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>> "If anyone can leave Facebook it's teens. Their social networks aren't developed/mature enough where they have to depend on other people's social network preferences. Most teens could literally leave on a whim and bring most of their friend with them. I still remember how quick the exodus from ICQ to MSN was (and nobody hated ICQ.. it just kinda happened)."

I think it's completely the opposite. It's not bringing your friends to a new network that's the hard part - it's bringing your data (mainly photos). Getting thousands of photos out of Facebook that are nicely tagged and commented on and into another network is impossible. Getting the photos out is possible but it's a lot of work. Switching IM networks is much easier than switching social networks which have so much data we value stored in them.

Another problem is that teenagers are constantly meeting new people. The default is not to ask for a phone number but for an add on Facebook. If you aren't on it you aren't going to be able to keep in touch with and develop a friendship with this new person you've just met.

What's that saying? "It's not you that owns your possessions, it's your possessions that owns you"

s/possessions/data/

Photos have too much sentimental value attached to them to think of them as just another 'possession'. They will provide value to you in 10 years, 25 years, and 50 years and can't be easily replaced.

I don't want to stereotype teens since I'm sure there are a lot of mature, insightful teenagers, but do you think most teens place a lot of importance on their data? Do they want to keep and treasure all their selfies and random party pics well into their college years?

16-21 is like a personality black hole for most people. It's a time when you're super self-absorbed and you're living from moment to moment, literally changing every day. If I'm totally alone here then please ignore me, but once in a while I will run into a random picture of me when I was 17 or something and I can't help but think "who the fuck is this person".. and immediately want to bury that particular picture. Pictures with family are a different story, those I treasure immensely. But they are so few and far between, and certainly would not have been considered Facebook-worthy in my teens.

As a 22 year old I grew up with social networks, and it was also the time when digital cameras where first becoming more prevalent, so there are photos I have of me online stretching back to when I was 14. Every now and then I enjoy looking back on those photos. It's not like my profile is filled with photos of me. It's photos of me with other people. Friends I don't know anymore, ex-girlfriends, and people I still keep in touch with. The great thing about Facebook is that I took probably less than 5% of these photos. Most were taken by friends and I was tagged in them. I think that's the most valuable thing about Facebook for me. I always feel awkward taking photos (like I'm disturbing people or annoying them). The fact that other people I'm with can take the photos and tag me in them and share the album is invaluable. Sure there are always photos that make you cringe but I don't think age has anything to do with it. I'm sure that when I'm 40 and look back at pictures of me in my late 20s/early 30s there will be pictures that make me cringe too.

Maybe it's a generational thing then; digitally native millennials vs. gen-y or something. Either way, a decade makes a big difference in how you use the technology around you.

Photos didn't keep teens from jumping to Facebook form MySpace.

Myspace's photo experience was terrible.

This is what people will say about Twitter, Facebook, and Gplus in a year from now.

Can you elaborate? Are you saying that the statement is just fashionable because everything tends to get better? Or do you believe there are better photo sharing experiences? Thanks

Bringing friends over is the hard part. Bringing photos over from Facebook to Google+ is extremely easy with its facial recognition.

"It's not bringing your friends to a new network that's the hard part - it's bringing your data (mainly photos). Getting thousands of photos out of Facebook that are nicely tagged and commented on and into another network is impossible."

I'm constantly surprised that people actually care about the commenting part; tagging I can sort of see the value in, but only from the perspective that Facebook becomes your main photo library. Granted I'm not the most sentimental kind of chap, but once uploaded photos have been commented on, liked, +1'd etc, how many people really care about that sort of thing? Presumably people have copies of photos they care about or are deeply personal.

Of course, maybe this is the part of me that always goes "Oh yeah, I do that, and that, and..." when I go to seminars on Autism rearing its head. I'm also somewhat bemused by people's film-era photo albums for the most part, so I guess there's that.

>If anyone can leave Facebook it's teens.

Couldnt disagree more. Teens are the most-dependent age group on fb's fake social interactions.

I am 32 and I could leave fb in a second. That is because I realize that im not being social by liking posts or commenting on photos or any of the other common flows. Thats not social! Plus there is not nearly the peer pressure at my age that there is for teenagers to do that type of stuff.

(i never used fb for photos though, which is a big lock-in. my comments are just regarding the social interactions)

Why are they fake social interactions? Any bit of connection to other people is a social interaction. For some, it's a major part of their social interaction with peers. For others, it's a small bit part. It's definitely not 'fake' though. They are other people clicking that like button, and not some anonymous random internet strangers, like on Reddit or HN where the up/down arrows are used. You KNOW someone was looking at your post, and felt a connection enough to you or it to signal so through a comment or a 'like'.

I don't think so. I find it more like meta-interaction. You're interacting with the results or consequences of someone else's interactions.

If you're actually talking or communicating, via exchanges of comments or instant messages then I feel that's interaction.

Liking someone's photo is just as much of a social interaction as complimenting someones dress in person. Just two different mediums.

For the record, ICQ's issue was needless complexity. Lots of extra clicks for no good reason. Nobody hated it, but pressing "enter" on msn messenger meant more words per minute, and for us teens at the time, it seemed more fun.

The other thing about teens is that there are always a new bunch every year. So a social network displacing Facebook could start with the influx of new users who aren't committed to Facebook (or anything else) yet.

didn't msn messenger came with windows pre-installed?

this means that your non-tech savvy friends have an incentive to use it, just like the internet explorer.

"hey John, I want to chat with you over this internet thing"

John likes Jane and wants to talk to her but she is not comfortable with downloading and installing programs. She noticed that there is an app which name suggests that it is for messaging, she clicked the icon, answered the questions and created an account.

Now the tech savvy John has to create msn messenger account to talk to Jane. All the people missing from ICQ are on msn messenger now and those on ICQ can easily create a msn accout. At first both msn and ICQ run side by side but msn messenger has all the people from the ICQ while ICQ lacks many of the friends. Why bother to use ICQ? the starting sound is not good enough reason and the RAM is scarce resource for many. so, don't run ICQ all the time, only when you need it. Msn catches up with the features and people don't have reason to use ICQ anymore.

you can switch to some other network if you have somebody to interact there.

also, many hated ICQ. it had annoying spam, the messages you receive from people that are not on your list.

people can move away from facebook only if there emerges a network with a killer feature, builds up some core network of early adopters and the rest follows them because they know the people there.

I disagree that it's easy to leave like that. I have the email/phone number of maybe 5% of my Facebook friends. If I need to contact any of them, the quickest way is Facebook.

So get the numbers, then leave. Get their address too. Snail mail will soon be hip again.

That depends on how often you do need to contact them. If you don't call/text/IM them, then you could have no contact info and not miss it.

I also think that it is relatively easy to find somebody's phone number once you do wish to call/text them. You can just ask a common friend or Facebook them from a throwaway.