tsurantino

I think his exceptionalism can be accounted for based on the lawsuit.

You're right - Bing shouldn't bother improving it's product for potential new users because people prefer to use other products which don't have these features...

This is completely anecdotal. I could just as easily argue that the vast majority of businesses across cultures, demographics, socioeconomic factors use a variety of tools to promote themselves. In Canada, we have plazas, traditional websites, and more to get the word out. B2B, B2C, whatever you want to call it.

For the other cases you mentioned: Groups to collaborate, Events to organize - these are all completely underwhelming alternatives to other market products. The biggest tragedy of Facebook is that it has enormous scale but it can't write comprehensive products that satisfy all of that scale uniformly. You get the lowest common denominator, which is why customers go for niche alternatives.

Excel is not Facebook. Yes, Facebook is big. Excel is big in its industry. However, Excel has just enough of a balance between niche and scale. Excel is about computation and reporting. It solves a very specific need that is fortunately applicable in all types of applications. As soon as you try to go outside the bounds of what Excel can do (large data analytics, more customized reporting, interactive applications) you stop trying to rationalize Excel and start using other tools. People do the same with Facebook. More people do it with Facebook because Facebook doesn't effectively solve as many core needs.

The experience is pretty awful. I am on a community of Computer Science students and it's hard to find threads I get updates for in my e-mail because they are horribly categorized. On the view you attached, you'll find it incredibly hard and annoying to focus on a particular thread. When viewing within a thread, you still have to expand each comment, and so on.

Definitely a case of style over function. It's really frustrating.

Doesn't this person deserve some form of severance or the equivalent of?

It's kind of ridiculous that he was "cut out" from a job like some kind of child who was no longer part of the "club". It's grossly unprofessional to disconnect an employee without any due process or policy.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised given the events leading up to the situation.

The initial example is broad, but can't this just be extended with additional questions? For example, can you tell me about dinner options that cost less than $20 per person. What are other people saying? How far away is this? It's questionable whether each of these follow up questions is actually that complex. I think you are arguing that things get hard if a user tries to put that together in one single complex query. Do people do that though?

I think the idea with a conversational interface is that it's succinct and on-demand. You receive the most relevant information directly in as simple of an interface as possible (arguably).

Location: Toronto, Canada

Remote: No

Willing to relocate: Yes

Technologies: Python, Javascript

Résumé/CV: tsurantino.com/ATsurkan_Resume.pdf

Email: [email protected]

I am a recent grad who is looking for product management and related roles. I have a history of experiences where I've worn many hats, worked with limited resources, and did whatever it took to deliver. I've shipped at Microsoft and worked with my school administration, faculty, and student body to have the first large-scale hackathon hosted at my school. I am looking to take my background into a role that gives me the responsibility and guidance to make an impact.