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Non techie friends and family pay a lot of attention to what techie guy does. I remember using google when everyone else was using yahoo, and soon all my friends and family started to use google over yahoo. In 2006, I switched to mac. Half my non-techie friends and family now have macs. Trends, possibly, but they'll try it if they know you like it and if it is better, they are sold.

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Both of your examples have no network effects, which is why it's very easy for people to switch. Try switching to a different IM, for example.

You won't switch if you don't have anyone to talk to on it, and you won't have anyone to talk to on it if you don't switch.

Google Talk and its Gmail integration did wonders for Jabber, thankfully.

In the cases you mentioned, it was easy for the techie guy to recommend Google or Macs to friends or family because they were far better products at the time.

I take recommendations I give to people very seriously, and I simply wouldn't recommend to any non-technical person to move away from Facebook to a platform that has none/few of their friends on it.

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