Technologies: MOOCs, EdTech and online education (in the technology and programming space), specifically with experiences in content/curriculum development and product management.
Recently, I've asked my high school aged sister and colleged aged brother about how many of their friends and peers use FB nowadays.
Brother -- He and his friends uses it sometimes. But most of their social activities are shared on Instagram or Snapchat and occasionally twitter.
Sister -- Barely at all. FB is seen as uncool and old school by her and her friends. She and most of her friends share their social activities on instagram and snapchat.
Ironically, my mom (in her 50's) uses FB fairly regularly, both for sharing updates and checking up on her friends/acquaintance.
My daughter is a high school senior. She says her class is the last one that still uses Facebook at all, and even that is mostly to interact with family not friends. On the other hand, they are all active on Instagram so it isn't like they have gone far.
So all 4 people mentioned (your daughter and the 3 in the parent) all use Facebook by way of Instagram.
This is why acquisitions happen and why buying Instagram when FB did may go down as one of the best buys. Missing Snapchat may be one of the biggest misses.
My guess is that Snapchat will fade, like MySpace, LiveJournal or AIM.
It's great for teens and early adults, with tight knit social circles and the undivided attention to look at fast-disappearing posts, but that's not much of the population. Lots of people don't even understand how it works, while Facebook and Instagram are pretty intuitive.
My bet is the current audience will age out of Snapchat, gradually seeing it as something for kids, and the next group of kids will use something else entirely.
Of course, I could be wrong--I wouldn't have predicted Snapchat would get as big as it has, so more power to them if they can keep it going.
I've stopped naysaying snapchat the third time they made me feel stupid.
The first time was when I first heard of it, "that'll never take off what a dumb fad app."
The second time was when they turned down the $40MM offer from facebook.
The third time was when they turned down the $3B offer from facebook.
They're now valued at $16B. I don't bash snapchat anymore.
Turns out snapchat isn't just for messaging anymore, a lot of people watch the channels on it as if it was any other form of TV, and advertisers absolutely love it.
I'm sure it will be disrupted at some point, but I've stopped trying to "call it."
BUT even if they did, this is why investing in acquisitions makes sense. Theoretically everyone could stop using Facebook itself but it wouldn't matter as long as FB owned the platforms where everyone had migrated.
Progressive stratification does not imply companies will disappear. We might well end in a situation where people "graduate" from one social network to the next as they get older. So preteens will start on Snapchat, move to Instagram when going to high school, then Twitter and/or dating networks in college, LinkedIn as they hit the job market, and eventually Facebook when settling down.
Most of our cultural output (books, films etc) works like that already.
Yeah when I read this article that was recently posted on HN [1] I though: what will be Snapchat's retention rate once these teens become adults? It seems to me that Instagram is better positioned in that respect.
I agree, my brother don't use FB anymore, he deleted his account. While my mom on facebook daily. For me I don't need update from friends, I have friends. If I want to I will text them and ask what's up. I think facebook posts is something it want people to see. We don't know wheater it real and true. The only social network I'm on is Medium.com. Twitter I only use it to ask companies and people I don't have their number e.g. opensource developers. Instagram sometimes, youtube and 8tracks everyday.
Outside of hacker school (now recourse in NYC), I would recommend against attending a boot camp if you have received a quality CS education from you undergrad years.
Specifically, going to a boot camp is both a time (3-4 months) and a $$$ (20k - 30k) commitment. They will teach you the tools of the trade well, e.g tools and frameworks and will make sure you come out with a certain level of knowledge that fill most junior level roles.
However, if you have a bs computer science degree, you probably won't get much value of of these boot camps other than learning the tools of the trade, which are things that you can pick up on your own since you have a solid cs foundation.
However, it's not a bad option if you have both the time and the money, and feel that the commitment of a boot camp will be beneficial to you.
bur the quality of these boot camp varies and I would only recommend going to the highly recommended one, eg hack reactor, hack brite, app academy, and recurse.
Personally, I wouldn't recommend that you attend a bootcamp if you already have a graduate CS degree because the cost (time and money) isn't worth the benefits (an entry level developer job, which you can probably obtain on your own given your credentials).
For you specifically, the only things that you'll get of a bootcamp are probably:
1) An expedited and structured learning process
2) Mentorship and peer support
3) Introduction to startups in the valley looking to hire entry level, junior developers
However, if you feel compelled and really want to attend a bootcamp in the valley, I have heard good things about:
Hackreactor and Hackbright for web-development
App Academy for mobile development
Insight Data Science and ZipFian for data science
The quality of education that you receive through the GT online masters is on par with the in-person version, and you'll receive the same ms degree as a "regular" student. It is not watered down at all.
However, since you'll receive the same education as a regular ms student, the coursework is heavy and intense especially if you hold a FT job.
Are you going or have you gone through that program? If so, how much time per week do you spend on it? I work a full time job, I have a family, and I'm looking for a master's program.
I have not personally gone through the GT OMSC program. However, I do have colleagues and friends who are/were responsible the GT OMSC program at Uadcity.
From what I heard, a typical student in the program takes about 2 classes on average per semester due to the workload, and that should take up all of your free time outside of work and family. Some do take 3 if they are ambitious.
I would recommend hack reactor as I have consistently heard good things about the quality of training from their grads.
my ex-company hired 1 junior engineer from hack reactor and she has since then gone on and accomplished good things at other companies. And 2 of my ex coworkers transitioned into dev roles after going through hack reactor as well. They have all had positive experiences.
I have also heard good things about hackbrite if you are eligible. One of my ex-coworkers is an now instructor there and she cares passionately about cs education.
Source: I used to work in edtech in the valley so I have relationships or heard 1st hand accounts about these boot camps.
I've spoken to a few hiring managers who have expressed disappointment with some of the hires that they have made straight out of bootcamps (w/o prior CS knowledge or fundamentals).
Specifically, the bootcamp graduate are smart, motivated, and know their specific toolsets well. However, they tend to struggle a bit if you place them outside their comfort zone.
Is this a sentiment that others have heard through their work colleagues or friends as well?
>However, they tend to struggle a bit if you place them outside their comfort zone.
I mean.. yeah, I think you could say that for most people. I would also think that when hiring a bootcamp graduate you would already have some inherent bias, almost like you are waiting to find their weaknesses. Basically, it's easy to place the blame for their struggle on their bootcamp degree, when it could really just be that it would be hard for anyone. Just a thought
This is something that has made me hold back from applying for development positions. I like to really understand the how and why of things (and feel like that is what expected of a developer), which is why I started learning CS concepts after being frustrated following tutorials/books that just asked you to follow the specific steps for the framework.
I have done Harvard CS50 and am working through Berkeley cs61a (with the goal to then do 61b/c), the Stanford database class and reviewing maths on Khan academy. I'll likely apply for a front-end position first even though I enjoy back-end more because I don't feel like I am at the level that is expected of a back-end or fullstack developer.
Front-end programming is very visual. You can immediately see/sense/feel what you have developed/program, so there is a expedited positive feedback loop.
This can appeal to beginner programmers because it gives a immediate sense of satisfaction and accomplishment vs. backend programming where you see lines of output spit back to you in a terminal.
I may agree in term of first experience, but after a while (when you pass the "first time I..."), UI programming is a lot more tedious than back end. It requires so much boiler plate code to just achieve little things, having to worry about weird CSS behaviours, fighting winforms that do not do exactly what we want, obscure WPF syntax, etc. I feel that backend you only focus on your problem and get to an "ideal" solution quicker, which is more gratifying.
That's interesting, as I feel the opposite. I am a front end dev for a large eComm company, but do a lot of back end programming and scripting in my free time. The reason I love programming is problem solving. I have the most fun doing coding challenges, and get the most immediate sense of satisfaction and accomplishment when I write an algorithm that solves a test case. Although my day job is primarily "application level" JS, I am least happy when I have to do the visual things, like adding new templates with HTML/CSS. To me, design tends to be too subjective (if I'm going to do it, I'd much rather have someone provide me with a design PSD), and it tends to feel monotonous/tedious. I guess that's why I'm considering moving more into back-end development.
I wonder how much of this is because they are simply new to the field. Front-end stuff is more immediate, and immediacy is appealing. Back-end stuff has you spending less time worrying about compatibility headaches and all the non-problem-solving rabbit trails, but if you haven't spent a lot of time programming, you might not realize this and just assume that the level of headaches doesn't vary much.
Thats what I thought. Front End involves knowing a lot of quirks between browsers / css / JS and I find it a lot less about solving problems in an abstract way. Instead its solving "why does this display this way one one machine and another way on that machine" problems.
Agreed. Its only one you work with the various different technologies available on both front end and back end that you realise what a mess the front end landscape is, and how much less pleasurable it is to work with. A beginner isn't going to notice the difference a they are likely just happy to get something to work
I have the feeling there is a bigger need of front-end devs. After you got your API set up, you need shiny stuff and creating this is time consuming.
Also non-technical people seem to value front-end development more, because they have the feeling these devs do more "user specific" stuff (-> "they understand what I want")
I marketing myself as a front-end developer, but I would consider the jobs I get offered full-stack (2/3 front-end, 1/3 back-end)
I have experience build and teaching MOOCs (massive online classes). In addition, I also have experience developing tech/computer science curriculums.
I can help if you need someone who can
1) design an engaging course experience and course feel for online settings
2) develop educational and interesting assignments & learning tools to accompany lessons
email: lee.chenghan at gmail.com
linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cheng-han-lee-97b12920