The end of the Facebook era
takeaswig.com
takeaswig.com
"The end of the Apple era"
"The end of the Microsoft era"
"The end of the Netflix era"
"The end of the Yahoo era"
Seriously, why do people waste time writing these types of stories? My guess is that it's because it's so much easier than actually trying to build something of value. The real problem is there is no penalty for being wrong. Everyone simply forgets. Write a thousand stories and if just one of them is right then you get to claim your genius.
Where are those guys who predicated that Apple Stores were such a stupid idea? We need to start keeping score.
http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2001-05-20/commentary-so...
He actually does a pretty great job in this article in my opinion: Strong narrative, uses facts + common knowledge and personal insight to build a strong point.
He is informing people on a particular topic they might not be so well acquainted with. Whether or not he's right about Facebook, we'll have to see but he makes a good case.
[1] http://webtrends.about.com/b/2010/01/26/5-reasons-why-apples...
I thought this article was very interesting, it brought to light several factual points, and several not-heard-before insights -- e.g., I thought this in particular was very true and interesting:
This is why social networks, like Google+ (where I
worked for one year), are struggling even more than
Facebook to get a foothold in the future of social
networking. They are betting on last year’s fashion
0. http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/15/5106950/google-snapchat-4...
1. "Confirmed" in quotes because Valleywag cites an unnamed source, and I typically find Valleywag, and Gawker Media on a whole, dubious and not entirely worthy of trust. However, this may have been more solidly confirmed elsewhere as well.
Like offering $6BN to Groupon - They could give away $5 million a day to companies using Google Offers for three years.
Obviously smarter-than-me people are behind these deals, but I just can't figure out how they make sense.
> Why. Why must you do this. Why must you dismiss articles on hackneyed grounds and kill the chance for an interesting discussion about the nature and direction of social technologies.
For the same reason. People like being perceived by others as contrarian or controversial, and people like perceiving themselves to be most clever/insightful/prescient than the next guy.
It hasn't been anybody's forte except for facebook by that standard. On the contrary g+ is far better than facebook by any measurement you choose to use, it isn't missing anything. A supportive user base mostly absent only in the minds of people vehemently dying for it to be absent. These people who repeat the idea that using google for social networking is the worst thing they've ever heard or thought about. The technology is still sound, meanwhile.
The G+ API sucks. Bad. It might as well not even be there for all the use you can get out of it.
Do a serious comparison of the Facebook Graph API to what passes for an API on G+, then tell us again that it isn't missing anything.
The author mentions that teens see Facebook as a utensil and not as something "cool" anymore.
Okay, fine, but how does that predict the end of facebook? If facebook becomes a utensil, a utensil that a good chunk of grownups still continue to use no less, why would that mean the end of facebook?
The author further talks about the 70s and 80s and things that were cool. Great, but if he stated that teens see facebook as a utensil, what does "cool" have to do with anything? If we stay with the 70s and 80s statement, do you know what other utensils we had in the 70s and 80s? Cars. Cars are utensils as a mode of transportation but also they are an outlet for some people to show the world who they are. What I mean is, we still drive cars even though we had them in the 70s and 80s. They just look different as technology and consumer demands have changed over time.
So, there is no reason why facebook would go down just because teens currently don't see it as "cool" anymore. As long as it is useful to manage your private contacts, and as long as it adapts to people's changing demands it can go on.
In short, were facebook on its way out, there would have to be one new "cool" thing to replace it. It is not enough to just have something similar but without users like g+. And if such a thing emerges, facebook still isn't doomed right away. They would just now have a reason why they maybe should listen to their users a little more. Regarding thins like privacy settings etc. As long as they don't have a competitor, they can pretty much do whatever they like as people don't really have an alternative. Should we start seeing teens leaving in droves for new hip platform X, I think facebook would recognize this and we would start seeing some more user friendly changes.
Because they believe them. Life is a journey of discovery (I know waaaay too pithy) and the more stuff you see, the more bigger pictures pop out of it. Its like backing away from a fractal. You see what is important, what was probably luck, and what was different. When pieces come together in your head it is pretty exciting, like figuring out a difficult proof, or creating a clever algorithm. You want to share some of that with those around you.
Our Author had one view of Facebook, and now has another. Their view evolved based on what they observed, and they feel much more confident in their current view, and so they share it.
Because no one remembers the misses, only hits.
> Where are those guys who predicated that Apple Stores were such a stupid idea? We need to start keeping score.
People are starting to keep score! Websites like http://www.pundittracker.com/ are starting to come out of the woodwork, and as more people help collect data (person X claimed Y would happen by Z date) we can start generating hit rates.
Author XXX is wrong 97.5% of the time!
We need contrarian points-of-view, even if fundamentally wrong, to challenge and strengthen our own opinions.
I agree about keeping score, however; that allows us to assign value to the predictors.
Why are you wasting time complaining about it if you don't like it. Just ignore it and move on.
"the end of the Microsoft era"
I've heard it a billion times that teens aren't using Facebook. But who cares? I just don't see any evidence that this heralds the end of Facebook.
It's not necessarily any more meaningful than "people ages 65-70 don't use Facebook". It's a small percentage of the population. And there's no indication that teens are using something else that will replace Facebook when they're in their 20's and 30's -- you can't organize parties on Instagram or Snapchat. Every indication is that teens get onto Facebook once they stop being teens, correct me if I'm wrong.
Can we stop talking about this ineffable "cool" factor, until there's any kind of evidence that it is actually necessary for Facebook's continued success? I mean, I don't remember Facebook ever being cool. It's always been pretty drab, a pretty bland boring blue, with an interface much like an OS. But it just works better than the alternatives, and keeps working better. Why people are suddenly constantly talking about this "lack of cool" is beyond me.
You can.
Beyond that, the interesting part is the sentence you yourself quoted. It's utilitarian, it's contact management, it's messaging, but it's not a primary source of content and engagement within the demo, and that's by it's own virtue interesting.
From an advertising perspective, there's a massive gulf between "teens don't use Facebook" and "senior citizens don't use Facebook".
To put it flippantly: one group is headed into a coveted demographic, the other group buys denture paste.
That's not to say that Facebook wouldn't do fine even if the only people that used it were "uncool and old" like the rest of us, but to an advertiser it's a bit of a worrying sign.
It's very possible to have success marketing denture paste and products to older people. But if Facebook does hemorrhage teens, advertisers will take notice. And right now Facebook is advertising. That's going to have an impact.
Today's teens do not use Facebook as much as teens did in the past. That's a fact. Will they use it more once they're in their 30s? That's pure speculation on your part, which is completely unsubstantiated, and we'll have to wait one or two decades to find out. I tend not to put a lot of weight in unsubstantiated technology predictions spanning decades.
In any case, if Facebook is transitioning from a site that is used by lots of people for long periods of time (which it was), to a calendar/contacts app that people check into occasionally and briefly (which it has become for me, and apparently others as well), that's a glaring problem for their business model. Even if they remain the absolute best party organizing site on the web for years to come, that's probably not good enough to support their current revenue model.
> Every indication is that teens get onto Facebook once they stop being teens, correct me if I'm wrong.
You're just making up a random fact to support your case, and leaving the burden on the reader to substantiate your claims, correct me if I'm wrong.
> I mean, I don't remember Facebook ever being cool ... Why people are suddenly constantly talking about this "lack of cool" is beyond me.
Facebook was cool. When it began launching in colleges around the country, "cool" kids (particularly fraternity and sorority members) were early adopters. Shortly thereafter, everybody on campus was using it and Myspace became a joke.
> It's always been pretty drab, a pretty bland boring blue, with an interface much like an OS.
If you're looking to the interface to figure out if it was, you're looking in the wrong place. But for the record, Facebook's interface was much, much cooler than the eyesore that was Myspace.
"> Every indication is that teens get onto Facebook once they stop being teens, correct me if I'm wrong.
You're just making up a random fact to support your case, and leaving the burden on the reader to substantiate your claims, correct me if I'm wrong."
And the only fact supporting your case is a sentence from Facebook's Q3 report. Total active teen usage was stable while younger teens are dropping off. If you want to claim that Facebook was downplaying the extent of the problem then that's a very bold assertion. Hiding critical information such as that for investors is what get's executives in trouble. It's also why they bothered to share a piece of information that sent the share price tumbling 20% after an 18% jump.
The use case of Facebook is not messaging. It never has been. The use case of Facebook is their social graph. It's your online identity. It's being the lowest barrier of entry to use the internet.
Facebook was originally college-only, and high schoolers tend to emulate college students more than the other way around (in fact, I doubt any college student follows high school trends), therefore my guess is what Facebook is actually losing is young college students..? If they're losing high school students.. who cares.
It's almost disturbing that these days a company can be founded, become an overnight success, grow immensely, have a huge IPO, then get disrupted and on the decline in a span of only nine years.
Maybe that's Facebook's fate. In the end, they'll be a site full of accounts for dead people who, oddly, are still Liking various products and inviting each other to play Farmville.
I use it for sharing pictures with my friends and family. Hiking, skiing, camping, vacations, whatever. My family loves seeing that crap. My friends do too. The group album feature released a few months ago is AWESOME for that stuff.
Organizing events without facebook is tough. Facebook handles RSVPs. Has polls for things at the event (where should it be, what should we eat, etc.). Lets you post pictures. Lets you discuss everything.
Groups are fantastic also. I have a group where people post if they're going skiing this weekend. I used a group to coordinate 10 people training and participating in a Tough Mudder event. I have another group to coordinate a small semi-startup I'm a part of.
I can't imagine my life without facebook anymore.
Been on Facebook since 2005 (after I left college) and I'd say that it's busier than it has ever been. A huge chunk of my social sphere uses it for photo and link sharing; it has completely replaced mailing lists and instant messaging of years past.
Except for the fact that teens are expected to live (and spend money) for many decades, whereas 65-70 year olds are nearing the ends of their lives. So yes, a 16% decline in teen users is of huge importance.
Facebook was so ridiculously hot a few years ago that it couldn't possibly have met all of its expectations for changing how we all communicate, replacing all other messaging mediums, dominating how we shop and buy, the portal for all things entertainment, etc.
> Teens likely see Facebook the same way the Facebook generation sees LinkedIn – like a utilitarian place to manage connections.
This sounds a lot like the Plateau of Productivity to me.
http://www.google.co.uk/trends/explore#q=%2Fm%2F02y1vz%2C%20...
However, a forecast is just a forecast, not happened yet. The 'trend' graph spikes with the IPO which had no relevance for 99% of Facebook users. Take that spike out, ignore the 'forecast' and Facebook is doing the 'myspace curve' and in a similar time frame.
Anyway, where is the Facebook login for Hacker News?
This is why the "millennials are leaving Facebook" worry isn't actually real. Yes, middle schoolers and high schoolers aren't using Facebook. They are at a stage in their life where the idea of their parents being able to see into their life is scary. Their social circle is also disproportionately made up of people they can easily see every day. Facebook's utility for contact management, event planning, and keeping in touch doesn't really begin until people turn 18 and go out on their own. This doesn't even begin to touch the ease of using it to sign up for other products that are built on top of it.
Great point
Facebook was created as an online replacement for something that had been around in physical form for a long time. Welcome to Facebook.
But even if Facebook is prone to stumble, I'd encourage entrepreneurs not to try to be the "next Facebook". As I wrote elsewhere [1]: "Honestly, there probably won't be a 'next Facebook', for the same reason there hasn't been a next Amazon, next Oracle, next Google, or next Apple. There hasn't even been a next Yahoo, because the secret to success for many startups wasn't being another Yahoo, it was being different. Something you should think hard on: Zuckerberg didn't set out to make the next Facebook, or the next anything. He was just making something fun for himself and his fellow Harvard students. It was only when he saw how powerful his creation was that his ambitions increased."
This seems especially relevant to me now that I'm seeing ads around San Francisco for two new social networks that are lamely trying to be the next Facebook.
[1] https://www.quora.com/Entrepreneurship/Is-it-foolish-to-go-t...
It's also true that the company that looks indomitable today is seen as an anachronism tomorrow. At one point there were lawsuits against AOL to open up the instant messenger network because it was seen as an anti-competitive monopoly. Now nobody seems to care.
Same with Google, no? I feel like they entered a crowded market of search engines and came out on top, but certainly weren't the first of their kind.
* Facebook was the "Next MySpace"
* MySpace was the "Next Xanga"
* Xanga was the "Next Homestead"
* Homestead was the "Next Geocities"
A lot of industries also have early periods of extreme tumult, then greater stability as firms consolidated and success becomes more obvious and definable. Think about cars: it's become a commonplace that Detroit was the Silicon Valley of its day, but eventually a few car makers became dominant. When, say, GM first emerged, it might have seemed to observers that another rival would rise to take out GM—which didn't really happen until decades later.
Facebook may be the first of the "mature" social networks that isn't almost immediately superseded by something dramatically better. The fact that it now has so much lock-in inertia indicates that it may be with us for much longer than its day-to-day critics believe.
And Google could be seen as the next Altavista, Lycos, Excite, etc.
Android itself could be seen as a copy of iOS (released a year after the iPhone redesigned to match it) , and it has eaten into its' market (and into the general untapped smartphone market).
So I wouldn't say he haven't seen that "next" stuff happening.
Doesn't have to be 100% the same to be next -- just to cater to the same market and needs.
This is something I will likely never understand. Why do people have so much trouble with being themselves? This isn't a Facebook problem, this is a society problem. Facebook just exposed it.
Instead of talking about the end of the FB era and making new social networks, we should talk about making people more comfortable with being themselves. The first step is to stop spending so much time judging everyone.
What I've found is that people are far more accepting of me, like me much better, and I generally build better and deeper relationships quicker. My life has also become much simpler since I no longer have to filter myself all the freaking time.
It's really nice. You should try it. But it does take oodles of confidence. If you aren't confident in yourself, then you will not be able to pull it off.
But as a self-absorbed millennial I often forget to remember that there are people who live in different circumstances than I do. Now I'm wondering how many gay people from certain parts of Africa use Facebook ...
Next you're going to tell me how you're living a minimalist lifestyle and have shed most material goods that drag everyone else down, and you don't understand why other people don't. I don't believe you because I know too many actual, complex people. We live private, inner lives. We think we know how certain people see us. We think we know how our actions are perceived. We think we know who we are. But we are wrong.
Your response sounds like the beginning of a novel, followed by "and then one day everything changed"
I don't know. Good luck with being the real you.
1. Humans are judgemental creatures. 2. Humans like to feel loved.
Person X doesn't want his favourite aunt to stop liking him because she read his Facebook debate with a friend on the teaching of creationism in schools.
How pointless is that. At the age of internet...
That's why people have trouble being themselves. Facts of life.
Because people's lives have different sections that often have parts you don't want to overlap. You probably don't want your boss seeing a photo of you drunk at a party, and you probably don't want your conservative uncle to see that you are politically liberal.
In both those circumstances it's not that you'd necessarily hide those parts of your personality from the other parties involved; your boss probably gets drunk too and your uncle isn't going to stop speaking to you because your political views differ. It's more that it doesn't improve the relationship with that person.
Yes, it would be great if people didn't judge each other but unfortunately that's not how the psychology works.
So, unless you live a life in which you're comfortable revealing every opinion you hold and every action you've taken (in which case wow that's impressive) you have to maintain a certain image that you broadcast on a service like facebook.
Quite the contrary. I don't want a boss who has a problem with my being drunk when I'm not at work and I would love nothing more than to have a good debate about politics with my uncle.
Yes, I am actually comfortable expressing my every opinion to just about anyone. I didn't used to be, but then I grew a pair and became more comfortable with myself. People reacted very very positively.
It's amazing how quickly one can build intimate friendships and even get people to open up themselves when you just take the first step. Hell, just the other day a cool lady I've known for all of two weeks said I'm the most open person she's ever met.
And a few weeks ago a girl told me she is able to talk to me about things she hasn't spoken about with anyone in something like ten years. It was a few hours after the first time we've ever met.
But the first step, as always, is accepting yourself for who you are. I have a feeling many people don't feel comfortable doing that.
For an example just think of the internet's new favorite celebrity Jennifer Lawrence. Her main quality is that she's human and that she isn't afraid of being honest and open about herself.
Not everyone carries the same social skills to be able to emotionally handle being fired from work over a Facebook photo (which has happened in the US many times).
Many also lack the ability or desire to want to form intimate friendships with all but a small number of people.
Others may be actively stalked, harassed and/or physically or sexually assaulted for being too open with others online that seemed trustworthy early on, but later abused that trust.
Jennifer Lawrence seems like a lovely person, but she also is white, financially secure, and has a bodyguard.
If you ever want to be working for a large American firm : firstly, you deny anything remotely like a character flaw, you almost violently pursue a "perfect" online image. Second you hide and deny things like your real political opinion (esp. the political one). The big public secret about politics in America is that there is no real difference in tolerance on average between republicans and democrats, and they're simply all very intolerant of even minor differences of opinion, and will do everything in their power to damage you or your reputation merely because of political differences. Thirdly, realize that people around you will also act like this. So pushing to hear someone's political opinion, finding out if they really like this charity they're contributing to that just happens to be the exact same one as their boss ... DO NOT GO THERE. Get an alias and make sure it can't be tied to your real name.
I actually made a mistake against this once, and got myself terminated after an infuriating 3 month period where my performance, which easily bested the rest of the team, was constantly criticized. Not by coworkers, strictly by management. A minor mistake was "revenue-impacting" according to my boss, 5 minutes after the sysadmin manager took me out to an expensive lunch on the company's dime for catching his mistake before it became a disaster. I had double the number of bugs closed of the next team member, and the whole team constantly asked me to look at their work. My boss, who never even showed up at the office, called me in at exactly the interval documented in the HR procedures to complain about my performance, never citing a single source. After 3 months I was "let go" for bad performance. I got 2 recommendation letters from a team leader and an operational manager without even asking. I am NOT making this mistake again. This all started after a political discussion.
Of course these rules will not make facebooking with your coworkers a particularly pleasant experience. You got to have priorities, and "being yourself" is lower than having a good job and career. Not that I am a great fan of social interaction online or offline. Especially the empty "look at my shiny" that happens on facebook/google+/youtube/... And the shouting matches, even less.
Perhaps for you, for me, being myself is the highest priority. You can always find a new job or a new career, but once your back has been broken, you will forever be a spineless wimp whom nobody will respect.
That simply isn't true or realistic for a large amount of people.
Its a peculiar graphical distribution such that anywhere within 300 miles of Chicago (including rural wisconsin, etc) or on the coasts, no one cares about stuff like that. But god help you in between the areas of freedom. Appalachia, Dakotas, the remaining English speaking parts of the south, that U shaped area of wanna be theocratic dictatorship is right out of one of Charlie Stross's novels, not even a parody, really.
However, it's easier to change a website than it is to change a global society. This will take literally generations
Possible answers:
1. Many of us (or our employers) rely on these audiences for revenue, so knowing where they are and what they're interested in enables us to have success
2. We're interested in what drives success/failure, despite logic indicating that -- in both scenarios -- random chance plays one of the largest parts
3. It's like good old-fashioned gossip, where everyone who doesn't actually have anything to say can still speak up
4. We hope to learn from history as it happens to us; if we can accurately predict why people are leaving Facebook and where they're going, we can be part of -- or the driver of -- the next wave.
Its very important he phrased it that way, because bell bottoms had another day in the sun. Happily young women wearing skin tight spandex/yoga pants from the 90s had another day in the 10s. Its difficult to find a womens fashion fad that doesn't repeat every 20-ish years.
The endless rotating wheel of fashion and fads doesn't rotate at a speed of 1 rotation per decade. Its more like 1 rotation per 2 decades aka generation.
I predict that 2030 will be an excellent year for 2010 style social networks.
You can use a 20-, 30-, or 50-year-old scarf or jacket you find in a thrift store, but not a phone or a computer. And very few people would want to.
You can use a 50 year old wired POTS phone no problem. The sound quality is superior to modern wired phones, and those are superior to any cell or voip tech.
Tons of things have been considered fads through the decades, some rightly (hula-hoops) and some not (rock music). The question, when making an analogy, is how they relate to Facebook.
Unless you connect Pepsi and Facebook with something more besides (both have been considered a fad), we cannot draw any conclusions from Pepsi with regards to Facebook's situation except this:
Sometimes, people can consider something as a fad when it isn't.
If you want to make this analogy work, you have to show why Facebook will be more like Pepsi and less like the hula-hoop or piano neck-ties.
There's a social cost to be seen doing the things that everyone else is doing (the equivalent, say, of wearing a mainstream band t-shirt), so having a presence on Facebook is just meeting the bar. To be "cool" you need to find the social networks nobody else knows about, and hang out with your friends there. Bonus points for alluding, on Facebook, to conversations you had on the not-Facebook social network.
It may be amusing to find in 10 years that using Facebook becomes a new fad again and is seen as "retro". Certainly a possibility if Facebook does not innovate itself to non-recognizability.
Examples of things that worked:
- Follow updates of celebrities
- Collect nice looking things on a website
- Make even the worst picture look good
- Be the best cat gif curator
Examples of things that didn't work:
- Facebook but for ten friends
- Facebook for Google Accounts
- Facebook with open data portability
Let Zuck worry about the hype cycle and start building.
We can either use public company stats, or a couple of respected publications' reported usage stats, or a combination of both to decide the winner.
I think myspace probably still claims it's the largest!
As far as addressing the teen exodus, and related to the above impact, Facebook's NewsFeed is just not interesting anymore. Back when Facebook started, I was friends largely with 100-300 people whose lives I actually was interested in. I am not interested in the minutiae of my current 1000+ friends' lives, and their endless and meaningless statuses bore me to no end. Facebook wanted its NewsFeed to break out of the echo chamber effect, and therefore made the NewsFeed algorithm more random, putting the onus of creating relevant NewsFeeds on the individual user (through the creation of individual lists of friends). But USERS WANT THE ECHO CHAMBER EFFECT! I don't want to know what's happening in the "town square,"-- I want to know what's happening with my 20 closest friends. Because teens joined on when this new paradigm was already in place, there's nothing to draw them in. It's just not interesting-- and apps like Instagram and Snapchat are more engaging as a result because they're more personal.
Lastly, Facebook is way too cluttered. It has an atrocious UI, so many buttons all over the place. Mark Zuckerberg's utilitarian aesthetic lives to today, only it's way worse because Facebook has so much more (useless) functionality. Instagram and Snapchat are clean and elegant-- it's not jarring to open those apps like it is to navigate Facebook.
Perfect example- I was out for a Secret Santa dinner with a bunch of my friends. While we were at the dinner, we took tons of pictures, some of which ended up as Snapchat stories or on Instagram. But later that night, every single one of those pictures went up on Facebook. Cover photos were updated aplently. Why? Because all of us are on Facebook and Facebook is still the best way to permanently store and share the experiences you've had with your friends (while also tagging them in the photos).
One particular observation that the article makes that I want to flesh out a bit is the following: Facebook has grown and grown in terms of the size of the application itself, and it is clear that they have pushed very heavily for the 'platform' model. It seems like this is getting replaced by a series of more specialized, more mobile-centric social applications, like Snapchat and Tumblr. Of course FB owns Instagram so they have that going for them, but this does seem to hint at a bit of a growing trend in social networking.
What would be much better, is to let users use whatever platform they wish and implement some common protocol for following, status updates and private messaging.
Personally I'm waiting for someone to "reinvent" NNTP.
We're in a recentralization cycle of services, because it's easier to build (and more monetizable) than similar distributed services.
When we have the technical building blocks and business creativity to break the cycle, things will get interesting again.
Just one example is its utility to sign up and log in to other services, which is 95%+ of my FB activity.
But with young people, if Facebook is uncool, then by proxy Instagram is uncool as well. This is how teenagers think these days. They can sink as much money into other social platforms, but you won't ever get rid of the Facebook stigma.
Another major component of Facebook's decline was their lack of a mobile strategy. Again, pure conjecture, but as mobile use in teens increases, the mobile experience matters more -- the Facebook app was unusable for a long time, and that probably had an effect on growth and reputation.
In my opinion, the biggest risk for Facebook is the paradigm shift in how we share photos. A big component of their growth in 2009 - 2011 was their dominance in the photo sharing space. They're the number one photo sharing site in the world. Now photo sharing and picture taking are a mobile experience (e.g., Snapchat, Instragram), being the number one photo sharing site isn't as big of a deal. The purchase of Instagram was smart.
I used to be a much heavier Facebook user. Now I get hassled by family for saying uncouth things, and generally see it as a chore. Everything you do on Facebook is chronicled on your timeline, and has a certain amount of permanency, and while I'm sure you can delete a lot of it its clearly not the intention, so it does require more "curation", as compared to transient chat apps. The privacy controls are opaque and its hard to be sure exactly who you're sharing with, which makes it hard to be comfortable really sharing a lot on Facebook.
How few companies can you say that about? That you use their product every day? Your mattress. Your refrigerator. Your toothpaste. Your car. Not only have all of their manufacturers have been around for nearly a century, but they all have perfect substitutes: Crest and Colgate. By your own anecdote, Facebook is in a very enviable position.
The move to quickly-adopted "apps" has accelerated in mobile because the plumbing is already in place:
1. Contact list / address book Implicit network already exists, does not need to be built in the new product.
2. Location GPS takes apps beyond check-ins - adding context and information to posts. Even enabling new sorts of dating networks.
3. Media Photos and video, combined with location, contacts and persistent connections on one device make it easier than ever to include photos and video.
This combination (not to mention building on the Facebook platform) will continue to enable faster developing and more narrow focused "networks".
Or put more directly: sure, hip 20-somethings don't give Facebook the love they once did. Who cares? FB doesn't have to play the "I'm the coolest kid in town" game any more. As the author says, they can buy cool. All they have to do now is remain the only tool to wish Grandma a happy birthday.
Or, as some FB'er put it years ago, they're the phonebook, dammit. Their goal is to be a utility. They want to be the radio station, not the rock band.
As the author noted though, Facebook can still thrive in the "cool factor" with their acquisitions.
Even if nothing is done about the NSA, it will have the merit of making facebook less and less popular, and make people not trust websites who might be information hungry.
I wonder if people thwarting the way they post their info can really make those info gathering useless. That'd fun to watch.
In my native tongue, 10 years wouldn't be called an "era", hence the disagreement.
Parents have been on Facebook for a long time. Why are teenagers today leaving but not teenagers from 3 years ago?
Also, why is it assumed that teenagers who stopped using Facebook today aren't going to come back when they get older and have adult-things they want to share?
The one (most outstanding) treat that turned me off from the very first moment I saw that site is that the most "facebook people" tend to filter too little!
Pretty sad indictment of the tech industry that operating like a business had to be qualified.
Facebook has turned into a creepy tree house - it's no longer a place for people to play. Because it's creepy.
Now, what's going to beat Facebook and LinkedIn and much else in the long run-- and by "long" I mean 2020-25 is something I call "quality social". Facebook provides "social" and there is no meaningful filter on quality. That's not a knock on Facebook; that's not its job. People can fill your feed with junk. Of your 400 "friends", 390 are really acquaintances. I have the most respect for what Meetup is doing ("use the Internet to get off the Internet") but the problem of providing a quality social experience over the Internet is an unsolved one. (Meetup just helps people plan offline experiences.) I think that it will start with multiplayer games. Board games are great at alleviating social awkwardness that forms when people are new to each other or haven't kept in touch for a while. It goes beyond games, though; really, the problem is how to allow people to have meaningful and social experiences in such a way that they can be online, offline, or mixed (i.e. a game where some people are physically in the same place and some are not, or a game that persists as their locations change). Maybe we should try this out, do an Ambition tournament some time in 2014. Anyway, there are a lot of unknown variables-- especially around mobile devices-- but Quality Social is where the future (of social/consumer web) is coming from.
Sure.
> mainly used for sexting.
Is this actually true? It hasn't really been my experience, but maybe my friends are prudes.
> I agree that there is something in combing asynchrony and ephemerality, but come on. Nothing run by the likes of Evan Spiegel is going to threaten Facebook. He's not in the same class as Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates. He's not even in the same class as me. He's a rich kid and a lottery winner and should have sold at $3 billion and let someone else run it.
The amount of butthurt in this comment is off the charts. You just took butthurt to 11.
Mark Zuckerberg was also a snotty, privileged rich kid once (he's not a kid anymore). In any case, who are you to put limits on what some 20-something kid is capable of? Because you have a lot of imaginary points on a comment board? Maybe his success is due to luck, or maybe it's because he didn't spend his time tearing down other people on a comment board.
Anyway, go ahead and build out Quality Social. Take the $3B offer, or maybe you should decline it because you're in another class.
The open internet meant that anyone with TCP/IP could see all content.
Facebook put everything behind a wall that was both effective at blocking open access and ineffective at protecting privacy.
The centralization of the internet into a handful of sites -- Twitter, Wikipedia, Facebook, and Google -- is destructive to the original mission and concept of the internet.