I don't think FB is going out of business anytime soon, but as time passes, I think that it's core value is more like its original vision -- i.e., a social directory. Seems like it'll become a repository of all your social contacts and your virtual passport when signing up for other sites and will cease to be the place where you spend all your time communicating with friends and discovering new things.
I would assume they're heading in that direction given that they decided not to renew their contract with Google which used to let Google display real-time search results from Twitter.
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It's part search/discovery part social, and is trying to solve the problem that all the opinions shared in places like Twitter/Facebook aren't preserved, aggregated or made useful outside of the social graph.
We organize opinions around topics, make people weigh in on topics with a binary rating system (cheer or boo) and use the cheers/boos to give each topic a "RottenTomatoes-style" score. Let us know your thoughts - we love feedback.
Agree/Disagree -- Agree that CrunchFund ("CF") would have a great avenue to promote its investments through TC, but I think doing so is unethical. On the other hand, I think YC operating HN is completely fine. Here's why:
1) YC's primary business is being an accelerator. This business preceded HN. HN compliments YC's primary business, but doesn't undermine or corrupt it. Conversely, TC's primary business is an online tech blog/journal (and is often a launching pad for startups). CF would undermine the primary business (i.e., TC) by calling into question the legitimacy of all pieces written about CF investments.
2) HN is a online community/news aggregator -- i.e., no original pieces (other than comments). TC is a group edited blog/journal that publishes original content. This means that TC can write opinion pieces to promote its investments, while YC can only post links to third party pieces about its investments.
3) TC has a much deeper reach than HN. Although HN is wildly popular in the tech community, people outside the tech community are generally ignorant to its existence. TC on the other hand, is the place that many "normals" go to get their tech news -- so a biased piece about a CF investment would reach a much broader audience than a biased piece posted to HN.
When you combine these three factors, I think that TC having CF is unethical, but YC having HN is not.