18068290
submission
KDan writes:
This question pops up regularly on Hacker News. What will kill Facebook? Before that, it was "What will kill Google?" Before that, on Slashdot, it would have been "What will kill Microsoft?" Often, the question is asked with a combination of rage and envy. The questioner doesn't like Facebook, they want it dead, and they wouldn't mind if they were the one who came up with something that killed it. Aren't entrepreneurs charming? However, the question is fundamentally flawed. It's the wrong question. It leads nowhere. The only company that can kill Facebook is Facebook. Here's why.
10906546
submission
KDan writes:
I am the kind of person who takes 30 minutes to an hour to fall asleep, most nights. Falling asleep is an ordeal for me (unless I’m completely exhausted). Don’t get me wrong – it’s not an unpleasant ordeal there are worse things in life than lying in bed. But I truly envy those people who can just put their head on a pillow and drift off within moments. Oh, such bliss not for me. I will lie in bed, awake, forever thinking and rethinking whatever happens to be on my mind at the time.
Because of this, I always thought that power napping was not for me. After all, power naps are supposed to last about 20 minutes, and you don’t need to be a maths genius to realise that if it takes you at least half an hour to fall asleep, 20 minutes won’t be enough. So, therefore, I thought, since I can’t fall asleep quickly, I can’t nap.
Fortunately for me, I was completely wrong about this.
6426273
submission
KDan writes:
There are countless pundits and other tech gurus describing Google Wave as a disappointment, lately. Most of that seems to come from the fact that nobody seems to get what Wave is for. So they compare it to social media.
Is Wave the next Twitter? Nope. Is it the next Facebook? Nope. Is it going to replace Instant Messengers? Possibly, in some circumstances, but not any time soon.
I believe this is partly Google’s fault: they released Wave to geeks and hackers and social media folks first. But Wave is not a geek/hacker tool, or a social media tool, it’s a corporate tool that solves work problems (more on that later). On the other hand, they never claimed it would be a Facebook replacement or a Twitter killer. Google calls wave an “online tool for real-time communication and collaboration”. The way Google should have advertised Wave is: “it solves the problems with email”.
6422731
submission
3462069
submission
KDan writes:
"Hello. My name is ______ and I am not a douche." Notadouche is a nonsocial nonnetwork for nondouches. For people who hate douching around online, dislike wall posts and private messages, and love big fonts, notadouche is quick, painless, and slightly bizarre. It works like this: go to the site, enter your name, answer a few questions, and you're done! Is this the answer to social networking? Even though it only just came into existence, notadouche has already got over 10'000 users, and has spawned a tumblr blog, and is setting the twitter-verse aflame!
248521
submission
KDan writes:
Please add a Safety Warning to the Maglite video article. As it is posted on your front page and hence approved by your editors you do have a legal responsibility to provide some form of safety warning, since the original video fails to do that. The result of following that video is a dangerous laser that *will* blind you the instant you stare at it, or even stare at a reflection of it.
