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Have we entered another tech bubble?

posted by LaminatorX on Saturday February 22 2014, @12:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the It's-like-a-telegram-but-on-a-phone dept.

siliconwafer writes:

"Facebook's purchase of WhatsApp has generated a lot of noise in the financial and tech industries, with some calling the purchase price 'down-right silly' and 'jaw-dropping', and others have said the price is fair, but question the strategy. Is the purchase price evidence that we're entering entering another tech bubble reminiscent of the 1990s? Some say no, while others believe that a bubble may exist only in social media, given that the Global X Social Media Index ETF has outperformed the NASDAQ over the past year."

 
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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by lx on Saturday February 22 2014, @02:04PM

    by lx (1915) on Saturday February 22 2014, @02:04PM (#4889)

    XMPP is over a decade old at this point. There are multiple clients for every conceivable platform.

    And nobody outside a small circle of techies uses it. Whatsapp is cheap ubiquitous and offers the same privacy as the SMS service it replaces (i.e. very little from snooping by governments or select corporations) perfect for mundane communications. So unless you're in international trade talks or are plotting to overturn a police state there is nothing wrong with using it.

    It's a good thing to be cynical about and suspicious of the motivations of entities like Facebook but it is madness to lock yourself in a bubble because of abstract fears and hypotheticals.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by TheRaven on Saturday February 22 2014, @02:18PM

    by TheRaven (270) on Saturday February 22 2014, @02:18PM (#4900) Journal
    Most non-techies use XMPP. What do you think Facebook Chat and Google Talk use? Facebook Chat, however, is non-federated (Google Chat is federated, but they've started being a bit annoying about adding new contacts from other servers. Google will even host an XMPP service for you). The protocol works and even Facebook users manage to use it.

    Most non-techy email users use some webmail thing (actually, that's less true than it was with mobile phones and tablets being common for email), but that doesn't mean that email is not suitable for a non-technical audience.

    --
    sudo mod me up