Facebook users aging fast. "A parlor for the middle-aged?"
sfgate.com
sfgate.com
One middle aged woman I spoke to on the plane noted that there is a need to be able to "compartmentalize" one's online social networking, much as one does this for work. Her country club employees (where she works) have Facebook profiles which she uses to try and make contacts for new sales, and she finds that some of her fellow early 20's employees have Spring Break pictures only a few clicks away from hers. Not the best thing for her. I suggested LinkedIn, but this doesn't quite work for what she has in mind.
Age as a signifier in itself is slipping.
No need for me to visit facebook to keep in touch, email, the phone and so on work just fine.
It isn't like a bunch of old people are now trying to hang out with the young cool kids causing the entire system to be less cool.
So although I appreciate Facebook for linking me up to a few former classmates from childhood (my first Facebook friend was one such), if I want to do what I really enjoy, as a grown-up adult, I look for those same friends in other contexts. And that, I think, is why Facebook is extremely unlikely to build a business model through which it can gain more revenue per user than it has expenses per user to serve up cute photographs and videos.
The guidelines of Facebook oughta be the same as the guidelines of hn which oughta be the same as the guidelines of kindergarden. Don't post anything you'd be embarassed if anyone else saw and don't say anything online you wouldn't say in person.
But it looks like Facebook is trying to grow past it's original niche into the online identity provider for all. Which means someone else will have to fill the void to give kids a chance to discuss sex, drugs, and whatever other startling discoveries they seem to make on a daily basis.
Those crazy kids are a fickle bunch, and throughout history they've wanted to not be where their parents hang out.
But with Facebook the two groups are separate. Think of it as a house: It's all one place, but each group has their privacy. The parents can have a dinner party upstairs while the kids get drunk and party in the basement.
You have your friends and you have your family. You want your granny to be able to see the pictures your mum took, but you don't want your mum to know you are friends with bobby that she disapproves of.