5 ms·

Stop the presses: Facebook CTO says news next in social revolution

61 points by wippler 16y ago

cagenut 16y ago
friendfeed was built in 08, before amazon had released EBS as a feature. there is no way in hell the instance-store disk i/o would have kept up with friendfeeds mysql demands (you may remember the post Bret himself wrote on their nifty approach to mysql: http://bret.appspot.com/entry/how-friendfeed-uses-mysql http://bret.appspot.com/entry/how-friendfeed-uses-mysql ) Frankly, even EBS probably wouldn't have. Plus, back in 08 the larger ec2 instances were still pretty low on ram compared to what you could cheaply cram in a colo'd server, putting even more pressure on the disk i/o. I think Bret's really wishing what almost everyone is, that these problems would just go away and you could pay a reasonable premium for that, but we're not there yet and certainly weren't in 2008. I don't think he really checked his numbers on this one. edit: however there is a happy medium. managed service providers will gladly charge you ec2 prices (250/month for a low end server, 500/month for a beefy one) while handling all midnight colo trips for you.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- samvj 16y ago
  Don't worry, people are on it - http://www.dotcloud.com http://www.dotcloud.com :)
spitfire 16y ago
Until some very smart people get together and restart tandem, buying hardware will be a poor decision. Designing for a fail-by-design architecture will be the right thing to do. and if you have fail by design, why not just ship the executable to whoever's the cheapest virtual hosting at the moment. PS: To very smart people: Please get together and start Tandem: the sequel. Pretty, pretty please. With sugar on top.
tgriesser 16y ago
Gotta love sensationalist headlines... Should read: Facebook CTO says purchasing servers for a separate startup prior to Facebook might have been unnecessary The idea that Facebook wouldn't need its own data centers is pretty ridiculous, and that's what the title implies EDIT: looks like "while at FriendFeed" was added for clarity ... Further edit: The title is changed now, but the original said "Facebook CTO says purchasing servers was his biggest mistake" or something of the like
- butu5 16y ago
  yeah true.. title is completely mis leading. When I read this thought facebook did mistake on purchasing it's own server and setting up it's datacenter. But Bret (CTO of facebook, co-founder of Friendfeed) talks about Friendfeed here. Considering friendfeed growing and struggling stage to make it's presence. There is lot of other thing to worry than maintaining own data center.
- lurchpop 16y ago
  They also referred to Yelp as "Yell"
petercooper 16y ago
In other news, Amazon's CTO says his worst decision was to buy servers as they could have just rolled EC2's API out on Dreamhost's Private Servers offering.. Less facetiously, this "regret" surprises me. I'd have though that of anyone, Facebook would want to have full control and security over their own servers. Agreeing to a contract where Amazon can pull the plug over "objectionable" content or even adverse effects on their network poses a significant risk for any large business to accept.
- chime 16y ago
  He is not talking about servers for Facebook but his old startup, Friendfeed.
erik_p 16y ago
In addition to the misleading title, you gotta love the "Yell" typo for "Yelp" in the article...
- rodh 16y ago
  Yell is the company that publishes the UK Yellow Pages. I'm sure Bret Taylor meant Yelp. However: http://www.yell.com/reviews/ http://www.yell.com/reviews/ "The places to go, by the locals in the know". Or so they say.
marcamillion 16y ago
It's funny the differences in headlines between one tailored for HN and BBC audiences respectively.
to 16y ago
did anyone found the interesting part in the article? or was that the sentence about html5?
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
johngalt 16y ago
When someone says "My biggest mistake is doing X and not Y. X turned out to be really hard." I wonder if they know how difficult Y would be as well.
RobertL 16y ago
I tend to agree that mobile devices are a pain (and that's what the article is about, not "news being the next social revolution). I don't like the darned things but the masses disagree with me and if you want to write code that matters you have to understand what the masses want. Right now the overall strategy is to incorporate mobile devices as fast and easy I/O devices for our apps. I don't think Facebook is going to be able to get away with that but I hope it will work for us.
CodeMage 16y ago
The only two paragraphs that actually match the headline: If we had to guess, it's probably going to be orientated around media or news, because they are so social. When you watch a television show with your friend, it's such an engaging social activity. We think that there's a next generation of startups that are developing social versions of these applications, where what Zynga is to gaming, they will be to media and news, and we're really excited about that.
bhoung 16y ago
something about the t-shirt under the shirt look that detracts from the article.

61 points by wippler 16y ago

friendfeed was built in 08, before amazon had released EBS as a feature. there is no way in hell the instance-store disk i/o would have kept up with friendfeeds mysql demands (you may remember the post Bret himself wrote on their nifty approach to mysql: http://bret.appspot.com/entry/how-friendfeed-uses-mysql http://bret.appspot.com/entry/how-friendfeed-uses-mysql ) Frankly, even EBS probably wouldn't have. Plus, back in 08 the larger ec2 instances were still pretty low on ram compared to what you could cheaply cram in a colo'd server, putting even more pressure on the disk i/o. I think Bret's really wishing what almost everyone is, that these problems would just go away and you could pay a reasonable premium for that, but we're not there yet and certainly weren't in 2008. I don't think he really checked his numbers on this one. edit: however there is a happy medium. managed service providers will gladly charge you ec2 prices (250/month for a low end server, 500/month for a beefy one) while handling all midnight colo trips for you.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
samvj 16y ago
Don't worry, people are on it - http://www.dotcloud.com http://www.dotcloud.com :)

spitfire 16y ago

Until some very smart people get together and restart tandem, buying hardware will be a poor decision. Designing for a fail-by-design architecture will be the right thing to do. and if you have fail by design, why not just ship the executable to whoever's the cheapest virtual hosting at the moment. PS: To very smart people: Please get together and start Tandem: the sequel. Pretty, pretty please. With sugar on top.

tgriesser 16y ago

Gotta love sensationalist headlines... Should read: Facebook CTO says purchasing servers for a separate startup prior to Facebook might have been unnecessary The idea that Facebook wouldn't need its own data centers is pretty ridiculous, and that's what the title implies EDIT: looks like "while at FriendFeed" was added for clarity ... Further edit: The title is changed now, but the original said "Facebook CTO says purchasing servers was his biggest mistake" or something of the like

butu5 16y ago
yeah true.. title is completely mis leading. When I read this thought facebook did mistake on purchasing it's own server and setting up it's datacenter. But Bret (CTO of facebook, co-founder of Friendfeed) talks about Friendfeed here. Considering friendfeed growing and struggling stage to make it's presence. There is lot of other thing to worry than maintaining own data center.
lurchpop 16y ago
They also referred to Yelp as "Yell"

petercooper 16y ago

In other news, Amazon's CTO says his worst decision was to buy servers as they could have just rolled EC2's API out on Dreamhost's Private Servers offering.. Less facetiously, this "regret" surprises me. I'd have though that of anyone, Facebook would want to have full control and security over their own servers. Agreeing to a contract where Amazon can pull the plug over "objectionable" content or even adverse effects on their network poses a significant risk for any large business to accept.

chime 16y ago
He is not talking about servers for Facebook but his old startup, Friendfeed.

erik_p 16y ago

In addition to the misleading title, you gotta love the "Yell" typo for "Yelp" in the article...

rodh 16y ago
Yell is the company that publishes the UK Yellow Pages. I'm sure Bret Taylor meant Yelp. However: http://www.yell.com/reviews/ http://www.yell.com/reviews/ "The places to go, by the locals in the know". Or so they say.

marcamillion 16y ago

It's funny the differences in headlines between one tailored for HN and BBC audiences respectively.

to 16y ago

did anyone found the interesting part in the article? or was that the sentence about html5?

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

johngalt 16y ago

When someone says "My biggest mistake is doing X and not Y. X turned out to be really hard." I wonder if they know how difficult Y would be as well.

RobertL 16y ago

I tend to agree that mobile devices are a pain (and that's what the article is about, not "news being the next social revolution). I don't like the darned things but the masses disagree with me and if you want to write code that matters you have to understand what the masses want. Right now the overall strategy is to incorporate mobile devices as fast and easy I/O devices for our apps. I don't think Facebook is going to be able to get away with that but I hope it will work for us.

CodeMage 16y ago

The only two paragraphs that actually match the headline: If we had to guess, it's probably going to be orientated around media or news, because they are so social. When you watch a television show with your friend, it's such an engaging social activity. We think that there's a next generation of startups that are developing social versions of these applications, where what Zynga is to gaming, they will be to media and news, and we're really excited about that.

bhoung 16y ago

something about the t-shirt under the shirt look that detracts from the article.