook profile is currently set to _not be visible in search_ , because I don't want people who I didn't explicitly give my Facebook link to be able to find me. Will Facebook continue to respect this setting?

</comment><comment><USER51> Am I the only one that doesn't usually click on "like' things? I mean things like 'dancing', 'outdoors' or 'Game Of Thrones'. Even if I like them. First, because I don't think one day "hey, I like dancing, so I think I should state it on Facebook so everyone knows!" And second, because most of the times, liking something gets your timeline full of useless updates.

Not sure if is something that adds real value for users. We'll see...

<comment><USER29> I was thinking the same things, but I just took about half hour to map out my books/tvshows/movies/sports/activities and enter them all because they are now potentially searchable. For example, if one of my friends also read a book I liked, that's something I'd be happy to know.

<comment><USER51> Yes, but, do you think that is something that you'll keep doing? The main idea is that Facebook keeps track of all that information, and you have to feed it.

It is possible that FB will "capture" status messages to add to that information. E.g. saying something like "Great Game Of Thrones show today!" will get converted into "like GoT", but it can be difficult, as there are a lot of info that you don't usually comment on Facebook. How many books did you read in your life? Are you listing them all in FB?

I think that anything that needs specific "maintenance" can be difficult to keep up-to-date in the long run, and you'll end with people that liked a group for a couple of years and got tired of, etc...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Here's what Facebook doesn't get. I have 580 friends on Facebook. These are all people I've met in real life at least once. I care, honestly, about maybe 50 of them. And of those I care about, I want to know what's going on in maybe 10 of those 50 friends' lives. Ask my how much I care about people who aren't friends with me on Facebook. About as much as I care about anybody on the internet on any site.

<comment><USER53> Actually, that's what's great about Facebook: they probably already know who those 10-50 friends are based on your activity on the site, your location, your photos.

They know your best friends based on your actions versus who you might list if they asked you who your best friends are -- which might be a more accurate way of figuring it out anyway.

<comment><USER54> yeah but out of those 50 you may only want 10 that are knowledgeable about food, and in the greater 500 list you may want 10 that are knowledgeable about tech. Just because you're close to someone doesn't you mean you value their opinion as highly on every subject.

<comment><USER55> Especially as you get older, and your friendships diversify.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This bears much more resemblance to Wolfram|Alpha than it does to Google Search.

Glad to see natural language interfaces are finally going mainstream.

<comment><USER56> The example queries remind me of Prolog.

<comment><USER31> Well, not in terms of syntax :).

No, I think they're probably doing proper natural language parsing, and from there hand-coded translation to (their internal version of) FQL.

I wonder how flexible their grammar is. It'll be pretty easy to reverse engineer the techniques they are using by looking at failure modes of parses and how intelligently they correct fall-throughs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> So... it's either algorithmic stalking or it's nothing that new, right? I'm going for algorithmic stalking. Now, to really be effective, I guess they're going to have to add "graph alerts" so one can get notified when (totally hypothetically), any friend of a friend living in the same city with more than n friends (to screen out the losers; replace n with your own threshold) changes her relationship status to "single". Or I guess one can just keep a saved search/smart folder of "prospects" (stalkees?) that can be "checked in" on from time to time; maybe set up a mobile alert that pings you whenever one of them is in/near your neighborhood.

So, I can see why advertisers or businesses might like this, and I can see why grudge-holding exes might like this, but I can't really see why I would want to be stalked. Thank god Facebook has such transparent and persistent privacy settings, or I'd really worry!

(yes, this is over the top)

</comment><comment><USER58> I may be being a bit of a braggadocio, but the 5-person startup I work for in featured in their blog post announcing the product... pretty unexpected coverage!

[http://www.facebook-studio.com/news/item/introducing- graph-s...](http://www.facebook-studio.com/news/item/introducing-graph-search- help-people-discover-your-business)

</comment><comment><USER43> Honest question: why would I want to ask Facebook a question about my friends, when I can just ... ask my friends?

</comment><comment><USER59> If only I could _buy_ a developer account so I did not have to be a Facebook user to integrate with them.

</comment><comment><USER60> Pretty awesome that Facebook could pull this off so quickly. I literally said that exact line to Lars (who lead the search team) during our meetings last year... I can't believe he reused verbatim in the video:

"Facebook is for the all the people you know... Ark is for all the people you should know".

<comment><USER61> You're right, he does highlight the distinction between people you know and people you _should_ know. I instantly thought of Ark when hearing about this. I'd like to see how they and Ark might facilitate those connections once you've identified them. If I'm traveling abroad and meet someone from the same small town, I don't know how inclined I'll be to message them. Not to mention, those messages in Facebook get lost in the "Others" section where I've heard countless stories of people discovering important messages months later.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> I voted up this article because I just wanted to read something technical on HN.

</comment><comment><USER63> would just like to point out:

Google started moving towards a more social experience from search engine by adding google plus.

Facebook started move towards a search engine from social experience by adding graph search.

They are definitely lined up to converge at a giant battleground, both coming from opposite sides of the spectrum.

Both will come with different strengths, however, Google's integration of its plus network is FAR superior, both technically, and in the sense of having a plan. Whether we use it or not, it is already stealing data from us, even if we dont know it.

IMO, google has no adversaries. FB is doing this for the fun of it.

</comment><comment><USER64> Wow. There are a lot of interpretations on why this is HUGE - a game changer.

In addition to what's been mentioned above, this is the shot across the bow of Google. I suspect Google has better search, but their social graph is much worse. (Google+ is only extensively used by their captive audience) The search on Facebook will get better over time, and they have the better social graph. This also gives them a new "neat" factor that will keep people coming back, especially those bored of seeing cat and children photos from long forgotten friends.

</comment><comment><USER65> Yet another reason to abandon Facebook. It is getting creepy and creepier.

</comment><comment><USER66> For a company that claims to understand the importance of mobile, why are the videos still in Flash? There is absolutely no reason they couldn't have used HTML5 with Flash fallback here.

<comment><USER67> I just watched them on an iPad. Perhaps it's The other way round?

<comment><USER66> Really? I tried viewing from an iPad and saw the following message: <https://tabuleapp.com/u/files/image_135827900654910.jpg>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> Imo, facebook is really focusing on the wrong things here. I'd have been much more enthusiastic if they offered me tools for better control over my data, for example (incidentally, I had to spend 40 minutes just the other day using a Greasemonkey script to erase my entire Timeline). Or if the chat would be less clumsy. Or if they added cloud-based tools to groups, similar to Google Docs.

I can't really explain what's going on in their heads… Perhaps I'm just completely out of their target market, who knows.

</comment><comment><USER69> Oh so they finally noticed Quora and Google+. Good on them.

Interest based social networks will replace the hodge podge of specialty forums using anonymous names you see all over the web.

<comment><USER70> I'm really not sure about that...

There are _lots_ of forums (guns, cars, gambling, I.T. security, ...) where people are very careful about what they post.

I think, on the contrary, that with all that push by FaceBook and G+ to try to reduce your anonimity more and more we'll see more and more specialized forum _putting an emphasis on anonimity_.

I even believe there's a wide open door for a pseudonymous social network. One where people really know each other (you can only add if you know the person in real life) but where it is specifically forbidden to use any real name.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> I'm curious as to the political implications of this, given social media's increasing presence in recent civil uprisings and government monitoring.

<comment><USER50> That ship already sailed. Facebook cooperates pretty extensively with law enforcement, so while they're announcing a nice, friendly consumer interface, law enforcement already has way more data than you'll have access to through this feature.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> I think this has really interesting consequences in combination with the "pay money to send messages to people you aren't friends with" feature Facebook's been testing lately. That's the revenue potential I immediately saw in this product with the demo search for "people who like cycling in my hometown"--you can find them for free, but it will cost you to contact (or direct market to) them.

</comment><comment><USER73> Interestingly Facebook's recent "Facebook Global University Hackathon" was won[1] by students who also utilized natural language processing.

Here is the previous discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4871854>

[1] <http://velocity.uwaterloo.ca/news/facebook-hackathon>

</comment><comment><USER74> "Thanks for signing up for our beta. When Graph Search is ready you'll see an announcement on Facebook and you can switch to the new experience."

</comment><comment><USER75> Facebook, Please consider adding the following clause to all queries: AND WHERE deleted_at IS NULL OR deleted_at = '' OR private = ''

I like the idea of having a query language for facebook data. I just don't like the idea of having any of my things come up in any search. And yes, I quit FB a long time ago, but my spidey sense is tingling that FB didn't quit on my data.

</comment><comment><USER76> A new API to see what people build before acquiring first couple of apps and throttling access?

Being able to weight my Google results with demographic or social graph attributes would be more useful for me - especially with purchases.

'restaurants in 10km range popular with 30-40 age professionals'

'most popular cookery books up to 3rd degree connections'

'top movies my close friends watched last week'

</comment><comment><USER77> The major trend of Facebook is that it is making the world smaller by making the people you interact with a smaller bubble. This may be a very good thing. Sometimes, though, it makes me feel like we're carrying out a new type of social hierarchy by only interacting with people we are like and are friends of friends with.

</comment><comment><USER78> It will not compete with my google searches, I usually search for wikipedia articles, homework questions, and programming tutorials/help... Seeing people with similar interest is cool but I already do that with meetup.com (very nice in Boston). I am just out of touch with most of facebook target audience? I guess so.

</comment><comment><USER79> FB search as it is not capable to become kickass end-user-oriented product yet, it's more like a set of technologies that could be used by app developers to create cool dating\hiring\recommendation services and widgets using real- time api requests. The best apps will be acquired by Fb or just copied :)

</comment><comment><USER80> Am I missing something?

The query, at one point, is "People who like Cycling and live in Seattle, Washington" yet the 2nd person "card" clearly states they live in San Francisco, California.

Pic: <http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2148004/Screenshots/~-mm.png>

<comment><USER81> It's just a mistake in the demo video...

</comment></comment><comment><USER82> Looking at this from a different angle: it seems new to me to see Mark Zuckerberg doing an announcement of a new feature. The video at the bottom reminded me of an Apple ad (toned down and without Jony Ive's accent).

I wonder if this is part of a new strategy of pushing him out to the public a little bit more.

</comment><comment><USER83> I think this a big deal.

The first step to a Yelp killer? Type in "Italian Restaurant" and get back list of all the restaurants your friends have checked into. A recommendation engine.

For now, its mostly to filter your facebook data. But do you think it can expand and become the goto search engine, ala google?

<comment> shock-value It could maybe work if they do it like Netflix: build a profile of you based on what you have rated highly, and put you in a pool with similar people (friends or otherwise), thus providing more accurate recommendations.

But I think Facebook overhypes how much people care about their friend's preferences, at least for most things. We generally don't pick friends based on how closely their shopping/eating/whatever habits match ours.

<comment><USER84> At my company we've been arguing this same point for years. It doesn't matter what your friends like; it matters what people with similar interests like. Rarely are your friends and family a reflection of all of your likes and dislikes. I'm sure some psychologist could point out the low probability of forming friendships with people who are exactly like you.

It seems like Facebook and other social networks took the idea of asking your friends for a recommendation on a good doctor or auto shop and twisted it into some overly simplified premise that if one friend likes something, all of my friends will like it too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> Very cool! Can't say much else until I try it. I have a large number of conservative friends who have enabled every privacy setting and provide minimal meta-data, so I already know it won't be as the PR video depicts.

Anyway, This reminds me of of the Google+ search by www.findpeopleonplus.com

</comment><comment><USER86> Graph Search in one sentence (based on what I see it as): Search built around friends, not links.

</comment><comment><USER87> All the people who support this keep saying how everyone else is going to use the tool to do x, y, or z, but they haven't said what they themselves would do with it.

So I ask, when you have access to Graph Search, what is the first thing you'll do with it?

</comment><comment><USER88> I don't quite see how this is big competition for Google (yet). Facebook GS can return me more data about my friends than Google can, but Google can return more results for general information. These seem very different from one another.

</comment><comment><USER89> Two things:

\- "The interface fundamentally determines the behavior" and this thing has a real great interface. I just don't see how this could be integrated into the facebook home screen (newsfeed).

\- I wonder how long does it take google to copycat this thing.

</comment><comment><USER90> I have a feeling this is more to announce facebook's _intent_ to compete in search than a product they actually expect people to use. Really it sounds like a precursor to facebook's google competitor.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The video created by Facebook that explains their new "Graph Search" feature.

<https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10200156514653891>

</comment><comment><USER91> This is exactly what one would hope from a huge structured data set.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It is (or was) live for me. I can take a screenshot for you guys.

</comment><comment><USER92> Looks cool, but what is the fallout? Will Google force feed us + a bit more so that they can match/better these types of search results.

I need to permanently move to DuckDuckGo

</comment><comment><USER93> This is also on the front page: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5061347>.

</comment><comment><USER94> Everything old is new again.

Back in `05, the facebook would let you search for people by interest, or age, or sex. Can't imagine why they stopped that.

</comment><comment><USER83> Big! Search will fit seamlessly in the Facebook experience. I bet we soon forget that Facebook didn't always have this function.

</comment><comment><USER95> This creeps me out more than anything. I already know where I like to hang out and who my friends are... I go to freenode.

</comment><comment><USER96> So it's just building custom queries? I guess it's novel that you can save the queries and see it as a "feed".

</comment><comment><USER97> I wonder if searching for "Single friends of friends" would work. Optionally with "who like x".

</comment><comment><USER98> Whatever the positives or negatives, the tech behind this effort would be super duper cool.

</comment><comment><USER99> Social searching is the new business. and with Facebook doing it, it will go miles.Huge!!!

</comment><comment><USER100> live Mark Zuckerberg [http://live.theverge.com/facebook-see-what-were- building-eve...](http://live.theverge.com/facebook-see-what-were-building- event/)

</comment><comment><USER58> So Ark, Facebook just Facebooked ya.

</comment><comment><USER101> Their front page demonstration has an error. <http://imgur.com/J7r73>

</comment><comment><USER102> one question. Any cool new changes to the Graph API? Doesn't look like it.

</comment><comment><USER103> Looks like head-on with Google, and then why not? The results are specific to a user and his/her taste or surroundings. Something that Google also tries to achieve using history.

Would love to give it a sping. Waitlisted, uh.</comment>


SocialCam - launching hard and painful - tomh- http://swombat.com/2011/3/10/socialcam-launching-hard-and-painful

<comment><AUTHOR> Well said. I never understood why people associate startups with long hours. Sure, that was the stereotype for VC-backed disaster startups back in the '90s, but there's no reason to expect that you need to work 12 hour days just to run a software business.

I live comfortably on revenues from my little software empire, and I can't remember the last time I worked a 40 hour week on one of my products.

I'm like most developers in that I work in bursts. I get maybe one or two full-day pushes in a good week, and lots of little tinkering bursts that last an hour or so. When none of that is happening, you'll find me off living my life.

</comment><comment><USER2> While it's likely true that people who sacrifice everything are rarely successful, I think that the people at the top of their fields almost always have.

There's almost, but not quite, the subtext here that over the top dedication doesn't matter. But it does affect one's potential, it just doesn't guarantee success.

So rationally, since you probably won't get to the top of your field, it's folly to burn yourself out trying. But then, by that same logic, starting a startup is altogether irrational since it'll probably be a lot of work for little money and ultimate failure.

There's a function from commitment to potential, and the area between that line and the plot of a rational career choice is the place founders live. It's really a matter of how far of a departure overbearing self-confidence allows you to justify. But the biggest winners are the ones that start among the most self-deluded. ;-)

<comment><USER3> That's a good way to put it for those who see startups (and perhaps business in general) as a lottery ticket. I have a very strong suspicion (though not substantiated by evidence at this point) that the chances of success (where success is defined in the typical startup way as "fuck-you-money") are much higher if one goes about deliberately and sustainably becoming a fantastic entrepreneur, rather than betting everything on a single startup.

The question is, really, what affects potential more? Over the top dedication, or marathon-like persistence?

I'm betting on the latter. If two equally bright and ambitious young kids come up and say "I want to succeed in the startup world", and one of them continues "I've building this one startup and throwing everything I've got in it, my entire existence rides on it", while the other one says "I'm planning to spend the next 20 years doing it and I'll probably start 20 businesses at least in that time, each one better than the previous", I'd bet on the latter.

I suspect the only person who has any solid evidence that could weigh this debate one way or another is pg, though.

<comment><USER2> The major difference in what we're saying is that you're defining success as a step function, I'm defining it as a continuum. If we're talking about a step function, sure, you're more likely to get over the threshold with calculated risks and diligence. But out at the end of the continuum, where the Bill Gates and Michael Jordans of the world live, in that league, I believe you need over the top dedication and marathon like persistence.

<comment><USER3> Most people that I meet who run startups do so because a) they enjoy the challenge of building something cool and useful and making money from it, and b) they would like to make enough money to not have to worry about money.

Even if you're trying to build a Gatesian empire, I'd argue that taking it in steps could be a better approach, more likely to get somewhere. See Richard Branson as a counterpoint to Gates/Jobs/etc. And the advantage of taking it in steps is that if you don't have what it takes in both personal qualities and incredible luck to make it to the top, you're still left with something.

I don't think anything you or I can say on a website will divert a Steve Jobs or Michael Jordan from their intentions, in any case. :-)

But, certainly, both philosophies exist and have their pros and cons. Which one do you think is right for most people?

<comment><USER2> _Which one do you think is right for most people?_

Neither. And that's the essence of what I'm getting at. I don't think there's a singular _this is what people (or entrepreneurs) should do_. It's widely variable upon the person, their constitution and tolerances, and for _most people_ , probably altogether a bad idea. It's also a false dichotomy; in practice successful people, for either definition, do not choose between either or, but varying degrees of both.

<comment><USER3> I like it.

"Founders! Do what makes sense! Use your brains, dammit!"

Good advice for all :-)

Worth noting that I explicitly did not judge whether it made sense for the SocialCam team to do it this way - I'm only criticising the general stereotype that "you have to sacrifice everything in order to make it". Imho that method works in a very small number of cases and is dangerous in most.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think about this a bit because I have kids. I simply refuse to not spend time with them. If success at a startup is predicated on spending all your waking hours working, I'm doomed to never succeed.

I don't think this is the case. Strategy and design are two good examples of areas where more hours doesn't necessarily mean better. It is better to be slower and right.

Setting the tone and pace for others is a riskier part of this. Will employees stay late if the founder is never there for dinner?

<comment><USER5> You & me both, Ivan. And like every other controversy on HN, "hard vs. smart" isn't a real debate.

I've got 2 kids; they were 2 and 0.5 at the end of my first company, and 11 and 9 now. And one of the people from whom I learned the most about business was also a founder with kids. So, I'm particularly interested in the dynamics of startups and family life.

One thing I saw work remarkably well was company culture. You can easily create an inclusive and family-oriented culture: have the whole team be local, do lots of dinners and offsites, have after-dinners work-hours where kids are OK, make sure the families get to know each other.

At the first startup I ever worked for, the office was a _very_ large apartment on the north side of Chicago. There was a full kitchen, they cooked dinners, and evening hours were --- at least in the beginning --- of a different character than daylight hours; people worked, but the whole environment was more social, less button-up, and more welcoming.

I don't think they really did this on purpose. It was just very friendly and family-oriented group of people. But I can't see a reason why it would be hard to duplicate and extend the idea. Just set an objective, to allow people to routinely work longer hours when necessary while causing minimal strain on families. Then come up with practices that support the objective. I can think of 10 ideas for that off the top of my head. I'm sure you can come up with 20.

It's kind of remarkable that so few new companies do this (if they did, they'd be made of stupid not to advertise it). Most startups advertise a culture that is almost the opposite of that idea.

<comment><USER4> If the biggest barrier to hiring at a startup is that most people think the situation too risky, then anything that might push normal people towards startups is good. I can easily imagine people stressed at large companies that choose startups for better work-family balance (which isn't the same as fewer working hours) that would join a startup just for the family culture.

Maybe one reason big companies get slower is that as they age, the young folks start having kids. This translates to less and worse work than before, but the blame is on the company which didn't shift it's culture. I guess some of these ideas wouldn't scale, but to my knowledge, they haven't been tried at scale.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't think there is anything wrong with crunch for a month or three, on the promise that the team can wind down, relax and be acknowledged for their crunch period after.

I find I can work intensively for three months, but then need a few weeks of working 9-5 to recover. I think that is pretty normal, and I assume this is what the SocialCam team did.

(swombat: got a source for the quote?)

<comment><USER3> The quote is from the article linked in the title (which appeared on HN yesterday or early this morning, depending on your time zone):

<http://areallybadidea.com/launch>

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Thanks for writing this -- it made me write my thoughts down on some things I've also been meaning to write.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2309723>

</comment><comment><USER8> I think in this case, it's more about the timing. They want to get it done by SXSW. So it's not an arbitrary deadline, or worse just a philosophy that you have to drive yourself into the ground. They have a real deadline that, if they can hit it, they will likely give a nice bump to their launch and chances of success.

While I'd agree--killing yourself isn't good strategy or a real recipe for success--sometimes it needs to be done.

</comment><comment><USER9> It's not just your physical and mental energy that gets burned out through 12 hour days, it's also your passion. For all entrepreneurs there is a strong underlying passion burning inside and we push ourselves based on how brightly it burns, because we simply have nothing else to answer to. So if you're well- rested or highly caffeinated or adrenaline-filled with passion, you will be productive, because you're excited to. If you're pushing yourself to work 100 hours a week just because you think it's the right thing to do (this is the equivalent of face time in a corporate company) then you will be less productive, if not also resentful and discouraged. That's not to say deadlines aren't important, but work ethics should come from a desire within instead of from external pressure. I mean, we don't like the corporate world because of this external pressure, right? So why bring it with us to our startups?

</comment><comment><USER10> When I read yesterday's post about the sprint to launch at SXSW, I thought 3 things:

      1. Great determination, great work ethic, great job.
      2. It doesn't have to be this way.
      3. It shouldn't be this way.

Thanks, Daniel, for saying what I was thinking, far better than I could have.

I feel fortunate that my DNA is blessed with some sort of internal "governor". I don't know where it came from, but I've always had it. Here's how it works: It stays out of the way when I am enthusiastic about something, allowing me work ridiculous hours and pursue almost anything that looks promising, whether it makes sense or not. But when I reach a certain point, it turns me off, completely. I don't seem to have conscious judgement of what that point is or when I reach it, but when it happens, I know.

A few examples:

\- I have worked many times without sleep, preparing for a launch. Sometimes, I know my judgement is failing and continuing would cause more problems in the long run. So I stopped and apologize to everyone. I went to sleep and informed everyone that the project would resume at x. I'm not really sure exactly what happened, but I know I had little control over the governor.

\- I had 2,500 invoices spread across the carpet, looking for a clue about a bug. After 8 hours, everything was fuzzy. So I just gathered up the invoices, filed them away, and went to sleep. Three days later a lightbulb went off, I spread out 100 of the invoices, and found the problem in 15 minutes. I know that if I had continued that night, I never would have found the problem.

\- I worked 90 hours per week for 2 months for a big deployment. Without telling me, my co-founder spent all of our reserves travelling to a customer site to oversee the install. He emailed me every 20 minutes with a problem. Between being pissed off at him and exhausted from working on the wrong things, I realized the project was going nowhere and would never succeed. So I just stopped working completely. I went to bed and didn't answer email for 4 days. I'm not proud of this, just one more story about my internal governor.

I'm a little frustrated that I don't have much control over my governor, but also a little relieved that it does it's thing. After all, I've never really been burnt out, and I'm still going strong. Thank you, governor.

<comment><USER11> I've encountered something similar to your "invoices" situation many times. I'm actually blocked on something now, but I know my mind is hard at work to get things straight in some background process. Once my block is cleared, I know I'll just dive in and get things done in the same amount of time it would have originally taken, only with better results. I know that, because that's how it's worked for me so many times before. Every once in a while I forget what I was working on, but it's usually in favor of a better project or solution.

Fortunately, my blocks are usually short and resolved by letting my background processes chew on a problem during a night of sleep.

I think the real trick is to actually attack problems that cause me to block. If I stick with simple things I can process in real time, I'm not thinking hard enough.

Of course, this sort of discussion here wouldn't be complete without a reference to good and bad procrastination: <http://www.paulgraham.com/procrastination.html>

<comment><USER12> The Pragmatic Bookshelf has a fantastic book that goes into some detail about how your brain might be working in these situations. Often sleeping on a problem and letting your subconscious do some of the work is the best policy. Check the book out here:

[http://pragprog.com/titles/ahptl/pragmatic-thinking-and- lear...](http://pragprog.com/titles/ahptl/pragmatic-thinking-and-learning)

<comment><USER13> I had a logic teacher in college who would force us to exercise this concept. He would have us look at the very last problem on an exam on test days and make us just stare at it (no working on it allowed) for 5 minutes. Then we had to start the test from the beginning.

The theory being that your subconscious is working out the problem and you'll have a better chance of figuring it out. I felt like it really did work.

<comment><USER14> Seems like he should've had half the class do the staring, the other half take the test normally, and give as many points as appropriate. One could get a lot of data after doing that for several classes.

<comment><USER13> I'm sure he had done that at some point.

He also liked to show off his many other amazing 'mind hacks' such as memorizing everyone's name within the first few minutes of the first day of class. There were almost 100 students in his class and after he said he was done 'doing his thing' he would ask the students to change seats and never sit in the same seat twice for the first week to test him.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> well said. Starting a startup is a marathon not a sprint; pace yourself or you'll regret it later.

Everyone starting out seems to think it'll be all over in a year and they'll be rich. It's more likely to be a couple of years and few people can sustain intense work for that long without crashing.

</comment><comment><USER16> There's value to the experience of being on a team of people, working towards a goal you all believe in, all giving 100%. Agreed, you wouldn't want to do this 365 days a year, but I think it's important to understand the state of mind required to do this, so that you can call on it or recreate it for circumstances that merit it.

It's definitely easier to do this if you think your team is going to "win". In fact, if you don't think you stand a reasonable chance of winning, you may as well just go home.

But: If people thought too much about statistics, no one would ever try anything new. So I don't think that being able accurately to gauge your chances of success is actually that important (never mind the fact that it's essentially impossible).

</comment><comment><USER17> That's a lot of modafinil. That stuff burns me out after a week of daily use, let alone 9 months. Mixing it with caffeine makes me crazy as well. Be careful with your neurons people.

Can I ask what sort of doses you were taking?

<comment><USER3> At peak I was taking 1.5 100mg pills a day - one in the morning upon waking up, half after lunch to keep me going till the evening. Plus probably 2-3 (strong) coffees.

I would _not_ recommend this to anyone.

Since this is over, I've taken Modafinil sporadically (only v. low dose... 1/4 of a 100mg pill), but I found that it doesn't really make that much difference. I _feel_ more productive and focused when I take it, but I don't actually get more done.

What works best is a combination of a good night's sleep, a healthy lifestyle including physical activity, and decent discipline (in my case, with the pomodoro method).

<comment><USER17> 50-70mg and _no coffee,_ taken only when needed seems optimal to me. 150mg in a day is definitely too much, unless you're trying to pull some ridiculous 60 hour marathon, which is inadvisable anyway.

Too-large doses leave you unable to concentrate on anything for longer than about 10 seconds.

<comment><USER3> _Too-large doses leave you unable to concentrate on anything for longer than about 10 seconds._

That's easily balanced out by chronic lack of sleep :-) Even with that dosage, I was still fairly sluggish.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to scam and get 67k all 5 Star reviews on the app store - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/7mzib4/how_to_scam_200000_per_month_and_get_67882_all_5/ <comment><USER2> It's insulting to real developers of decent apps and games when _obvious trash_ can make it onto the store so easily, remain there, and make money hand over fist, when other apps have to put up with scrutiny and back-and-forth rejections over trivial non-issues even in 2017.

Right now, their "improved" App Store doesn't even have what I would call a search engine. I can search for apps _BY NAME_ and they _still_ show up like #30 on the list below a whole pile of stuff that (I assume) only matches due to some weird random match of letters that happen to be in my search term. There is NO way to narrow the search category, NO filters (not even something so _basic_ as "search only apps released in the last month"), etc. And every single iOS store issue is 1000x worse on the Mac store. They need to take that 30% cut and invest properly.

And search problems wouldn't be so bad if their top-X lists made any sense. Top grossing, really? Great way to see the same 10 apps for like 3 weeks in a row. "Limited Time Prices"? At this very moment on the Mac store, _ALL TWELVE_ "Limited Time Prices" apps are LEGO games! What good is that?

<comment><USER3> While it would be awesome if the app store would be actually good at app discovery, that is unlikely to happen. Instead you have to brand and advertise your app outside of the store. See the app store as something like "apt-get install". The user needs to know what he/she wants _before_ going to the store.

<comment><USER4> > See the app store as something like "apt-get install"

You know, the first place I search for desktop software is on the apt repositories. Even when I'm looking software for Windows (then I repeat the names on Google to see if they run there).

Searching in aptitude is much better than on the web.

<comment><USER3> To be fair, FOSS repos are easier to organise as devs wont use dirty tricks like fake reviews to promote their apps. Kinda like the meta keyword in the early web.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> An interesting comment from an employee from the company that gives the revenue estimate in the title. Apparently the number is somewhat accurate according to him.([https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/7mzib4/how_to_scam_2...](https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/7mzib4/how_to_scam_200000_per_month_and_get_67882_all_5/dry5eir/))

> We round the numbers for our free users -- the estimate in this case is > closer to $150,000 than 200,000 in Nov. Indeed, if Sensor Tower was > estimating revenue based on ratings, the seemingly fake reviews and bot > users would influence it.

> However, the estimates are based on things like Category Rankings in the top > charts, and other signal data. You can't get on top of the revenue charts > with fake bot reviews -- real users have to spend real money. We work a lot > on our models and data science to improve estimates accuracy, and a lot of > developers and publishers share their data with us, so we feel pretty > confident about the revenue estimates. So while we might be off by a few %, > we feel very confident about the data! In comparison, top dating apps like > Tinder make >20 million a month on iOS alone.

> As you can see, the app has stayed on top of the grossing charts with a lot > of consistency, and hasn't been removed from the app store. I know Apple > works hard to remove apps that break their terms of service, but they might > have not caught it (or are investigating) over the holidays. I know that > Apple takes reports like this from the community seriously, and though it > might look like they act slowly, they are likely investigate apps like this > in detail.

</comment><comment><USER6> See also here:

[https://www.amazon.com/Bluetooth-Headphones-Earpieces- Earpho...](https://www.amazon.com/Bluetooth-Headphones-Earpieces-Earphones- Microphone/dp/B078C61G5M/)

136 reviews, all of the same general format, all 5 star reviews, nothing critical in any of them.

<comment><USER7> [https://www.fakespot.com/product/bluetooth-earbuds-tenfly- wi...](https://www.fakespot.com/product/bluetooth-earbuds-tenfly-wireless- headphones-headsets-stereo-in-ear-earpieces-earphones-with-noise-canceling- microphone-for-iphone-x-8-8plus-7-7plus-6s-samsung-galaxy-s7-s8-ios-android- smart-phones)

<comment><USER8> Bookmarked, thanks

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Aren't there laws to protect consumers against that kind of scam?

At that point, what would Apple respond? It seems it's not in Apple's interest to refund customers, and I wonder if they would sue the app maker and investigate fraudulent ratings.

Funnily, that would also bring attention to fraudulent comments on net neutrality, and how nothing has been proven yet.

<comment><USER10> > _I wonder if they would sue the app maker and investigate fraudulent > ratings._

Apple does investigate this and does take action, yes.[1]

> _" Almost 1,000 fraudulent reviews were detected across two accounts and 25 > apps for this developer so we removed their apps and accounts from the App > Store," an Apple spokesperson told iMore. "Warning was given in advance of > the termination and attempts were made to resolve the issue with the > developer but they were unsuccessful. We will terminate developer accounts > for ratings and review fraud, including actions designed to hurt other > developers. This is a responsibility that we take very seriously, on behalf > of all of our customers and developers."_

[1] [https://www.imore.com/whats-happening-dash-and-app- store](https://www.imore.com/whats-happening-dash-and-app-store)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Having a dumb search functionality results in tons of blogs and forums discussing software that relates to their niches.

The Netflix homepage for guests doesn't provide much information either. Anytime I search for the newest titles on google, I get the most updated top 10's. Good for SEO and keeps the people talking about stuff related to the platform.

</comment><comment><USER12> Here's another great article about a fake security app that was making ~$80,000/month. After selecting "Free trial", the app signed you up for a $99/month subscription. For a while, it was ranked #33 in Top Grossing for Business apps. Apple has since removed it, but there's plenty of apps like this still out there. As someone who has had apps rejected for fairly trivial reasons, stuff like this always frustrating.

[https://medium.com/@johnnylin/how-to-make-80-000-per- month-o...](https://medium.com/@johnnylin/how-to-make-80-000-per-month-on-the- apple-app-store-bdb943862e88)

</comment><comment><USER13> I'd still like to know 'how' they got all those reviews. Is there a warehouse full of people somewhere in China generating this, so-called 5-star review farmers?

<comment><USER14> [https://mk0equediaiphjdq03ev.kinstacdn.com/wp- content/upload...](https://mk0equediaiphjdq03ev.kinstacdn.com/wp- content/uploads/2017/05/clickfarm.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I know a guy who submitted apps with a comment, you get $300 if you can help me with some things. 9 out of 10 times it didn't work. But with 1 guy it worked and he promoted fake apps like this.

</comment><comment><USER16> Sounds like a sophisticated money laundering scheme - dump money in click farms and fake app purchasing, in exchange for climbing the charts and getting innocent/naive people to purchase at a faster rate. As you climb the charts your app gets more visibility and thus more eye from the innocent/naive purchasing population

<comment><USER17> Not likely. If I was laundering money I would rather have a low profile and spread the money over several apps while making sure that none of them end up on the top 30 list. Seems like a pretty straight forward scam: Get suckers to buy the app and an in-app subscription service with fake reviews.</comment></comment>


Russian Billionaire Dmitry Itskov Plans on Becoming Immortal by 2045 - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/russian-billionaire-dmitry-itskov-plans-on-becoming-immortal-by-2045 <comment><USER2> Were almost near the starting line with research and companies like Human Longevity, CalicoLabs(Google,Genentech), GenoPharmix, Buck Institute, SENS Foundation and this:

Cynthia Kenyon: Experiments that hint of longer [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V48M5j-6zdE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V48M5j-6zdE)

Epigentics and extending human lifespan: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvNLNl7oJnM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvNLNl7oJnM)

</comment><comment><USER3> Love this concept!</comment>


Ask HN: Operational experiences with Elixir-lang - <AUTHOR>

Hi, I would like to know some IRL experiences with the use of Elixir-lang with a focus towards the operational aspects of supporting a Elixir based application. Some big wins, weird quirks?  Thanks! <comment><USER2> I have built some small projects with it and really like it... in fact, after getting atop most of the learning curve, it's hard not to want to just work IN it.

Which is a pretty good endorsement, in my book.

I will say that the production deployment process and tooling is not purely Elixir at this point (yet). People tend to use the Ruby Capistrano gem to deploy... which works... but to me gives sort of a cognitively dissonant experience :)

Another quirk I noticed is that IEEE floating point is not completely supported, for example there is no "Infinity" value and working with large numbers will often get you rounding errors. For example, using the Math.pow function (the ONLY native power function!) ONLY works with floating point values so using it will get you large-number roundoff errors. Some libs have been written to manage numeric data better (in my case I literally had to look up an efficient integer power algorithm and implement it, see [https://github.com/pmarreck/elixir- snippets/blob/master/math...](https://github.com/pmarreck/elixir- snippets/blob/master/math_integer_power.exs)) but the lack of native support there is weird (and Erlang's fault, really), especially coming from Ruby.

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://www.erlang-in-anger.com/](http://www.erlang-in-anger.com/) would probably be a great place to start for this.

</comment><comment><USER4> And this is exactly why I dislike Elixir hype. You mistake Elixir as the primary platform, while it's BEAM/Erlang/OTP, Elixir being merely syntax wrapper over it.

<comment><USER3> More than syntax wrapper, but absolutely correct. There is a lot of movement in the community to refer to things in a BEAM-centric way.</comment></comment>


Delicious Shutting Down: How To Save Your Bookmarks - <AUTHOR> http://techcocktail.com/delicious-shutting-down-how-to-save-your-bookmarks-2010-12 <comment><USER2> I just tagged that link with delicious for later.

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://historio.us/> can also import your bookmarks, just upload the delicious dump.</comment>


Ask HN: Best paid SaaS for developers? - <AUTHOR>

There are a ton of paid web services to make developers life easier:
* Code management tools (Github, Bitbucket)
* Issue trackers (FogBugz, Trello)
* Project management services (Basecamp, Jira)
* Customer service/user feedback systems (Userecho, Uservoice, Zendesk, Useresponse)
* Task management tools (Wunderlist, Asana, Zendone)
* Note taking services (Evernote, RememberTheMilk)
* Training sites (Nettuts, Tutsplus, Railscasts, Lynda.com)
* Theme and other marketplaces (Themeforest, Creativemarket)
* Service integration services (Zapier, IFTTT)
* etc, etc, etc
Which one can't you live without and why? (Not only from the list, but URL please!)
How much does it make your life easier in what way? (If not trivial.)
Only paid services please! <comment><USER2> Themeforest - I am not a designer, but will happily pay to get something I can customize with code

</comment><comment><USER3> bitbucket-Its free for private repos ,perfect for freelancers.</comment>


Wronged customers prefer apologies to cash - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2009/09/people_are_suckers.cfm

<comment><USER2> "People are suckers" because there are things they care about more than money? That's probably the stupidest conclusion I've ever read in my life.</comment>


Thermal immersion circulators are the microwave of the future - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food/2013/07/sous_vide_at_home_why_thermal_immersion_circulators_are_the_microwave_of.html

<comment><USER2> I was hoping that I would hear from Thomas about this article. We haven't tried any sous vide cooking yet at home (the latest project here is learning how to boil and bake good home-made bagels), so I'm curious about what users of sous vide cooking techniques have to say about that form of cooking.

The article submitted here was an interesting read this morning for its description of how slow adoption of microwave ovens was in the United States. I'm old enough to remember thinking that a microwave oven is a completely useless appliance, but of course now we use ours all the time.

</comment><comment><USER3> Sous vide is a great system as long as we have ways to reuse bags. Creating more waste would be a sad direction.

The kickstarter [1] mentioned is a great at-home alternative, but the cost (359$) will be a barrier for the casual cook. Great design though.

[1] [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nomiku/nomiku-bring- sous...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nomiku/nomiku-bring-sous-vide- into-your-kitchen)

</comment><comment><USER4> Yeah, what a great idea. Let me cook a steak for 72 hours, then I still need to brown it.

Non-starter for 99% of the population. IMO.</comment>


Show HN: Keep tabs on your carrier's Internet performance - <AUTHOR> http://www.mobiperf.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Want to know whether you're getting what you pay for when it comes to mobile Internet performance? And whether it would be different with other carriers? Mobiperf, a collaboration between the University of Michigan and Northeastern University, is an Android app to help you do just that. The app runs network measurements in the background to understand how your network performs, and lets you browse a map of performance statistics from other users in your area. The more people use the app, the better the results, so check it out today!</comment>


Corporation not person in carpool lanes - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Corporations-aren-t-people-in-carpool-lanes-4173366.php

<comment><USER2> I think the wiki article on corporate personhood should be read by everyone who is bothered by the "corporations are misnomer" meme.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood>

\--

The basis for allowing corporations to assert protection under the U.S. Constitution is that they are organizations of people, and that people should not be deprived of their constitutional rights when they act collectively.[5] In this view, treating corporations as "persons" is a convenient legal fiction that allows corporations to sue and to be sued, provides a single entity for easier taxation and regulation, simplifies complex transactions that would otherwise involve, in the case of large corporations, thousands of people, and that protects the individual rights of the shareholders as well as the right of association.

<comment><USER3> Yes this is great, but it ignores the fact that a corporation is more than a group of people. It enjoys considerable legal benefits in the form of protection of its owners from various liabilities. In the US they also tend to enjoy considerable tax and other legal benefits.

These are all benefits provided by the US government, and by extension every American.

The beef is:

>people should not be deprived of their constitutional rights when they act collectively

A corporation is more than a group of people acting collectively. A corporation is also a group of people who get together _and petition their government for special treatment_. This is not a bad thing as it is basically what allows any company of more than a handful of people to even exist. But, if that special treatment comes with strings attached (i.e. restricting what that group of people are allowed to do with their collective resources and in the name of that corporation), I personally do not take issue with that.

I have no problem with a group of people freely getting together and wreaking havoc on the American political system. In fact, I encourage it. But I don't think everyone else must subsidize their activity.

<comment><USER4> > I have no problem with a group of people freely getting together and > wreaking havoc on the American political system. In fact, I encourage it. > But I don't think everyone else must subsidize their activity

So, what are your opinions on mandatory union dues, and on whether recipients of government assistance should be allowed to vote?

<comment><USER3> How are the union dues made mandatory? That's important. And, if there is government involvement in that, is there also some regulation involving how unions are expected to behave? Also important.

I don't have a problem with recipients of government assistance giving up their right to vote _in principal_ , although America would cease to be a democracy at that point. However I don't think the likely outcome (disenfranchisement of the poor, eventual oppression without any means of placation of said poor, probable rebellion) would be good for society, so I don't think we should do it.

Keep in mind, I'm not saying "corporations receive special treatment and so shouldn't be allowed to contribute to political campaigns". I'm saying "corporations receive special treatment, and I have no problem with putting stipulations on that". All I'm arguing against here is the meme that a corporation is "just a group of people". It is not.

<comment><USER5> If you've ever worked in a union shop in a state that isn't right to work, you have no say in the matter of union dues. If 50% + 1 vote to enact a union you're required to pay the dues.This is of course different in right to work states where you can have so called split shops.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Unsurprising verdict.

However the judge's reasoning is very weak.

I frequently drive in the carpool with one or more children who cannot drive in the car. By the judge's reasoning, this should not be allowed because our driving together does nothing to relieve congestion. Why not? Because I'm the only person present who is legally allowed to drive, so we'd be in one car regardless of the availability of the carpool lane.

If this was indeed the reasoning, I hope that this argument is made in the appeal.

<comment><USER7> Actually, insofar as the goal is to reduce cars on the road, it seems entirely sensible to me to exclude children -- or anyone without a drivers license -- from counting towards the passenger threshold.

I'd be all for having to produce N valid licenses in the car to avoid the ticket, rather than N human bodies. (That also neatly sidesteps the issue of corporate personhood.)

<comment><USER8> Should Taxi's be allowed to drive in the Carpool lane with a single passenger? Here, we have a situation in which the _driver_ wouldn't normally be on the road.

<comment><USER9> Relying on a taxi DOES reduce congestion: think about it, I could have chosen to rent a car at the airport and drive for my entire trip, but instead, I took a taxi to my hotel and walked/used transit a lot. Or...I could have bought a car, use that a lot, but instead I decide I only need such a luxury infrequently, and decide to rely on taxis occasionally.

Regardless, I live in a heavy taxi city and there is no such thing as a carpool lane (nor would it be very useful since most cars would have at least 2 passengers).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The law has distinguished between Persons (which can include corporations) and Natural Persons (which does not) since corporations were invented. The latter is even a term of art in the law. Though I haven't researched it, it's probably even mentioned specifically in the California Vehicle Code.

The judge was probably just too busy and irritated by this complete waste of his time to even remember.

<comment><USER11> Wonder where autonomous cars will fit in.

<comment><USER8> DIVISION 16.6. AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES ...

38750\. (a) (4) An "operator" of an autonomous vehicle is the person who is seated in the driver's seat, or if there is no person in the driver's seat, causes the autonomous technology to engage.

...

38750 (c) (1) (G) The autonomous vehicle has a separate mechanism, in addition to, and separate from, any other mechanism required by law, to capture and store the autonomous technology sensor data for at least 30 seconds before a collision occurs between the autonomous vehicle and another vehicle, object, or _natural person_ while the vehicle is operating in autonomous mode.

<comment><USER12> So if I remotely summon an autonomous car to pick up a kid from school, the carpool lane is legal while the car has only the kid?

<comment><USER8> Note that the above defines an _operator_ , and regardless, in your scenario, you aren't in the vehicle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> A corporation is not a physical thing embodied in a stack of papers. This guy is an uninformed crank.

</comment><comment><USER14> How does the carpool lane relieve traffic congestion? If people could actually use that lane instead of it being some kind of elitist lane (which is what it feels like, I drive it in all the time (family)), traffic would be better.

The times traffic IS bad the damn carpool lane is just as backed up as the other lanes. And then there's the whole problem of needing to get off the lane, which you can't always do (you can only get off at specific spots), and then you're swerving across 4+ lanes of traffic causing a classic 'shockwave' problem.

<comment><USER15> It tries to relieve congestion by reducing the number of cars on the road, not by improving road capacity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This whole case has been ridiculous from the start. It was pretty obvious from the start that this case wasn't going to end in the defendants favour, I honestly don't know why this guy has decided to waste the courts time with this. A stack of papers is not a corporation, the corporation itself might own the papers but paper does not encompass an entity. It's a carpool lane violation, not murder why can't this guy just cop it on the chin and pay the fine? It's going to cost him a lot of money in legal fees if he appeals this.

If this guy wants to waste money so easily, the least he could do is perhaps consider donating some money to a charity. If he wants to throw his money away, at least he'd be helping people.

<comment><USER17> Huh? He did it intentionally to waste time and apparently has money to spare on the fight. Either way, there is now legal precedent at odds with the concept of corporate personhood. Presumably he wants this concept to go away and is now one step closer.

<comment><USER16> Such a shame when people don't put their time and effort towards things that matter. Like you know, helping people and making a difference. I am doubtful he'll achieve anything, but I guess that remains to be seen. He's so far failed once, I guess he can keep appealing and hope something happens.

<comment><USER18> You're misunderstanding both the issue and the motivations of the person.

This person is not trying to avoid a ticket for riding alone in the carpool lane. He does _not_ want to avoid that ticket. If he avoids the ticket because a judge accepts his logic and agrees that corporations are people, he has failed.

This person is trying to demonstrate that corporations are not in fact people by use of an absurdity, and probably intends to take the case as high in the judicial system as he can. He wants to get the judiciary to rule that no, corporations aren't people because he disagrees with the recent Citizens United ruling, which found that corporations _were_ people, and therefore had free speech rights and therefore could make practically unlimited contributions to PACs.

It's not my personal politics, but some people believe trying to reduce the influence of corporate money in politics would help a lot of people and make a huge difference. This guy is not at all the time-wasting weasel you think he is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> What about pregnant moms?

<comment><USER6> According to the California Highway Patrol, they cannot use the carpool: <http://www.chp.ca.gov/html/answers.html>

Arizona precedent follows the exact same lines as that FAQ answer: <http://www.loweringthebar.net/2006/01/woman_womans_fe.html>

I therefore expected the same reasoning to apply here. But the article doesn't say that the judge followed that line of reasoning. Which surprised me.

<comment><USER19> From this I learned that a corporation, in US, is "capable of riding in his or her own seat" :)</comment></comment></comment>


Sprint wants to kill bloatware forever - <AUTHOR> http://androidandme.com/2011/06/news/sprint-wants-to-kill-bloatware-forever-and-we-love-them-for-that/

<comment><USER2> The title is worded too strongly. According to the article, Sprint will let you uninstall bloatware from your Android device.

It doesn't say that they won't install it in the first place, and it doesn't say that they will let you uninstall it from non-Android devices.

I still think it's great, but let's not overstate it.

<comment><USER3> I don't have a problem with them shoving crap on my phone as long as I can remove it easily.

<comment><USER4> I still care, but would be nice to not have them take up ram/phone space/etc. I really don't want the sprint nascar app. Really don't.

Combined with HTC's policy of unlocked bootloader by default, this will be the most open system for android available (next to Nexus phones)!!!! I am excited.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Isn't that always the theme? The little guy starts losing market share so he has to disrupt the Status Quo in order to attract new customers. Between this, Google Voice integration and better pricing, Sprint is looking to be an appealing option going forward. Now if only their service didn't suck in my house.

<comment><USER6> Capitalism at work. Competition drives innovation (or in this case doing the thing everybody's been telling cell phone providers to do for a few years now). Sprint may just be my next phone (in 2013).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Could it be they have installed so much B.S. on user's phones through partner business deals, that they had to do something?

Pushing this space management task onto the user is easier than prioritizing business deals, getting out of contracts, and removing old (cr)apps.

I can't wait, so I can get NASCAR, Blockbuster, and other Sprint HTC Evo crap out of my menu.

</comment><comment><USER8> I didn't see anything here that implies it will be retroactive. I wonder if that means people with me who have the 1st gen Evo are stuck with nascar and other such nonsense.</comment>


A Polish postman helped solve the enigma code - <AUTHOR> https://threader.app/thread/1123840010711707651 <comment><USER2> They usually don't say that the Germans had cracked all the Allied ciphers, too. The only saving grace was that different agencies had cracked different codes, and none of them trusted the others, so nobody had the full picture.

Results of Enigma cracks were sent by one-time pad to keep them from knowing it had been cracked. I had a cousin whose job was to cobble up reasons for the Allies to know things they got from Enigma -- send a spotter plane to be seen by the tank column on its way to an ambush, that sort of thing.

<comment><USER3> >cracked all the Allied ciphers

An interesting unbreakable voice encryption that the Allies used was SIGSALY: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIGSALY](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIGSALY)

It was unbreakable because it was essentially the same idea as a fully random one-time pad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> "Enigma" is usually capitalized so you know it's talking about a crypto machine and not just a mystery.

The Poles really did an astonishing amount of phenomenally bad-ass work to crack Enigma long before any Brits really knew what it was, but all we hear about are Brits. They even designed the bombes. It's about time we got to learn names of Poles.

<comment><USER4> It looks like that the core team included: Marian Rejewski, Henryk Zygalski ,Jerzy Różycki. These were the most talented students from prof. Zdzisława Krygowski from UaM [https://amu.edu.pl/](https://amu.edu.pl/) which is a university located in Poznan.</comment></comment>


Space-vim is not spacevim – a new vim distribution - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/liuchengxu/space-vim <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, guys. Space-vim is just another vim ditribution, which is inspired by spacemacs.

You may ask since we have a spacevim([https://github.com/ctjhoa/spacevim](https://github.com/ctjhoa/spacevim)) already, why I bother to develop space-vim? Although spacevim is a great work, I think space-vim is more elegant, not only the extensibility but user- friendly. It imitates spacemacs in a high level. Personally, space-vim is more beautiful due to a new colorscheme derived from spacemacs-dark theme!

For now, If you are interested in space-vim, there is only a very breif introdution for English users, sorry for that.</comment>