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I wonder what's Facebook's move after Instagram becomes stale and no longer "cool". It seems to me that the popularity of social networks are cyclical, and ther

I wonder what's Facebook's move after Instagram becomes stale and no longer "cool". It seems to me that the popularity of social networks are cyclical, and there's very little that a company can do to satiate a user's appetite for something new. That's before we discuss future regulatory troubles Facebook might face. What future revenue streams does Facebook have? Are they even capable of creating something new that users love? As far as I can tell, they haven't created any popular products outside of Facebook version 1.0. Out of all the major tech companies, Facebook's position seems the least stable IMO.

lbotos 8y ago
I mean, can they not BUY the next one? It's what they did with Instagram after all. >What future revenue streams does Facebook have? The amount of Data facebook has on the behavioral nature of current parents and current and future American children of said parents is _insane_. Facebook may not be a social media company for ever, but big blue will be an advertising powerhouse for a while with the amount of data they have.
- brandon272 8y ago
  The ability to buy the next big thing is far from guaranteed.
  - CamelCaseName 8y ago
    Facebook has the power to know what the next big thing is, maybe better than those building it. Reading up on onavo is terrifying.
    - m_ke 8y ago
      I'm sure Google will be willing to beat anything that Facebook offers for the next rising competitor just to hurt them.
- asah 8y ago
  ISWYD "big blue" = FB not IBM.
- bepotts 8y ago
  What like the next social network? I'm much more bearish on antitrust than most people throwing that term around, but even I am against Facebook being able to buy another upstart social network. They cannot be allowed to do that. Maybe they can do something completely different like Oculus and leverage their infrastructure to make the best product possible. But even then that's a huge gamble, and I don't think Oculus has lived up to anywhere near the hype.
  - deltron3030 8y ago
    They're getting into sports for VR, buying licenses, streaming rights and stuff. Most european soccer clubs are already primarly interacting with their fans through FB. FB might attack Sky sports and similar, and instead promote the idea of the self marketing of clubs and their streaming rights. Right now, in many countries there's still a "middle man" or body that handles the streaming license stuff for entire leagues. Once clubs realize that they could fill virtual stadiums or sell virtual tickets, this may change. They may even switch to free tickets in the real world to better the stadium atmosphere and fill their virtual stadiums that won't have a capacity cap..
  - whywhywhywhy 8y ago
    >and I don't think Oculus has lived up to anywhere near the hype. Don't speak too soon, Gaming PC VR was never ever going to be big but they're announcing their first full featured stand alone headset today. In terms of what Oculus is hoping to achieve today is pretty much Day 1 and everything up until today has been a beta test.
- modwilliam 8y ago
  They may not be able to. See: Snapchat
  - kondro 8y ago
    Snapchat's market cap is only $12B… and publicly traded. I'm sure they could buy it if they wanted to.
  - pavlov 8y ago
    With the way Snapchat's stock price is going, it's going to be snapped up by a bigger player eventually.
imron 8y ago
> I wonder what's Facebook's move after Instagram becomes stale and no longer "cool" They acquire the next cool thing
WheelsAtLarge 8y ago
Facebook is here to stay. They are not Myspace. They are following the model of many of the tech companies that survive. If they can't copy it they will buy it. They have enough revenues that they can buy any hot startup and nurse it to success. Zuckerberg will likely be CEO for at least the next 10 years and has shown that he can learn from mistakes and continue to succeed. He's one of the few that has learned his way to successful CEO of a large company. There's very little that can bring them down. Even if the government regulates them the regulations will not be so stringent that they will cause Facebook to fold. The irony is that regulations favor big companies since they make it harder for small start-ups to succeed. I'm not a fan but I see reality.
- thrower123 8y ago
  Facebook is dead. They have lost all momentum. The older people that have not moved on to snapchat or Instagram are exactly those that will be flummoxed by the changes.
  - AzMoo_ 8y ago
    Snapchat and Instagram serve a completely different purpose to facebook though.
    - sincerely 8y ago
      they serve the same purpose that facebook did when it was nascent/enjoyable
  - selectodude 8y ago
    Facebook owns Instagram, and Instagram Stories is eating Snap's lunch. I'm sure they'll be okay.
    - zumbof 8y ago
      Why do people compare Instagram Stories to Snapchat? Instagram copied stories from Snapchat, but they didn't copy the core of the app, ephemeral pictures.
blihp 8y ago
Cool probably doesn't matter nearly as much as it used to given Facebook's user base size. As long as they have eyeballs, they'll have a revenue stream. Their willingness to pay what appeared to be outrageous sums for competitors users reflects that. But now that they've got the lions share of the social network using world, it's doubtful that they'd need to do that again in a big way unless they see something getting serious traction with people who are not already Facebook users. You say least stable but let's look at Yahoo as an example: they've been dead for over a decade and lots of people still use them. Massive data breaches, people still use them etc. etc. Imagine how many people will keep using Facebook if all they manage to do is be a less bad version of Yahoo. People are creatures of habit and once they develop a habit, especially one that doesn't cost $$$ upfront, it takes a herculean effort to get most of them to change their behavior. Once people are hooked, many of them seem to be willing to be abused nearly forever.
- abraae 8y ago
  Especially since FB is basically easy-to-use group email with pictures for everyone's uncle, aunty, grandma. They will keep that position for decades.
docker_up 8y ago
They have over 2 billion monthly active users. This is a global penetration rate that is the best in the world. They have done something that no other company in the world has done. They are relevant to basically the vast majority of all Internet users in the world. To say they are the least stable or that their power over most humans is waning is, quite frankly, ludicrous. To put it in perspective, they would need to lose 3/4 of their users to reach Twitter levels. Sure, Hacker News has loads of people that hate Facebook, but don't be fooled by the HN bias here. Also, all the armchair CEOs here would do anything to get even 1% of Zuckerberg's success. I don't think Facebook is going anywhere soon.
- chrischen 8y ago
  No, a lot of people hate Facebook. John Oliver has been talking about it.
- 013a 8y ago
  Windows has seen an officially reported install base as high as 1.5B. This was a few years ago; their numbers have taken a hit recently. Considering the average annual revenue per U.S. Facebook user is ~$20, startlingly less in other countries, arguably Microsoft, not Facebook, is the more interesting company. Nearly as many active users as Facebook, but substantially more revenue per user (~$50-$150 for an OEM key? Add in office subscriptions, enterprise users, oh my) and substantially more "eye-time" (monthly active? once per month? ha. you used Windows the entire time you were on the PC). Arguably. I don't want to argue it. It's just a thought and it's not the point. No one looks at Microsoft and thinks "they're going to absolutely dominate the home computing OS market in 2030." They owned the planet and they threw it away. At best they'll remain a second-rate player in the cloud market, riding the ripples of their 90s enterprise clients until those die out as well. Meanwhile Apple and Google ate their cake. No one saw that coming in 2001. Wait, the company that nearly went bankrupt and now makes that really bad MP3 player, and... Google who? Hold on let me AltaVista that. The companies that are, today, worth almost nothing are worth a combined $2T in just 17 years? What the hell happens to the US Dollar in the next decade?! Shit changes, and it changes overnight. Sometimes literally, most of the time just "faster than you expect". The only thing you can bet on is that "active users" means about as much as the moon landing conspiracy theories.
tinyhouse 8y ago
I think the next big thing for FB is VR. If VR becomes mainstream soon (and I think it will) and FB lead the space with Oculus, then their future is bright.
beamatronic 8y ago
I am pretty sure the answer involves vertical video
puranjay 8y ago
Whatsapp payments can be a massive cash cow. Whatsapp is a core part of life in India and I can easily see them becoming the WeChat of this country

lbotos 8y ago

I mean, can they not BUY the next one? It's what they did with Instagram after all. >What future revenue streams does Facebook have? The amount of Data facebook has on the behavioral nature of current parents and current and future American children of said parents is _insane_. Facebook may not be a social media company for ever, but big blue will be an advertising powerhouse for a while with the amount of data they have.

brandon272 8y ago
The ability to buy the next big thing is far from guaranteed.
- CamelCaseName 8y ago
  Facebook has the power to know what the next big thing is, maybe better than those building it. Reading up on onavo is terrifying.
  - m_ke 8y ago
    I'm sure Google will be willing to beat anything that Facebook offers for the next rising competitor just to hurt them.
asah 8y ago
ISWYD "big blue" = FB not IBM.
bepotts 8y ago
What like the next social network? I'm much more bearish on antitrust than most people throwing that term around, but even I am against Facebook being able to buy another upstart social network. They cannot be allowed to do that. Maybe they can do something completely different like Oculus and leverage their infrastructure to make the best product possible. But even then that's a huge gamble, and I don't think Oculus has lived up to anywhere near the hype.
- deltron3030 8y ago
  They're getting into sports for VR, buying licenses, streaming rights and stuff. Most european soccer clubs are already primarly interacting with their fans through FB. FB might attack Sky sports and similar, and instead promote the idea of the self marketing of clubs and their streaming rights. Right now, in many countries there's still a "middle man" or body that handles the streaming license stuff for entire leagues. Once clubs realize that they could fill virtual stadiums or sell virtual tickets, this may change. They may even switch to free tickets in the real world to better the stadium atmosphere and fill their virtual stadiums that won't have a capacity cap..
- whywhywhywhy 8y ago
  >and I don't think Oculus has lived up to anywhere near the hype. Don't speak too soon, Gaming PC VR was never ever going to be big but they're announcing their first full featured stand alone headset today. In terms of what Oculus is hoping to achieve today is pretty much Day 1 and everything up until today has been a beta test.
modwilliam 8y ago
They may not be able to. See: Snapchat
- kondro 8y ago
  Snapchat's market cap is only $12B… and publicly traded. I'm sure they could buy it if they wanted to.
- pavlov 8y ago
  With the way Snapchat's stock price is going, it's going to be snapped up by a bigger player eventually.

imron 8y ago

> I wonder what's Facebook's move after Instagram becomes stale and no longer "cool" They acquire the next cool thing

WheelsAtLarge 8y ago

Facebook is here to stay. They are not Myspace. They are following the model of many of the tech companies that survive. If they can't copy it they will buy it. They have enough revenues that they can buy any hot startup and nurse it to success. Zuckerberg will likely be CEO for at least the next 10 years and has shown that he can learn from mistakes and continue to succeed. He's one of the few that has learned his way to successful CEO of a large company. There's very little that can bring them down. Even if the government regulates them the regulations will not be so stringent that they will cause Facebook to fold. The irony is that regulations favor big companies since they make it harder for small start-ups to succeed. I'm not a fan but I see reality.

thrower123 8y ago
Facebook is dead. They have lost all momentum. The older people that have not moved on to snapchat or Instagram are exactly those that will be flummoxed by the changes.
- AzMoo_ 8y ago
  Snapchat and Instagram serve a completely different purpose to facebook though.
  - sincerely 8y ago
    they serve the same purpose that facebook did when it was nascent/enjoyable
- selectodude 8y ago
  Facebook owns Instagram, and Instagram Stories is eating Snap's lunch. I'm sure they'll be okay.
  - zumbof 8y ago
    Why do people compare Instagram Stories to Snapchat? Instagram copied stories from Snapchat, but they didn't copy the core of the app, ephemeral pictures.

blihp 8y ago

Cool probably doesn't matter nearly as much as it used to given Facebook's user base size. As long as they have eyeballs, they'll have a revenue stream. Their willingness to pay what appeared to be outrageous sums for competitors users reflects that. But now that they've got the lions share of the social network using world, it's doubtful that they'd need to do that again in a big way unless they see something getting serious traction with people who are not already Facebook users. You say least stable but let's look at Yahoo as an example: they've been dead for over a decade and lots of people still use them. Massive data breaches, people still use them etc. etc. Imagine how many people will keep using Facebook if all they manage to do is be a less bad version of Yahoo. People are creatures of habit and once they develop a habit, especially one that doesn't cost $$$ upfront, it takes a herculean effort to get most of them to change their behavior. Once people are hooked, many of them seem to be willing to be abused nearly forever.

abraae 8y ago
Especially since FB is basically easy-to-use group email with pictures for everyone's uncle, aunty, grandma. They will keep that position for decades.

docker_up 8y ago

They have over 2 billion monthly active users. This is a global penetration rate that is the best in the world. They have done something that no other company in the world has done. They are relevant to basically the vast majority of all Internet users in the world. To say they are the least stable or that their power over most humans is waning is, quite frankly, ludicrous. To put it in perspective, they would need to lose 3/4 of their users to reach Twitter levels. Sure, Hacker News has loads of people that hate Facebook, but don't be fooled by the HN bias here. Also, all the armchair CEOs here would do anything to get even 1% of Zuckerberg's success. I don't think Facebook is going anywhere soon.

chrischen 8y ago
No, a lot of people hate Facebook. John Oliver has been talking about it.
013a 8y ago
Windows has seen an officially reported install base as high as 1.5B. This was a few years ago; their numbers have taken a hit recently. Considering the average annual revenue per U.S. Facebook user is ~$20, startlingly less in other countries, arguably Microsoft, not Facebook, is the more interesting company. Nearly as many active users as Facebook, but substantially more revenue per user (~$50-$150 for an OEM key? Add in office subscriptions, enterprise users, oh my) and substantially more "eye-time" (monthly active? once per month? ha. you used Windows the entire time you were on the PC). Arguably. I don't want to argue it. It's just a thought and it's not the point. No one looks at Microsoft and thinks "they're going to absolutely dominate the home computing OS market in 2030." They owned the planet and they threw it away. At best they'll remain a second-rate player in the cloud market, riding the ripples of their 90s enterprise clients until those die out as well. Meanwhile Apple and Google ate their cake. No one saw that coming in 2001. Wait, the company that nearly went bankrupt and now makes that really bad MP3 player, and... Google who? Hold on let me AltaVista that. The companies that are, today, worth almost nothing are worth a combined $2T in just 17 years? What the hell happens to the US Dollar in the next decade?! Shit changes, and it changes overnight. Sometimes literally, most of the time just "faster than you expect". The only thing you can bet on is that "active users" means about as much as the moon landing conspiracy theories.

tinyhouse 8y ago

I think the next big thing for FB is VR. If VR becomes mainstream soon (and I think it will) and FB lead the space with Oculus, then their future is bright.

beamatronic 8y ago

I am pretty sure the answer involves vertical video

puranjay 8y ago

Whatsapp payments can be a massive cash cow. Whatsapp is a core part of life in India and I can easily see them becoming the WeChat of this country