Why the World Is Obsessed with Midcentury Modern Design - <AUTHOR> http://curbed.com/archives/2015/04/08/why-everyone-is-obsessed-with-midcentury-modern-design.php

<comment><USER2> Rather than "mid-century", it's actually high modernism. Subsequent so-called "modernism" ads needless, structually questionable adornment and archaic features.

Similarly, high modernist poetry peaked in the 1940s and 1950s. Since then we've had some good poetry but nothing that attempts to meld form and function in the same way that modernist poets like Eliot and Stein were able to.

IOW there is nothing dated about it -- which is why we still love it. Until furniture starts being made out of more space-age fabrics (or perhaps poetry out of emoji) it's unlikely that modernity will have much more to offer to furniture design or poetry...

Postmodernism is the realization that modern ideals have been met and that some objective other than design and functionality can become the focal point. Often, ironically, it's nostalgia of some kind.

There is nothing nostalgic about choosing modern designs. They simply optimize form and function with current materials and technology. That materials and tech for furniture have plateaued is a separate issue. Largely, the innovations have been in production, distribution, and manufacturing. Someone is far more likely today to live in a space adorned by modern designs mass- produced by Ikea or Target.

On a separate note I just discovered startup furniture company "Joybird". Pretty nice stuff, mostly so-called 'mid-century modern'.

<comment><USER3> "IOW there is nothing dated about it"

I'm surprised someone thinks this. To me most of it looks obviously dated, and very much a spindly and kitschy consumer product of Cold War suburbia.

It has very little of the purity of real modernism:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_furniture](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_furniture)

As for Stein - not everyone was impressed by her contribution:

[http://www.romanianculture.org/downloads/testimony_against_g...](http://www.romanianculture.org/downloads/testimony_against_g_stein.pdf)

<comment><USER2> > I'm surprised someone thinks this. To me most of it looks obviously dated.

I think this is mostly in the eye of the beholder. Is there really much difference in the use of materials and form/function? I'd argue it's a minor aesthetic difference.

Also, I'd also argue that a chair like this is postmodern in the same way as designing a server case out of wood would be: Nostalgia for wood and desire for modern structure, where other materials would do a far better job.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eames_Lounge_Chair_Wood#/media/...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eames_Lounge_Chair_Wood#/media/File:Eames_Wood_Chair.jpg)

<comment><USER4> Wood is in no way nostalgic.

It's very practical, relatively cheap, reasonably strong, easy to process, and easy to recycle. For instance, IKEA which is well-known for its expressly inexpensive and minimalist furniture offers a lot of wooden furniture, kids toys, etc.

Also, every day I take a few NYC subway trains. Each car has its electric power collector mounted on a wooden plank. This is probably done because of practical reasons (wood is cheap, strong, and is a good electric insulator), not nostalgic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I find this style wholly garish. Thank you for giving me the vocabulary to describe it.

Mid-century modernism is whimsical, busy, distracting. More than anything, it belongs to our grandparent's generation; it's an admission that we didn't reach the sought after future of robots and space travel.

I would take sleek lines and monochromatic shades over this any day. This is just my personal opinion, of course. I'm very cognizant of the fact that many people appreciate this style and find my own to be bland and drab.

<comment><USER6> > _it 's an admission that we didn't reach the sought after future of robots > and space travel._

Sought after by whom?

It's not something people particularly want (heck, most people don't even care for sci-fi enough to have a couple TV channels and quality Hollywood genre movies made)...

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I would like to congratulate curbed.com for finding a new level of annoyingness in ads. They have a sound ad that does not have a corresponding video window (at least i could not find any) where you can kill the sound or pause the whole thing. So while I am reading the article I get to hear the same inane chatter about barbecuing every couple of minutes. Thanks so much!

<comment><USER8> That's easy. All computers have a mute button.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think, the reason why it is enduringly popular is that the designs are not just aesthetic, they are also intertwined with developments in technology, industry and the economy. 'Modern' design is essentially 'throw out all previous ideas, start with a blank piece of paper, and remake things using modern industrial methods and materials'. That isn't just a design or a fashion, it is the embracing of a new reality.

</comment><comment><USER10> Eames, one of the most important pioneers of the mid-century modern design had a great motto: "The best for the most for the least." It was aimed merging great design with mass production so the everyday man could have affordably priced, well designed furniture. Not sure what happened, but these items are now priced for the wealthy.

<comment><USER11> I'd have to check but I bet, in real terms, those wanes chairs are around the same price as they were, adjusted for inflation. What has happened is the production of even cheaper mass produced furniture. What you're not looking at is the extinct hand made, ornate expensive furniture from the decades prior. Things that would be, if sold now, even more pricey than an eames chair.

Properly cared for, one of those chairs will last a lifetime. That cannot be applied to cheaper furniture.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wonder why so many people love midcentury design. It's uncomfortable, angular, fragile, cold, expensive, inhuman...you name it. Perhaps the items are just social vectors into the design world, conferring a status of "social elite" onto its participants. Any thoughts?

<comment><USER13> I'm a huge minimalist, and there's basically nothing else that embraces the minimal aesthetic. I paid a lot of money (as a college kid) for a pair of dressers that were made by Komfort and are very similar to this dresser: [http://www.ebay.com/itm/Danish-Modern-Teak-Bedroom- Dresser-b...](http://www.ebay.com/itm/Danish-Modern-Teak-Bedroom-Dresser-by- Komfort-Bedroom-MCM-Eames-Credenza-/381221507439)

As a programmer and a reductionist it's very appealing to me. It's about as simple as it can be with no extraneous ornamentation. The drawer pulls don't stick out, and the glides are hidden too.

For some reason this really, really resonates with me in the same way that Maxwell's equations are incredibly elegant or a Fourier transform explains so much of the world in such a compact way.

At risk of sounding like a hipster, I liked "midcentury modern" before Mad Men was cool. I think that my brain has worked the way it does for quite a while. I'm predisposed to liking midcentury stuff because I'm always trying to find the most compact, minimal form. In my mind the whole mapper/packer article that made the rounds a while ago helps explain it; I'm always looking for a more compact truth and that's bled over into the way I look at the physical world too.

[http://the-programmers-stone.com/the-original-talks/day-1-th...](http://the- programmers-stone.com/the-original-talks/day-1-thinking-about-thinking/)

<comment><USER14> That dresser might be somewhat minimalist (curved bevel on the drawer faces, going by the photo), but a lot of MCM isn't to my eye. It's angled legs and curved tables and spindly frames that complicate the look IMO. There's a lot of contemporary furniture that I consider far closer to a minimal aesthetic.

<comment><USER15> Some of the more revered MCM is not exactly minimalist - like maybe the Brasilia line, but I'd say that most of it is, at least more than average furniture. Consider this generic MCM styled dresser which I randomly found on Google:

[http://scene7.targetimg1.com/is/image/Target/17214249_Alt01?...](http://scene7.targetimg1.com/is/image/Target/17214249_Alt01?wid=480&hei=480)

It's basically a box frame on a pedestal. That's a pretty classically styled MCM dresser design, and it doesn't get much more minimalist than that: a box set on legs. But outside of the MCM era, that pure of a design was nowhere to be seen for the prior decades. In a typical house right now you're much more likely to find something like this (random from Google):

[http://homesteadfurnitureonline.com/images/Dressers/master-d...](http://homesteadfurnitureonline.com/images/Dressers/master- dresser-lg.jpg)

A mishmash of design elements from various periods. To me, the average MCM piece is more minimalist.

<comment><USER14> I think my minimalist is probably too simple - my reaction to your first example is that if the legs weren't tapered or there wasn't that inset lower base, or the legs were removed or it had inset rather than jutting handles - then that would be minimal.

But Google images suggests minimal is pretty loose! I guess it's relative.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I would like to see the design world move on from modernism. It tends towards the spare and geometric, and frequently divorced from the general concerns and oriented towards the artistic aspirations of the designer.

As a simple example, consider the the 'flat' stylings. In a number of cases in my experience, the flat style made it harder to use the program. That is aggravating - it was art change for the sake of art change, adhering to the tired old modernist ideas.

It's quite worth reading this debate: [http://www.katarxis3.com/Alexander_Eisenman_Debate.htm](http://www.katarxis3.com/Alexander_Eisenman_Debate.htm)

And I find I am wholly on Alexander's kind of side.

</comment><comment><USER17> Did anyone hang in there long enough to get to the "Why?"

<comment><USER9> Tl;dr timeless design and familiarity.

<comment><USER18> Also that they were made for a certain kind of living, and we still generally live in the same kind of places.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "The World"?

Is it just me, or is it largely a US thing? I mostly see it from US sources, but that could easily be selection bias...

Anyone any insights?

<comment><USER20> Perhaps one thing about the US is that we were in the right place at the right time to experience a residential building boom just when MCM was the thing.

Disclaimer: I live in one of those houses, and enjoy the aesthetic. I've even carefully maintained the Nelson bubble lamps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The article completely failed on the "why". It focused almost entirely on the "what".

So why? First, the post-WWII era was a tremendously successful one. The world was forward-looking and optimistic. Then, our pop culture was looking to a peaceful, hi-tech future in space. What are we looking at in pop culture today? Zombie apocalypse.

It was also the last strongly defined aesthetic. After its rococo climax in late 1960s psychedelia, art lost direction. The gloom and negativity of the 1970s didn't find much shape in any art form but cinema, and ultimately the Sex Pistols came along in 1977, pronounced modernism dead, and kicked its corpse.

After punk, the world of high art aesthetics turned to postmodernism, reassembling bits and bobs of history and multiculturalism into a shape that reflected the past, not the future. Then the Internet came along, and design focus shifted to the web. Out in the physical world, postmodernism degenerated into mere hipsterdom.

I'm kind of hoping that hipsters are to postmodernism what psychedelia was to modernism, and a new, popular aesthetic can rise - something that recognizes the constraints and strengths of the 21st century. A lot of new art styles come from new technologies, so maybe 3D printing will lead us somewhere magical. One can only hope.

</comment><comment><USER22> _" Some midcentury furniture designs, like the iconic Eames Lounge Chair, never went out of production, but many others had fallen out of production by the mid 90s."_

A startup founder I worked with in the 90's filled the office with Charles Eames chairs and tables. A bit sparse but functional. The pieces were not that expensive, more expensive than say IKEA, this was a legal startup.

</comment><comment><USER23> Trends come and go, this is a fruitless thing to worry about. Stick to what works for you, don't worry about things that don't and eventually the stars will align.

</comment><comment><USER24> A lot of this can be explained by China.

They are kind of in their 1960's in some ways.

And China is where most of this stuff is made, so ...

<comment><USER25> Actually, the higher end mid-century furniture makers are pretty committed to US manufacturing. In particular, Herman Miller manufactures in Michigan and furniture from places like Room & Board are mostly sourced from Virginia, North Carolina and other traditional woodworking areas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> The term "midcentury" does not seem appropriate anymore. Y2K.

<comment><USER5> I wasn't born in that era, yet I am immediately conscious of the style being described. I think this is owed to both the cultural preservation afforded by film and photography as well as the nostalgia of the previous generation (there are undoubtably a disproportionate number of films set during this period).

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> The barcelona chair is a classic furniture from the bauhaus period designed in 1929, which is not even close to the "midcentury" period defined in the article.

</comment><comment><USER28> ".php" Hadn't seen one of those in a while.

</comment><comment><USER29> Isn't this entirely off-topic for HN?

<comment><USER30> Why does it matter? If it makes it to the front page, isn't it _de facto_ on topic?</comment></comment>


Canadian Startup Lands in Y Combinator Winter 2013 Cohort - <AUTHOR> http://www.techvibes.com/blog/canadian-startup-y-combinator-winter-2013-cohort-2013-01-10

<comment><USER2> Gesture control without a camera. Does it involve hacking a theramin? From the Wikipedia article:

      It is named after the westernized-name of its Russian
      inventor, Léon Theremin, who patented the device in 1928.
      The controlling section usually consists of two metal
      antennas which sense the position of the player's hands
      and control oscillators for frequency with one hand, and
      amplitude (volume) with the other, so it can be played
      without being touched.

<comment><USER3> I supposed it's based on sounds. There were a few videos out demonstrating this kind of technology.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is (at least) the 3rd Velocity startup; BufferBox (S12) recently exited to Google (not a talent acquisition from reliable sources) and Pebble (W11) just announced general production yesterday. Congrats to Thalmic, you're in good company!

<comment><USER5> It's actually quite a bit more than that. Streak, PagerDuty, and some others.

Velocity -> YC seems to be a great pipeline!

<comment><USER4> I didn't know you were behind Streak! Very cool. I know PagerDuty are UW alum but were they involved with Velocity as well?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As a UW Elec 08 alumni, it's fantastic to see fellow alumni following through on their ideas. Moreover, this is yet another win for UW VeloCity, since it's yet another startup that has made it into YC. I can't wait until I get myself into the Garage.

Kudos to the team!

</comment><comment><USER7> This is great for the Greater Toronto Area in general. I can hardly wait until I return to Toronto from the Bay Area to try and bring back some of this startup culture.

There are a lot of bright people in the GTA that are lacking the motivation or are unaware of what steps they need to take in actually getting a startup moving off the ground.

YC W13 seems like it was difficult to get into. Congratulations to the team!

</comment><comment><USER8> Two thirds of this article including the first 3 paragraphs are about something else.

Why would you waste your time on a journalist who thinks your startup is the least interesting part of your startup? Even AOL gives better treatment than that.

</comment><comment><USER9> Sounds interesting. I'm really interested in the YC W13 startups -- if there are half as many, maybe twice as good? And maybe a leading indicator of other startup trends (b2b vs. b2c split, which technologies, etc.)

</comment><comment><USER10> Awesome news! As someone from around the area and actively involved within startup and development community in the GTA area. This is great news! :)

</comment><comment><USER11> Congrats guys! As a 2010 UW Mechatronics grad it is always awesome to read about someone from the program doing something amazing!

</comment><comment><USER12> "Thalmic is being stealthy about what their [sic] working on but in short"

really? :(</comment>


Where will 3-D cameras like Kinect lead? - <AUTHOR> http://ideas.4brad.com/where-will-3-d-cameras-kinect-lead <comment><USER2> A professor of mine once gave a pretty compelling argument for why we are still a long way from using pictures in ATM security.

Imagine you have an ATM account, you fall down and cut your face, maybe break your nose.

Now you need to withdraw money for some reason. You are locked out. Now lets also say that you know someone high up that made the decision to buy these ATM machines. You tell them that you are locked out, and he's going to start wondering why he put these new machines in place.

We'll probably get there eventually, but I think we are far from that point right now.

</comment><comment><USER3> There are so many other ways to use 3D cameras than gesture based interfaces. It doesn't have to cost a fortune either to develop new products for it.

</comment><comment><USER4> Hehe. We'll be able to drive our cars... remotely! Not that it serves a point!

</comment><comment><USER5> Microsoft gets a better overview of your home ;-)

</comment><comment><USER6> Automate pro sports officiating, with hundreds of independent centimeter- resolution 3D viewpoints giving instant and precise judgements on bounds, contact, and motion issues.

For fast-moving sports like basketball, this would introduce new possibilities for tallying up net fouls realtime without a whistle constantly stopping play — somewhat like hockey's concept of delayed penalties.

<comment><USER7> For every sport except soccer, I presume. The FIFA is heavily against computer-aided officiating.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> variable flight path bullets.</comment>


Ask HN: How to Build for the Next Billion Users? - <AUTHOR> Given that the next billion internet users will majorly come from places with strong views on culture like Africa (1.2b) & India (1.3b); what will need to be prioritized when designing and building products for these people? <comment><USER2> As a former android developer in India who asks how to serve the masses, the primary concern comes in functionality followed by design.

I will be speaking from the perspective of India.

Here, the vast majority of the rural users do not have great smartphones. With the recent release of Jio, internet speeds have improved. Still wouldn't call it great, but it is good.

Some of the most important functionality decisions that we make is offline support. We always assume that the network will not be consistent. Google Maps allows certain map locations to be saved offline. If memory serves, this was a feature that was aimed at the developing world but found great uses everywhere. Especially when hiking in locations with poor cellular connectivity.

Our apps are primarily in English. Having the ability to view the same content in the regional language is an added bonus. At the same time, we don't expect everyone who uses the app to be familiar with all the icons that are used.

The size of the application is just as important. Before the launch of Jio, data usage was capped. Back in 2012-ish(when I got my first android phone), I was using a 3G data plan which gave 130MB for 14 days. So we aim to reduce the size of the application.

Coming to design. For first time mobile and internet users, we aim to reduce the number of clicks or taps. This is just good design in my opinion.

A short tutorial goes a long way in providing a good experience.

The following blogs do a much better job in explaining app design for the next billion.

[https://developers.google.com/web/billions/](https://developers.google.com/web/billions/)

[https://blog.socialcops.com/engineering/android- development-...](https://blog.socialcops.com/engineering/android-development- guide-rural-world/)</comment>


Indian outsourcing is killing IT - <AUTHOR> http://arsenalist.com/2007/08/14/outsourcing-is-killing-it/

<comment><USER2> _"... Here's an exercise: try posting an ad for a development project on Craiglist and ask for a quote. What you'll end up getting is tin-canned emails ... Then follow up with a random one and actually talk to their "Project Manager" and you'll notice that the email was just a bunch of bullshit and you're dealing with a two-man operation run out of a basement on a Pentium II. ..."_

Lone hacker & founder in basement working on startup: _'Damn, he's on to us. That is praise, isn't it?'_

I like this quote. Why? because it underpins the mentality of some people who think that having _more programmers_ is better, _flashier hardware_ solves all your performance problems and those blasted pesky upstarts are taking our work.

I bet similiar stories floated around mechanical & electrical engineering circles during the 50's with those wiley _Japanese_ or in the 70's & 80's with the Taiwanese and electronics. Like it or not the Indians, the Bulgarians and countless other non-first world countries are going to harness the collective brain power, practice their commercial skills and improve their lot. In years to come a lot of the places mentioned _"may have"_ the same success as past newcomers to the tech world.

Instead my scorn goes to the companies who _"outsource"_ their competitive edge for the quick dollar return to owners, shareholders or simply adopting the latest business fad. Not realising anything that has software (car, microwave, etc) now means they are in the software business. Or worse, no understanding of the work they really do.

_"... And yes, I'm an Indian ..."_

Is not a justification to be inherently racist.

</comment><comment><USER3> Sadly, from my experience, all the points the author complains about isn't limited to Indian programmers but any random set of programmers.

</comment><comment><USER4> The programmers below, are white American - so what does that say?

see <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36900></comment>


Apple Clarifies iBooks Author EULA, Excludes Claim on Content - <AUTHOR> http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/apple_clarifies_ibooks_author_eula_excludes_claim_on_content/ <comment><USER3> Odd article title. They never made a claim on content. This version of the EULA is more clearly written, but the previous was sufficient.

<comment><USER4> I don't see what's odd about the article title. It says they clarified the EULA. People misread the original as if it made a claim on content, so the new EULA clarifies that this is not the case.

<comment><USER5> The "Excludes Claim on Content" part of the title implies that there was a claim on content before...

<comment><USER4> It implies that an exclusion wasn't present before, which is true. The EULA previously did not include a claim on content, but people were misreading it that way. So, as a point of clarification, they changed it to explicitly exclude a claim on content.

I see how you are reading "excludes a claim on content" as meaning a claim on content was removed. But what it actually means is that an exclusion of a claim on content was added.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The bigger question in my mind is: Why use the Apple authoring tool in the first place?

Writing a book is a lot of work. It is a huge investment in time and money. I would think that it would be far smarter to author it using a tool that allows output in a myriad of formats. And, yes, one of those formats could be ibook, but not the only one.

<comment><USER7> Sure, if you want static content on multiple platforms. But the iBooks Author tool enables interactive content that no other platform provides.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> So if someone built an .ibooks to epub converter, that would be fine? It sounds like it from the language they use... all they care about is that .ibooks can only be sold through their store.

<comment><USER9> From Section 2.B.ii - " this restriction will not apply to the content of the work when distributed in a form that does not include files in the .ibooks format generated using iBooks Author. "

So This restriction not apply to anything distributed in a form that does not include files in the ibooks format. Given that .epub is not the .ibooks format, you are correct.

More interesting, is the caveat, "generated using the iBooks Author" - <USER2> this means is that .ibooks generated with other authors can be sold in places other than the Apple Store. Start your timer as to how soon we'll see other authoring tools for .ibook format (with the target market being the book publishers, who will be able to bypass the apple book store)

Most interesting scenario of all:

      o Generate .iBook using iBooks author.
      o Convert to .epub  using an epub converter.
      o Convert back to .ibooks using a third party tool (and, theoretically,
        adding back in the custom .ibook elements)

The end result is _not_ generated using the ibooks author, and is also not subject to the iBookStore restrictions.

<comment><USER8> This seems unlikely. iBooks is not a thriving market right now, and Apple is trying to make it one by creating cool tools for making better content (iBooks Author). There are already people working on creating competing authoring tools, but their stated goal is to publish to a more standards-oriented format like .epub, not to generate .ibook files that can be sold outside the iBookstore.

A tool that can publish the same content to .ibook and .epub would be useful, but not because there is a market for .ibook files outside of Apple's. What's the point of that? Theoretically .epub can do everything .ibook can do:

> So I've yet to see anything in here which couldn't be output nicely using > ePub3. - [http://alanquatermain.me/post/16179111286/ibooks-author- > vs-e...](http://alanquatermain.me/post/16179111286/ibooks-author-vs-epub- > author)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Instagram hashtags down/seriously delayed? - q-base It might be only me, but it seems as though all hashtags are 4-5 hours "delayed". I do photography and if I see some of the popular hashtags as for instance #500px the most recent one is from 4-5 hours ago. All hashtags I look at seem to have this, which surely can't be right. Is it only me seeing this? <comment><AUTHOR> Glad someone posted about this. I feel the same. Feels very weird for your insta post to not have a single like.

<comment> q-base Then it is not only me having the issue at least. But yeah I think your posts only reaches your followers, not people based on hashtags.</comment></comment>


Good Splash Page Conversion Rates - <AUTHOR>

I put up a splash page and started a Facebook ad campaign to test an idea and collect email addresses of those who are interested in the product. What is a good conversion rate on click throughs to emails? If 100 people click on the FB ad should I expect 1%, 10%, 20% of people to give their email address? What number justifies moving from concept to code? <comment><USER2> Depends how good and how well targeted your Facebook campaign is. I mean, if you have an incredibly niche product, and you target everyone on Facebook in that niche your click/conversion for more info will be much higher than a blanket Facebook campaign targeting everyone.

That said, I'd probably be happy with a .2-.3% CTR on most of my FB ads.

As to how well your lander will convert depends on how well you make it (and again, who you target).

As to whether something is worth making - I can't really help you there.

</comment><comment><USER3> The number that justifies moving from concept to code is going to be based on your revenue model, not your Conversion Rate. There are two key numbers you want to look at: CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) and LTV (Lifetime Value of each customer.)

In other words: what does it cost you to get 100 customers? How much do you earn from 100 customers? Conversion rate is one factor, but not the only one.</comment>


iHeartMedia laid off hundreds of DJs. Executives blame AI. DJs blame executives - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/01/31/iheartmedia-radio-artificial-intelligence-djs/ <comment><USER2> From the linked article:

> "Consumers listen to the radio because the voice on the other side sounds > like a friend,"

While that may be true for some, for myself, I quit listening to broadcast radio _because_ of the DJ infestation. Listening to the DJ talk for 26 minutes of every hour, with 30 minutes of commercials interspersed, to then play one song in the remaining 4 minutes, was just not what I was interested in.

Now, my phone provides a DJ free, commercial uninterrupted, continuous playlist, and broadcast radio simply will never again regain my attention.</comment>


Dear Mark Zuckerberg - <AUTHOR> http://daltoncaldwell.com/dear-mark-zuckerberg <comment><USER2> I don't understand what you think Facebook did wrong.

They intend to enter this new space, using their technology and their people.

As a courtesy they offered to hire you / throw a lot of money at you.

What would you have had them do instead?

Not compete with you, because you're a precious snow flake?

Acquire you and treat you like a prima donna, giving you your own team and allowing you to take your own technical direction?

Why should Facebook - or any competitor - do either of these things?

Seems to me like they acted pretty reasonably here.

Of all the things you said, this struck me as the weirdest:

> Strangely, your "platform developer relations" executive made no attempt to > defend my position.

What do you think the purpose of the "platform developer relations" executive is? To advocate AGAINST Facebook and for random outside developers?

I'm not a fan of the Facebook app (not a member) or the company...but in this case, the firm seems to be acting 100% reasonably.

<comment><USER3> I think his issue was that the meeting was in bad faith. He was under the impression that he would be demoing his technology so it could get visibility within Facebook, not walking into a negotiation.

If they had been upfront about their intentions with the meeting, he probably would have never gone.

      What do you think the purpose of the "platform developer relations" executive is?
      To advocate AGAINST Facebook and for random outside developers?

Actually, yes. Usually that is what someone in that position does. They are the advocate for the customer, to help the company see things from the customer's point of view.

<comment><USER4> > If they had been upfront about their intentions with the meeting, he > probably would have never gone.

I don't understand why this is a big issue. What was the cost to him in going to this meeting? It would hardly have changed the outcome (outcome: he declines their offer and they build a service which clobbers his.)

<comment><USER3> His time is presumably valuable to him. The cost was his time. Time he could have spent building his product.

<comment><USER5> Time, sure, but also I think that instead of the exec-level support he wanted he instead got the impending doom that either:

a) Facebook will knock on his door again at a later date asking to "acqu- hire".

b) Facebook will eventually release something in-house that will compete with his app (and most likely win due to Facebook's large momentum).

With the impending doom stuff aside, I still don't think that he should've expected getting exec-level support for his product walking in to the meeting. Facebook doesn't _need_ to give him anything. So yeah, he wasted his time, but that's _his_ problem, not Facebook's.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Rather than get involved with all of these threads, I'd like to clarify something.

I build a product that pre-dated App Center by several months. Facebook dev relations people tested it and actively encouraged me to build it. I was assured that it was considered "good" and "helpful" as an example of using Open Graph. At an earlier point I was offered marketing help from Facebook for my launch.

I am not clear why some folks don't see the issue with building something that is _encouraged_ by employees of a company, and then, in the matter of months, being told "never mind". That is not good for an ecosystem.

<comment><USER7> I agree with many of the comments in this thread about how an acquisition offer isn't a bad alternative to just getting ran over by the platform.

However, I can see your point. They should not have encouraged you to build it on your own if they were going to build it themselves. This seems like a lose- lose for both parties.

I've heard a lot of talk on how teams within facebook can work without much centralized oversight and this might be one of the drawbacks. Whoever you spoke to months ago might not have known that another team was working on it.

Then when they prep'ed for your meeting they found out someone had been working on it, felt guilty about leading you on months ago and offered a buy out.

It seems like a communication problem more than anything else.

disclosure: if it is not absolutely clear from my post, I'm speculating on events, I have no ability to gauge what really happened at facebook.

<comment><USER6> You are right, it could be a communications problem. There are a few details I left out of this post that would suggest it probably isn't.

I would _never_ have spent months and capital building this without constant support and encouragement from Facebook.

<comment><USER8> You should have used your Marc Andreessen connection to talk to the VP of Product instead of a Level 2 or 3 dev relations employee.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't get it. FB took an opportunity to make an acquisition offer (or at least open the dialog) and used some hard tactics (in this case the threat of direct competition) to improve their negotiating position.

What's the problem here? This is just business. Facebook has every right to develop that app, just like Dalton Caldwell did. If it makes sense for them to do it themselves, then they will. If it makes sense for them to buy an existing player, ditto. And if so, clearly they'd want to acquire that player at a good price, right?

I just don't see the ethical problem here. They didn't lie, and they offered a check (that it happens the OP didn't want).

<comment><USER10> The problem is that it's a bad faith negotiation.

Dalton was under the impression that he was going to be making a pitch for some higher level support from FB for his product. That does not automatically translate to wanting Facebook to hire him(which apparently was FB's intent).

Facebook's execs effectively ambushed Dalton during the pitch with an aquihire offer. That's where this turns into a bad faith negotiation, because he was not prepared for it, and would not have had the meeting in the first place if this was on the agenda.

<comment><USER9> That's an awfully liberal use of "bad faith". There wasn't any "negotiation" yet at all, it's just a meeting. Meetings go off-agenda all the time.

It seems to me just like you say, the extent of the harm to Dalton is that he "would not have had the meeting in the first place." So basically facebook wasted his afternoon by forcing him to listen to some competition threats and trying to hand him an offer letter.

Why should we care? I still don't see any ethics issues here at all. Hard negotiation isn't "bad faith".

<comment><USER10> >That's an awfully liberal use of "bad faith". There wasn't any "negotiation" yet at all, it's just a meeting. Meetings go off-agenda all the time.

>Why should we care? I still don't see any ethics issues here at all. Hard negotiation isn't "bad faith".

You're absolutely correct that hard negotiation tactics are not bad faith. However, like you point out, there wasn't supposed to be any negotiation about an offer in the first place.

There was no negotiation. In fact, one party(Dalton) did not come to negotiate. The other party clearly did.

This was not just a meeting going off agenda. This was a calculated strategy to hire Dalton, and that's why this is a bad faith negotiation. Dalton did not walk into it prepared to negotiate employment, nor was he pitching for his product to be acquired by Facebook. But Facebook was clearly interested in it.

To be clear, the bad faith negotiation is really on Dalton's part, because he was forced into the negotiations. The fault lies with Facebook, though.

<comment><USER11> > There was no negotiation. In fact, one party(Dalton) did not come to > negotiate. The other party clearly did.

Is it that clear? We weren't there.

Perhaps the Facebook executives listened to a presentation about his product for an hour, and realized during that time that the presented product was basically identical to their own intended product, so the last part of the meeting ended up revolving around "hey, looks we might compete with you - or, we might hire you if that interests you".

Maybe it didn't go like that. Maybe they stopped him after 1 slide and told him "your app competes with us. Let us buy you, or die."

Huge range in between those two. You and I (unless you are one of the people that was in that meeting) can't know where things fell.

<comment><USER12> I don't think you have been reading the source material closely. It wasn't the case they suddenly realized. They knew about his product. They had encouraged him to build it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> A lot of people seem to be missing Dalton's point. Dalton isn't complaining Mark's behavior is bad (in the short term). He knows why Mark did what he did, it makes sense if you are thinking short term. It makes sense if you think Facebook is worth 110 Billion.

This isn't a letter so much to convince Mark that he is heading down the wrong path. I think Dalton is convinced FB as an organization has made too many promises. It's too late for FB too change direction. They are headed for and iceberg at 110 billion dollar speed and can't course correct in time.

Rather this is a letter to us. Dalton is pointing out the prediction that Facebook won't be around in 10 years. So don't build your apps on it. If you build your apps using Facebook you will be at its mercy. And as Facebook starts to die, you will feel the pain it inflicts on its closest "partners" as it scrambles to squeeze blood from turnips. It will use every nasty trick in the book to keep a monopoly on its market and squeeze every last drop of money and value (your personal info) it can from users.

Dalton has seen what people who run a company, with a dying business model, are capable of before. The Record/Music companies... He knows what a company, that is seeing its monopoly slip through its fingers, is willing to do to keep that monopoly just a little longer.

Intimidation and dishonest negotiation tactics are just the start. Will we soon see Facebook suing users? Lobbying congress for SOPA like laws to protect its monopoly? Remember GoDaddy was a main supporter of SOPA. It saw SOPA as a way to keep its URL retailing monopoly.

Dalton is warning you. Dalton cares about you. He has given up on saving Mark. Mark wants to kill the goose that laid the golden egg. Dalton wants to raise the goose that lays the silver egg. And share those eggs with us. Well, that's my interpretation of this open letter to Mark. I could be wrong, I often am.

<comment><USER14> This pretty much nails the sentiment I took from the story. He isn't so much complaining or railing against Facebook, but kicking himself for being, in hindsight, so naive. Not that anyone could blame him for it though. I mean, it certainly made perfect sense at the time, in fact for most of us, it still appears to make a lot of sense which is precisely why he is putting out these words of caution.

The one line summary seems to be: Facebook and Twitter represent a closed model of social networking, which rails against the very nature of web and internet as a technology platform and it probably won't last.

Not saying if I agree or disagree with that statement and prediction, but I definitely see the argument.

<comment><USER12> Well said.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is one of the reasons why I hate open letters. They are almost always annoying.

This person is complaining because he didn't want to be acquired by Facebook but would like them to not compete with him. Oh well.

<comment><USER16> Wrong. He's angry because he didn't want to be acquired and didn't want to have his business shut down by Facebook turning off his access.

<comment><USER17> Nothing in the post suggests that Facebook threatened to turn off access.

<comment><USER18> They threatened this in a phone call, but he didn't record it so he didn't include it in the letter: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4325593>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> So you were building a service that competes with a service Facebook was working on, they offered to buy you out, you declined, and you're _angry about this_? I'm sorry, but that's absurd. Most companies would not have even thought about steamrolling you, forget about offering a check. Did you expect them to just decide not to pursue their App Store offering because ol' Dalton Caldwell wouldn't like it? That's fucking ridiculous.

It sucks that you were naïve about this, but that's hardly Facebook's fault.

<comment><USER8> This. Business is business. It's not the Dev Relations team that decides if an app on the platform is competitive. Just because they told him to it was 'cool' doesn't mean the execs think it's too competitive...

Moral: Make sure you're talking to the right people.

<comment><USER6> Um, yeah pretty sure I was talking to the right people. Marc Andreessen is on my board.

<comment><USER19> You wrote this post 40+ days after the meeting took place. That imply your timing is chosen for reasons you didn't disclose in the blog post. Hence you try to manipulate public while pursuing hidden agenda.

<comment><USER6> -> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4325762>

<comment><USER8> Yea? So what? You just happen to post it right after your post about creating an open feed platform -- right as the PR momentum behind it started dying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Let's be clear, the only purpose of this post is to bring attention to App.net. Calling Facebook 'rotten-to-the-core' isn't a great way to capture the sympathy of its CEO.

<comment><USER4> I agree. This post comes across as very self-serving. He attacks Facebook for not being something they never claimed to be, and then offers a competing product that fulfills that need. Gross.

<comment><USER12> That's not quite true tho is it? FB does offer something it represents as being a platform. And bear in mind that he didn't just blindly build a product assuming that he could trust the platform. He solicited and continually received assurances that his product would be welcomed and valued on the platform. It was only after he had invested time and money building it that the rules changed. And it was that experience that resulted in his conviction of the need for a competing product.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> To clarify for those confused comments here: app.net is in part a platform to showcase your app. Facebook's AppCenter is similar. If they were building an open platform, app.net could build into Facebook's AppCenter. Offering a aquihire and refusing to make an open platform is what Dalton doesn't like.

His critique is tied to his project at <http://join.app.net> because the reason the platform isn't open according to Dalton is because Facebook needs the ad revenue to hit its performance numbers.

<comment><USER17> _"Offering a aquihire and refusing to make an open platform is what Dalton doesn't like."_

Typically, when someone doesn't like an acquisition offer, they decline it. Is it wrong for Facebook to build a platform that isn't open? I don't see why Mark Zuckerberg (or the public, as the comments on this submission indicate) would read this letter and decide that his employees acted improperly, which the letter seems to expect.

<comment><USER22> Typically, when someone knows they will not accept any acquisition offers, they do not waste their time by going to meetings whose sole purpose is to discuss an acquisition. FB misled him into thinking it was a demo meeting.

<comment><USER17> That's not what this letter is about. Writing an open letter because someone wasted your time would seem a bit silly to me. This is about Facebook threatening to revoke API access, which the letter didn't mention, but his comments here have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> _Your team doesn't seem to understand that being "good negotiators" vs implying that you will destroy someone's business built on your "open platform" are not the same thing._

That's probably a true statement, but who the heck actually considers Facebook to be any sort of "open platform" in the first place? Honestly, how many times have we seen this lesson re-iterated here on HN in the past few months: It is _very_ dangerous to build a product that depends on a platform that someone else controls.

And this isn't a new lesson either... remember "DOS ain't done until Lotus won't run?" (And it doesn't _really_ matter if Microsoft were actually breaking Lotus on purpose or not... the risk was - and still is - there, and has to be accounted for).

</comment><comment><USER24> Don't build a house on a river and then blame the water.

There has never been a company-controlled ecosystem that has EVER thrived for long without the company swooping in to get that easy money.

In fact, now that Facebook is public, its their fiduciary duty to do just that. They could get sued if they DIDN'T try to cheaply build out their own versions of successful products.

The only surprise is that anyone is surprised by this, or thinks that Facebook has "lost their way", or had any other intentions when they started their platform. This is standard business practice - make a little ecosystem, let people futz around in it for a while. If it fails, shut it down; if it succeeds, go pick the low-hanging fruit.

<comment><USER25> I agree. It's risky to bet a company on someone else's platform, whether it be Facebook, Craigslist or someone else. You are at that company's mercy.

Even the most stable company can decide to pivot their strategy, change management (i.e., your cheerleader/sponsor retires, gets fired or worse), and at that point, you're just collateral damage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Why wait 1.5 months to make an open letter after a "June 13th, 2012 at 4:30pm" meeting? Did you try communicating directly with Facebook for 45 days, then let it go? What makes now the best time to incite public wrath against Facebook (I'm assuming that was the intent in resolving never to write another line of code for a "rotten to the core" company) in an open letter that was anything but conciliatory?

It sounds like Facebook used some hard-handed tactics, but I'm more curious as to your choice of timing.

Edit: not trying to be snarky, genuinely curious.

<comment><USER6> I have been waiting because I have been afraid.

I have been blogging extensively about platform-risk issues for the past month, but have never come out and said this part: <http://daltoncaldwell.com/>

<comment><USER12> Very understandable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> One thing I don't get, and I've started to feel really stupid for it, is this whole Social as Infrastructure meme that has started going around and that the author touches on. I'd love for someone to explain to me exactly what it would entail, why any company would move to become a commodity, and where the user value would be?

I'm not saying there aren't any really good answers to these questions, I'm just too thick to see it.

<comment><USER28> Imagine a world where everyone used a protocol to communicate. Lets call that protocol "English". Now, imagine "English" is owned by one company, who changes "English" and compromises your conversations consistently, and then tries to monetize your conversations in increasingly subtle and annoying ways.

Now in reality no one owns English. Its an open form of communication that anyone can use, anywhere. You can even create variants of it and use it with your friends as long as they understand your dialect.

"Social Infrastructure" would require a common social protocol as a specification. This would open up an entire ecosystem of smaller players to contribute to it, providing delicious synergy and innovation along the way. Kind of like modding Minecraft, etc.

Not every company wants to become a billion dollar start up. There are many IT service providers and MSPs that are perfectly comfortable servicing 30 clients and making a lifestyle business for everyone involved. If its a commodity, it opens up locality and niche markets easier than a monolithic implementation.

Nothing but good would come from a true technological social protocol. Right now online social behavior is dictated through the mind of one man, which isn't really social at all.

The user value is in that the users have all the power. If social service providers are a commodity, if they misbehave or provide a bad user experience they could simply take their social graph somewhere else. This empowers the user. This is also why Facebook does everything in its power to retain hegemony.

<comment><USER27> To counterpoint, haven't we been down that road before? XMPP, OpenSocial, etc. To be fair, it's market powers and network stickiness rather than abstract social or technical merit that have kept Facebook the incumbent.

And for someone to dethrone FB, an interoperable social bus would probably be a good idea. Of course, that would not what would bring users to it (digital empowerment seems too much an abstract idea to explain to my mom, for example), but rather a killer app or a series of them -- like Instagram.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> We are moving into an era of the walled garden. Apple has it's iTunes Store and Mac Store, Microsoft will have a Windows store when Windows 8 launches, FB has its platform and apps that run on its platform, Twitter, on and on... All companies are looking to build walls and moats around their "platforms" because walls mean profits.

Now you need to blessing of the landlord, and not be competing against them in any way.

<comment><USER30> Web 3.0 bubble expected around 2019 once the walled gardens fail yet again

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> The issue is that facebook and twitter have derailed from their earlier stated mission of connecting people and facilitating communication. Their goal as public businesses is making money from advertising, anything else is just feeding into that. This kind of misalignment of goals results in end users experience suffering. A thing like a social network is part of the fundamental fabric of the internet As a result the organization running this infrastructure should have very clear goals. It doesn't have to be a non- profit, but the goal should not be to generate 30% growth and billions in profits. The goal should be to make it easier for people to communicate. Given the decrease in the cost of computing, there is no reason that it should cost billions of $ to run an infrastructure like facebook. What we need is a linux for the internet. Fundamental infrastructures like social network and search engine being run by entities with no hidden agendas! It will happen!

<comment><USER32> I too think it will happen. This post illustrates that

a) the web is not really a welcoming place for large walled gardens,

b) if you want to build on someone else's infrastructure, pay them, so you become their _customer_ , so _their goal_ is to _make your life easier_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> This is a recurring theme.. if you don't want to be in this position, then don't build on top of someone else's closed platform. When you do that, expect to see this situation because that is what such platforms are designed for!

</comment><comment><USER34> Mega-meh. I find this "open" letter to be as totally self-serving as "Open" Graph will ever be. You got a meeting with a lot of FB poo-bahs. Whatever you thought it was going to be about, if you were unprepared for the crushing embrace of the Big Face, it's on you. Of course they want to intimidate you into an "aqui-hire." It's called hardball.

Their "platform" is what it is. A highly flawed way to instantly reach astounding numbers of people for potentially deep or shallow exchanges of questionable value. Many your age have made millions for a half-year's work on this "joke" platform, as you call it. This is known, and blaming their tanking stock price for their behavior seems like a cheap shot at execs you don't even name.

I would advise you to get ready in case Apple calls. Unlike FB, they won't apologize after they gutpunch you.

</comment><comment><USER35> Step 1) Code features for a large platform that is actively iterating and implementing new features at an incredibly rapid pace.

Step 2) Complain when there is eventual feature overlap.

</comment><comment><USER36> Mark will probably see this, but will anything change? Probably not.

The simple fact is that as a company, FB have to meet their targets and Dalton's app is a bit of a conflict of interest. So, no surprises there.

However, I agree with his point about big "media company" social networks being eventually replaced by a much larger number of specific micro-networks. One network for photo sharing, music sharing (Soundcloud?), messaging etc.

Even once you have all these niches, I'm sure there's space for two or three due to the fact that people have different priorities and visual tastes.

As a company, Facebook aren't on course to die but I'm sure we're going to continue to see decisions like this being made that surprise us as the tech community due to the fact that they don't align with the vision we thought the company once had.

</comment><comment><USER12> Having a bunch of software is one thing.

Representing yourself as a platform is something very different.

A platform a representation that you are providing a set of services on which others can safely build. It is a form of contract. And this representation has to be trusted because who in their right minds would otherwise invest on a 'platform' that turns out to be a flag of convenience? If a company loses this trust they ultimately lose the right to be called a platform. They lose developers and are ultimately left with a bunch of unused APIs.

Incidents like these described by DC are extremely important and should be publicly voiced because they bear directly upon the decision making of others who may be in the process of weighing their options. Should they or shouldn't they trust this alleged 'platform.' It is a huge strategic decision that can make or break a company. So people like DC who are prepare to go public with his experience are doing us all a favor because they are providing more perfect information, without which the market cannot operate accurately.

People can choose to criticize this or that dimension of the way various people played their parts, but that really isn't the key point, is it? Surely the key point is, can you trust the 'platformness' of FB? Did they imply one thing - that he was building a valuable product that they would be supporting - THEN choose to compete and wipe him out? That's the key point. The manners, the exact detail of how the wipeout was conducted aren't the point. If the story is accurate it is surely the breach of faith the is important. Some may argue that to expect otherwise is naive. But without some such faith there is no platform. You can't have your cake and eat it.

</comment><comment><USER37> Getting bored of Hackernews being used as an internet slander machine. I think the age old rule of 'Not your personal army' needs to be enacted here =(

</comment><comment><USER38> Dalton Caldwell sends email the hard way.

</comment><comment><USER39> I'm having trouble seeing why Dalton seems so put out by this

If you try to look at this from facebook's perspective the most likely out come looks something like:

> Ok, we've decided to go this app route. Wow app.net is really going to be > steam rolled by this. We already have a relation ship with them, what can we > do to help them out?

> Well I guess we can offer to aquire them, they probably have some expertise > we can use and it will generate a lot of good will for us from our own > developer community. Yes, this seems like a win win.

> Well this is a pretty delicate conversation so bringing it up over the phone > is pretty bushleague. Let's do teh right thing and tell him face to face. I > see we've already got them scheduled for a meeting in a couple of weeks.

> This seems to be working out perfectly for both of us. How much do you think > we'll need to offer them to acquire their company?

I'm really having trouble seeing how people don't see this as the most likely way things happened.

</comment><comment><USER40> Surely he must have signed some sort of NDA before going into said meeting, which he is now breaching?

<comment><USER41> I'm pretty sure I signed an NDA at the front desk as the cost of walking into Facebook.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Tying your business fortunes to the goodwill of Facebook is like having the fate a toothbrush bird that feeds from the mouth an alligator. The toothbrush bird will never grow to be as big as the alligator and it eats only as much as the alligator allows.

</comment><comment><USER43> These are the types of stories that Silicon Valley generates that never cease to amuse me. What we have here is a typical example of how agents act in a competitive capitalist environment. In a system where profit is all that matters, I find it amusing to hear people bitch about 'ethics' and 'bad faith'.

We have long known Facebook's model, and the warning signs are everywhere. Facebook is a surveillance conglomerate, and it is granting you certain privileges - either as a so-called 'user' or as a developer - at its behest. Get in bed with that thing, and you just might get the cooties.

</comment><comment><USER44> The purpose of a business is to make money for their shareholders. Repeat 10 times until this becomes obvious.

<comment><USER45> This isn't necessarily true. Jony Ive on Apple, "Our goal absolutely at Apple is not to make money. This may sound a little flippant, but it's the truth. Our goal and what gets us excited is to try to make great products. We trust that if we are successful people will like them, and if we are operationally competent we will make revenue, but we are very clear about our goal."

<comment><USER30> Of course Ive is going to say that. He's a designer. You think Oppenheimer gets on investor calls and says "Sorry guys, we don't actually care about your money, we're just here to make what we think are great products" and they believe him?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> > _As I understood at the time, the purpose of the meeting was for me to > present/demonstrate a new iOS app & service I have been building on the > Facebook Platform. Previously, I had been reassured by Facebook dev- > relations employees that the service I was building was an interesting/ > valuable use of Open Graph & Facebook Platform._

What evidence does the author have to support this? Is there communication from such VPs saying "We would like you to come in to meet us to measure the value of your service"?

> _I was hoping the outcome of this meeting would be executive-level support > for my impending product launch._

Again, who set the authors expectations here? And what exactly does "executive-level" support mean? Would they feature the app, simply because it was valuable for them?

Note - Expecation setting is one of the hardest things to do in business. And can also be used for negotiation tactics.

I'm sorry, but all I read from this is just (another) example of how a company with different corporate interests (read-> shareholder value) no longer puts time into something that doesn't drive bottom line. Is it a great example of what an IPO does to a company's interest? Absolutely. But I don't necessarily feel bad for the author nor do I feel like any unjust has been done. He's proved his point, seems extremely smart and will move on to the next cool and interesting project.

</comment><comment><USER47> So Facebook is more or less like a Casino: its fun to play, you are welcome to come and bring your friends along, have fun, win some, lose some and then go home. And don't forget to come back. But if you are bringing your genius gambling skills, plan on making money here, and you keep on winning one after another, you will be kindly asked to leave, or removed with force.

At the end of the day, its nothing new. Its a bit of a ponzi scheme where a company offers something (in case of Facebook or Twitter: an access to their dataset) under a false promise of achieving fame and/or fortune if you built something fun and cool and attract large audience. So you are welcome to try while we keep on building our company on this "don't be evil, connect people" promise. But rest assured if somehow someway you come close to making it a reality and bump on our radar, we will gladly shut you down this or another way.

And I'm having hard time blaming Facebook here. Perhaps that would be weird before IPO and an audience of stockholders watching their every move, but especially now where there is a crack in the boat and it runs 40% underwater, all eyes are on captain's hands. He needs to be as fierce and violent in his moves as possible and if someone even remotely comes close to eating up even little bit of his advertising cheddar, he/she will be torpedoed down.

</comment><comment><USER48> I honestly think many people have lost the real idea of what a "platform" is these days. In my mind, in it's truest sense, a platform is something stable - a rock solid base on which to build. That's why you build on it - because you can trust it, even if you turn enemies with it, the key parts you rely on aren't going to change.

So to me, Facebook never was a "platform", nor was Twitter, nor iOS. All these things are just gambles, business bets on the future based on things you hope are true. They may be good ones, profitable ones, but you were never guaranteed anything and you should be prepared to lose it all the minute your interests and your landlord's no longer coincide.

What do I consider "true" platforms? The closest are Android, Windows (not counting future versions), OSX (up until ML), in some sense the JVM and the browser. I don't know if the new versions of OSX and Windows will qualify as true platforms ... it remains to be seen how the effect of tightening controls on them plays out.

tldr; I wish we could stop calling playing in somebody else's ever changing walled garden with no guarantee of anything a "platform".

</comment><comment><USER49> I've dealt with people at App.net during my own development projects (Infostripe) and they seem one of the few who were good at communicating back. They even featured IS at one point.

Which might go to explain how they are apparently excellent at putting themselves in the news as an heir to Twitter and a major Facebook competitor. Yet aren't actually either of those things. At least so far.. fascinating.

</comment><comment><USER50> I find building a product using a 3rd party API can be totally awesome or a complete disaster. In my case I had two experiences that stood out: RDIO: These guys are awesome. Their API is awesome, their support of devs who build on it is awesome. Their product is awesome. Kudos to Ian who works on it. We built Anthm on this and it has worked out great!

FreshBooks: These guys made me furious. We found that there were no good OSX based timers for this product so we built one. In the end they refused to put us up on their site, each time with a different excuse (we have promised exclusivity to this other app, or we are changing our app system). The developer relations guy was just a total jerk. In the end they asked us to change our name because they did not like it and even after immediately doing that, no love from them.

In short - it is getting tough to base a business on any of these third party API's that can change under your feet - yet there are still some out there that are tremendous.

</comment><comment><USER51> If Facebook's plan B was to lock out Dalton using a TOS change, then it seems awfully stupid to have held this meeting in the first place.

I get the talent acquisition as a defensive play to keep a potential threat out of the market, but if Dalton's story is true then Facebook's execution around this entire engagement seems stupid and ham-fisted through and through.

</comment><comment><USER52> Could you care to elaborate on what the app/service you were demoing to FB?

<comment><USER53> The service we were building (I work at app.net) was a social app discovery service. It integrated with Facebook to show you what apps your friends were using and downloading, and display stories about the apps you use.

<comment><USER8> So you were extending Facebook's core features and you didn't expect Facebook to think that was being too competitive?

I'm pretty sure I've seen this somewhere else... at least a dozen times.

<comment><USER53> We used Facebook's APIs and Open Graph in our app discovery service. It was built and released before Facebook's App Center was announced, and Facebook dev-relations employees had previously been supportive of our endeavor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I dont know much about how a venture capitalist estimates the value of a startup that has not yet marketed their product. But we all see how big name tech companies are stuck paying huge amounts to buy up competition: ie MS paying $9B for Skype, Facebook buys Instagram for $1B. Clearly Daltan wants to create value for his company that it does not yet have. The only way he can do this is by promoting himself on social media under the guise of a "this could happen to you" story.

</comment><comment> hendrik-xdest It worked: [http://allthingsd.com/20120801/facebook-platform-exec- ethan-...](http://allthingsd.com/20120801/facebook-platform-exec-ethan-beard- departs/)

</comment><comment><USER55> I don't know about airing the laundry like this, it seems more and more common and there is always a lot of missing context. And you can't really undo it, but to each his own.

Am I reading this correctly that the platform ad vp has $1billion number on his head and he is a little nervous about some competition? It looks a lot like fb is on tilt, from the bot clicks to different charge for friends to see content stories it doesn't look like all is well.

</comment><comment><USER56> These dynamics are part of what is referred to in corporate development as the Golden Rule - he who has the gold, makes the rules

</comment><comment><USER57> "I believe that future social platforms will behave more like infrastructure, and less like media companies."

Great, line. Exactly what I was thinking as I was reading the letter. Completely necessary to to create an eco-system that developers/consumers will want to use. Monetizing the eco-system can come later, just as it did with Google search.

</comment><comment><USER28> Sounds like the author's righteousness has worn off and now he regrets not negotiating with Facebook more. To make himself feel like he got something out of it, he posts a blog about how Facebook is the enemy, and not-so-subtly brags that his creation was wanted for acquisition by Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER58> Seriously? Are you so delusional? So, what's bothering this guy is that Facebook wants to pay him to buy what he's built? AND he can walk away from it? Spending an hour of his life in that meeting? That really gives raises the bubble to a new level. The one that this guy and a lot of the valley lives in.

_K

</comment><comment><USER59> I know it's been pointed out endlessly elsewhere, but it seems necessary to highlight this excerpt of the OP's post:

 _As someone that wants to build quality social software, software that doesn't force users to re-create their friends list, or not use oAuth, etc., I have to endure huge platform risk._

</comment><comment><USER60> I wonder if this style of negotiation tactic motivated companies like Spool, Face.com, Karama, Glancee, and Lightbox to join? It seems like Dalton's strong entrepreneurial spirit (or hard hardheadedness--however you see it) kept him from falling into that category.

</comment><comment><USER61> A fish rots from the head down. Zuckerberg has well-known form screwing over those he does business with. That you're surprised speaks more to your business acumen than his I'm afraid. Your open letter comes across as entitled and puerile - as they usually do.

</comment><comment><USER62> First Apple, then Twitter, and now Facebook ... the landscape right now seems positively littered with people who have bet the farm on a sharecropping strategy, gotten burnt and are now complaining about the landlord rather than learning the underlying lesson.

</comment><comment><USER63> Dalton, thanks for having warned the rest of us. The opinions may differ on whether this sort of bait and switch is a legitimate tactic, but I think we can all agree we're better off knowing about this sort of things than not. Good luck with your business.

</comment><comment><USER64> Building your business in an unexploited niche on another business's platform is sharecropping, pure and simple.

[http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/07/12/WebsThePla...](http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/07/12/WebsThePlace)

</comment><comment><USER65> Hrrm.. much of the discussion here is missing what I think is the important point.

If you build on Facebooks platform, there is a good chance you will end up competing with Facebook. Or Twitter.

We need a social platform that is distributed and that nobody "owns".

</comment><comment><USER66> Though I still don't understand that well what Dalton's product really is, I do respect him for the tough choice he made. It takes guts to turn down a lot of money from some big player. Good luck, Dalton.

</comment><comment><USER67> Here's Vic Gundotra's take on this: [https://plus.google.com/107117483540235115863/posts/EstNjiL2...](https://plus.google.com/107117483540235115863/posts/EstNjiL2uon)

</comment><comment><USER68> Aw.. it's a love letter!

</comment><comment><USER69> All I know is that I'd be irritated if someone started each paragraph with my first name, specially without knowing me personally. That's impolite, authoritative and just annoying.

My 2cts :P

</comment><comment><USER70> Interesting, are you arguing that Facebook and Twitter are going to be the 'electricity infrastructure' of the Internet in terms of their role as platforms for development?

</comment><comment> joe-mccann These open letters to a CEO of a massive corporate conglomerate need to stop please. No CEO gives two fucks about your blog post. Cry me a river, J Tim...

</comment><comment><USER71> holy cow, getting a meeting at Facebook and having them offer to acquire my business $$$ would be a dream come true!!! This guy sounds like the guys who complain that the super-models that come on to them are only looking for a physical relationship. Get over yourself dude. btw, Facebook is evil, but that's all beside the point

</comment><comment><USER72> One more proof that no one knows how to monetize social networks correctly (maybe besides LinkedIn).

</comment><comment><USER73> Facebook built a developer platform, and developers trusted Facebook -- dumb f __*s.

</comment><comment><USER74> Did you even talk price? It may have been worth your while...

</comment><comment><USER75> I just felt that this is a marketing tac-tic by dalton to promote his new app.net

Just a random thought.</comment>


Brain-computer interface advance allows fast, accurate typing despite paralysis - <AUTHOR> http://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2017/02/brain-computer-interface-allows-fast-accurate-typing-by-people-with-paralysis.html <comment><USER2> You can accomplish quite a bit with 8wpm (it's great even if it isn't fast when compared to finger typing).</comment>


"As We May Think" – Vannevar Bush (Atlantic Monthly, July 1945) - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-may-think/303881/ <comment><AUTHOR> >Bush is most famous for his Memex, publicised in the aforementioned article in Atlantic Monthly (1945) and most readily available in Nyce and Kahn. Yet this same article also contained descriptions of devices rarely cited. These include the Cyclops Camera: "worn on forehead, it would photograph anything you see and want to record. Film would be developed at once by dry photography;" advances in microfilm; a thinking machine (actually a mathematical calculator); and a vocoder, "a machine which could type when talked to." [http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/elab/hfl0034.html](http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/elab/hfl0034.html)</comment>


Project Panama: Interconnecting JVM and Native Code - <AUTHOR> http://openjdk.java.net/projects/panama/

<comment><USER2> If it's going to look like JNR's FFI that'll make me very happy. It's nicer to work with[0] than existing tools (that I've used anyway).

[0]: [https://github.com/jnr/jnr-ffi- examples/blob/master/qsort/sr...](https://github.com/jnr/jnr-ffi- examples/blob/master/qsort/src/main/java/qsort/Qsort.java)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is awesome, it opens up the possibility of using all sorts of JVM languages (Java, Scala, Clojure ...) for pseudo-systems type programming as well as easier interfacing with libraries.

</comment><comment><USER4> Could this help Jython to interface with Numpy ? The JyNI project is otherwise constrained to do some pretty serious gymnastics...</comment>


Ask HN: What are the best alternatives to Google Analytics? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Matomo, formerly Piwik

[https://matomo.org/](https://matomo.org/)

<comment><USER3> They also offer a solution that analyzes access logs, which is useful to capture traffic from ad-blocking users from your web server. As far as I understand it's not part of the open-source version though.

We run Matomo on a self-hosted server for all our websites and it works very well, there's a large discrepancy between the traffic / visitor count shown by Cloudflare and Matomo though: Matomo will show 50-80 % less unique visitors than Cloudflare, which seems a lot even when accounting for ad-blocking users. It might be due to our very user-friendly cookie script though, which only loads Matomo after the user explicitly clicks on OK (and he/she can click on "Decline" as well). Guess we should investigate how many people actually click on "Decline".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> [https://simpleanalytics.io](https://simpleanalytics.io) just launched and is exactly that!

<comment><USER5> Hi, founder here. I just created a tool that does exactly that: Simple Analytics. I'm very happy this gets more attention in the analytics space. I'm not saying I'm the best but I'm trying to start a movement toward a change in the analytics world. If there is anything I should do better, please let me know.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice work! How's it going so far?

<comment><USER5> Pretty good. It's my first official launch, so very new for me. But I do get a few customers every day. I will write about it soon and announce that on my Twitter @harianus.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I run [https://www.improvely.com](https://www.improvely.com) and [https://www.w3counter.com](https://www.w3counter.com). Been doing this since before Google Analytics existed.

</comment><comment><USER7> MixPanel is the biggie for user tracking during entire app lifecycle. But it can be $$$$. And you can miss out on collecting your own valuable data.

If you are writing your own web servers and request handlers at the outset. Then you can structure your log file data as required. And use the ELK stack to process very powerful queries, business analytics, predictive machine learning, sentiment analysis, etc.

[https://www.elastic.co/products](https://www.elastic.co/products)

</comment><comment><USER8> I've used gaug.es for years. Their API is great and they're affordable. [https://get.gaug.es](https://get.gaug.es)

</comment><comment><USER9> We switched to [https://usefathom.com/](https://usefathom.com/) last week, happy so far.

</comment><comment><USER10> I've heard Snowplow is good. I _think_ it's self-hosted so it's likely more complicated to setup than a complete solution like Google Analytics. But then Google doesn't get the data.

[https://github.com/snowplow/snowplow](https://github.com/snowplow/snowplow)

[https://github.com/snowplow/snowplow-javascript- tracker](https://github.com/snowplow/snowplow-javascript-tracker)

<comment><USER11> +1. Not easy to setup if you have little cloud experience, but once you have it running, it works really well. I have a fast setup for the ones who like containers and Kubernetes: [https://github.com/pacuna/snowplow- pipeline](https://github.com/pacuna/snowplow-pipeline)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> There aren't many out there that do similar stuff, but if you're looking to try something new [https://simpleanalytics.io](https://simpleanalytics.io) is working pretty well thus far.

</comment><comment><USER13> Anything I can run server side to reduce the amount of JS that has to be injected?

<comment> shreyas-satish There's goaccess[0] which you might find useful.

[0] [https://goaccess.io/](https://goaccess.io/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Depends what you want to do. With MixPanel you get a much deeper insight into your product and your users. The analysis you can do like retention, funnels etc exceeds the capabilities of GA.

Note: I am biased, I work at Mixpanel.

</comment><comment><USER15> If you are into web but also want to expand to mobile and desktop in the future, check Countly. Open source and can be deployed on prem, too.

</comment><comment><USER16> No analytics.</comment>


"Bracksies": how Brexit could wind up not actually happening - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/2016/6/25/12031254/no-brexit-article-50 <comment><USER2> Worth noting that the Scottish First Minister has just described Scenario 1 from this article - that the Scottish Parliament could veto the Brexit:

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland- politics-3663...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland- politics-36633244)

<comment><USER3> what the Scottish National Party really wants, as the name suggests, is an independent Scotland inside the shelter of the EU.

Unlike the Brexit camp, Nicola Sturgeon seems seem to be calm, collected and have a plan. Not to mention, they have a loaded gun: "You want Scotland to stay? We'll veto the brexit". "You want us to honour your democratic wishes? Then let Scotland go first."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Aka a how to manual on how to irreversibly damage British democracy...

<comment><USER5> Well, but which do you prefer, that or irreversibly damaging British economy?

Also, Scenario 1 (or any other way that involves showing that the UK _can 't_ leave) doesn't really damage democracy, it just destroys Cameron's credibility for making a promise he can't fulfil. The Scotland Act problem makes me think that Scotland really will be able to stay in the EU, either by independence from the UK or by derailing the whole process.

<comment><USER6> Damaging an economy is reversible. Damaging democracy is unforgivable.

To all the angry young British people: you now have a choice as to the future of the UK in Europe. Perhaps you'll become politically active and campaign to rejoin. That's fine. But a 'remain' vote last week would have deprived you and your children of _any_ choice for the next 40 years.

I see this as a 'Vietnam moment' for British young people, that opens their eyes to how politics affects their lives and hopefully invigorates them to take part.

But trying to short circuit democracy with lawyer-style technical trickery is not the course to take.

<comment><USER7> I find it interesting that despite all the angst, I can't imagine any politician or party actively campaigning to rejoin. Especially on the Full Ticket (Schengen and the Euro). Maybe that will change with future generations of politicians as you've mentioned, but it's hard to imagine right now when the whole project seems to lurch from crisis to crisis (economic stagnation, youth unemployment, impoverished Southern member states, migration crises, etc.)

<comment><USER8> Lib Dems are campaigning on not leaving ([http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-eu- refe...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-eu-referendum- result-lib-dems-remain-liberal-democrats-live-policy-stay- leave-a7103186.html)). However I'm fairly sure even they wouldn't be stupid enough to campaign to rejoin after leaving, since that would mean joining the Euro which no one wants.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Stats/Monitoring Sites you admire - <AUTHOR>

I'm in the development phase for a web app that will track statistics for a website (traffic over time, etc. - no, its not a GA clone).
What sites do you admire in terms of layout, usability, usefulness, etc.?  I particularly like clicky and mint interfaces, but I'd like to know of others.  Don't feel limited to stats-heavy representations - if you've seen something you like, tell me!
Thanks to the HN community. <comment><USER2> We like Clicky.

</comment><comment><USER3> A buddy of mine built this by himself: <http://www.statsinsight.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> that's neat - thanks!</comment></comment>