9 ms·

What will kill Facebook?

189 points by ssclafani 16y ago

greyman 16y ago
Conclusion of the article: I don't know what will kill Facebook.
- swombat 16y ago
  False. Conclusion is: nothing will kill Facebook, or Google, or Microsoft. Stop worrying about "what will kill Facebook".
  - narag 16y ago
    OK, so the question is "what will be the next giant wave"? What about "will people use whatever the next giant wave will be instead of Facebook?" IOW, will the next big think overlap enough with Facebook usefullness to mean a hit for Facebook? Supposing the answer is "yes", I'd say FB flaws matter a lot. Even flaws that users don't see now as such, maybe because they see them as unavoidable. What if a new service, based on another model, arised and it hadn't such flaws?
    - swombat 16y ago
      No, the next giant wave will not overlap with Facebook's wave. Whatever overlaps with their wave, Facebook will be on top of. People will use whatever that next big thing is along with Facebook, not instead of it.
      - lwhi 16y ago
        But you're assuming that there isn't anything that people will choose to use instead of Facebook. I think it's possible that Facebook could be supplanted by another platform. There'll always be overlap when a competing platform comes into the picture - so any 'death' will necessarily be drawn out. I like your wave analogy, because it highlights the way that these service-orientated companies are tied to the current socio-economic landscape. This helps to show how competition between companies isn't the most important factor. A change in market conditions can prove just as disastrous (as a good competitor) for a company like Facebook, and this kind of change is probably more likely to signal its demise, because a market-leader's success tends to increase exponentially when conditions stay the same. I think the most interesting question is; what change would be necessary for people to migrate from Facebook to another platform? It will happen - but when and how?
angusgr 16y ago
It's funny that I was already composing my "this *killer business is nonsense, where are the historical examples of one tech company really annihilating a market leader, etc., etc." rant comment in my head, when I clicked to read the article. :)
skbohra123 16y ago
The article adds zero value to my knowledge. It's all noise it seems.
- RP_Joe 16y ago
  Google is killing themselves. In case you have not noticed many of the SERRPS are not good. Today I did a search for "acronis true image". Acronis was not of the first page. In Bing they are number one. These daily changes in the code are finally catching up with them. Then there is the stupid stuff with all the ads, image search that shows other websites with adwords and doorway pages. http://www.seobook.com/google-doorway-pages http://www.seobook.com/google-doorway-pages No one can kill Google except Google. No one can kill Facebook except Facebook. Many people don't trust Facebook. That's a problem.
  - trotsky 16y ago
    Today I did a search for "acronis true image". Acronis was not of the first page. Err? You should check again, acronis.com ranks #1 #2 and #3 for "acronis true image", acronis true image, acronis and "true image" as well. Wild divergence from actual search results sounds like local malicious activity.
  - d0mine 16y ago
    The first 4 links point to the product site: acronis.com http://www.google.com/search?q=acronis+true+image http://www.google.com/search?q=acronis+true+image The 5th - to the wikipedia page about the product.
  - Matt_Cutts 16y ago
    Acronis is #1 for me. Maybe you've got something weird going on with your computer? Fire up incognito mode of Chrome and see whether you see Acronis then. P.S. Thanks for posting a specific query. 90% of the complaints I see like this never mention a specific query, which kills me because I want to dig into it. :)
lyudmil 16y ago
I don't think thinking about "the next big wave" gets you anywhere either. Zuckerberg and Anderson didn't figure out that social networking was going to be big - they invented it instead. When you think about it the basic idea isn't even remarkably clever. However, it turned out keeping track of friends online was really compelling for people. I have to believe this came as a surprise to them as well. As always, the trick is to think about a problem you're having and to build something to solve it (a cliché at this point). That's certainly what Zuckerberg did with Facebook, which is why it was initially aimed specifically at college students at specific campuses. He was scratching his own itch. The rest of Facebook's story is one of coincidence and evolution.
- chopsueyar 16y ago
  Zuckerberg did not 'invent' social networking. If he had, Facebook would not have spent millions of dollars buying patents from Friendster.
david927 16y ago
First, the author doesn't understand what is meant by the expression "killing". It's not a morbid death wish for the company not to exist but simply to supplant their position as pace setter. Yes, IBM, Yahoo and MySpace still exist (and are doing fine in many respects), but what we're talking about is becoming the setting where innovation is going. Google, similarly, will be killed not by a competitor rising out of nowhere, but by falling into irrelevance. Be careful. What's the quote? "It's difficult to make predictions, especially about the future." People said the same of Yahoo in the late 1990's. It had many competitors but wasn't really challenged for the top spot. Google came out of nowhere and relegated its dominance of search. "Facebook, on the other hand, doesn't have any such flaws." ... "Facebook is as unkillable as Google." ... "You won 't kill Facebook. No one will." Facebook and Google usurped their predecessors from out of nowhere. They both wouldn't exist if their founders said to themselves, "I'm not going to try to overtake Yahoo/MySpace -- they're unkillable." Your flimsy advice is now recorded to be ridiculed later because you seem not to understand the very nature of technology. The next leaders get this sort of insipid advice all the time but, luckily for all of us, they aren't listening.
- ThomPete 16y ago
  There is another quote though. We seem to overestimate change in the short run and underestimate it in the long.
- haydenchambers 16y ago
  "Facebook, on the other hand, doesn't have any such flaws." stopped reading here
- js3309 16y ago
  A counterpoint...You can quit using Google, MSFT, Yahoo, and etc. But you can't quit your friends. Social networking is a winner take all. That is why i agree with the author that Facebook would have to shoot itself in the foot first.
  - greyman 16y ago
    Why you mean by "quit your friends"? About 50% of my friends are not on the Facebook, and I communicate with them using phone, email, or directly meet them. The same with the folks who are on FB...I usually reach them by other means, anyway.
andrewljohnson 16y ago
I have this theory that anything build by a network effect, can be undone by a network effect. I agree that no company ever gets flat out killed - well, not if they have a billion in cash and not in just a year or two. However, I don't think comparing Facebook to Google in the unkillable sense is correct. Google is far more unkillable than Facebook, because: A) You need to accumulate lots of data to even have a chance to beat Google. No algorithm you come up with will be competitive until you have a mound of data similar to theirs, and accumulating that data takes years. B) My friends leaving Google has little impact on me. So, with a Facebook, you can pick off a city or social group, and snowball that. That's exactly what Facebook did to MySpace, and there's no analog in beating Google. To beat Google, you need time, money, and it's a moving target. That's why the only serious contender is Bing. To beat Facebook, you need a better design, indomitable passion, and clever marketing. Really clever marketing. What is keeping you on Facebook is just the fact that they have your list of friends and family. I'm not saying Facebook is easy to beat, and I believe over time, they have accumulated some of the defenses that Google has. However, a company built on a network effect can die by a network effect. Easy come, easy go.
- encoderer 16y ago
  Interesting. What if somebody wanted to immensely improve one niche of search? Maybe become THE tool to use to find a very narrow and specific kind of information. I think there is a vector there that could be used against google.
- IgorPartola 16y ago
  Your theory is sound, but I think for the wrong reasons. The only way to kill a network effect product is with network effect. You cannot bribe 30M users. You cannot offer a marginally better product (e.g.: better privacy controls). You have to offer a different product that will not directly compete with Facebook, but will take eyeballs away from them. Think Farmville. Farmville is genious: it uses Facebook itself to get into people's brains and then they spend hours on it. Imagine if Farmville became just slightly more fun to play than to stalk your ex and her new boyfriend, etc. If you must create a social network to compete with Facebook, make it be a part of Facebook at first too. Integrate it. Make sure that it takes me zero effort to jump between Facebook and your Smashbook. Then start improving your Smashbook in ways that Facebook cannot or will not. Add those better privacy controls. Implement a better social model. Remove annoying ads. Basically, do what Gmail did to Hotmail: it uses the same system and I am not cut off from my friends if I switch, but I get to use better tools. But there is no way in hell that you can start a social network about collecting stamps and gradually outgrow Facebook. You may make a decent chunk of change on this, so it may be worthwhile, but it will not kill Facebook.
wooptoo 16y ago
The inability to adapt. And short sight. This can kill any company.
msy 16y ago
While I agree with the redefinition of 'kill' I couldn't disagree more about Facebook not having any flaws that might kill it. Facebook has two that I can see. The first is that it is built from the ground up around a flat social network and that maps really poorly onto real social networks. Sure they can add things like groups to try and address this but it's baked into the DNA of the site and the way people think about the site. The blog post that accompanied the recent profile refresh really brought home how they do not understand this. Listing work projects and who you worked on them with on a friend-oriented service? Promoting parts of your life so more 'friends' can learn about them? Who on earth wants to do this stuff? The second, which is part of the reason for the first (college social networks are relatively speaking flat) is that Facebook was built and initially populated by the Ivy League. It was the classy, exclusive social network. Now it's everybody's, there's like buttons on every site, every brand from downmarket crap to luxury. Every market has price differentiation, social networks will be no different, there is a huge opportunity for a more exclusive, more upmarket network and when those users bail on Facebook there's a real chance it'll cause a cascade.
- zeemonkee 16y ago
  > It was the classy, exclusive social network Exclusive maybe, I'd stop short of referring to Ivy League students as classy ;-)
- ssp 16y ago
  How about a social network for very rich people? Charge something like $1,000,000 to keep the riff-raff out.
  - crocowhile 16y ago
    >How about a social network for very rich people? http://www.affluence.org/ http://www.affluence.org/
    - joshz 16y ago
      Out of curiosity I spent a bit looking around this site and reading about it. What I found were half-truths, inconsistencies (at least one), broken links, somebody calls it a scam, somebody else calls it legit... very weird, I wouldn't buy into it.
lwhi 16y ago
A lot of the time, it takes a few iterations before a product becomes truly useful. Once a product has become useful and has fully integrated itself into its customers lives - it's very difficult to replace it. For many, Facebook solves a unique problem - it provides them with tools to help them manage their various relationships. It's ubiquity is a key part of its solution, and any other platform that wanted to supplant Facebook is obviously going to find it difficult. Having said that, I think it's perfectly reasonable to think about what will replace Facebook. As a company becomes larger - it will usually become less nimble. Unforeseen changes in the market's landscape, provide opportunities for new entrants - where the larger Goliath companies aren't as able (or willing) to adapt. Facebook will be killed (replaced / supplanted) .. but without the benefit of hindsight, it's very difficult to know which company will succeed.
malandrew 16y ago
Zuckerberg already said what will kill Facebook, but he didn't phrase it as such: verticals. There are several social aspects of our lives that are very poorly served by Facebook and that's where verticals will come in. Verticals won't necessarily kill Facebook, but they have the potential to chip away at the centralization of data inside of the Facebook social graph itself. Under this scenario Facebook would still act as an aggregator, but then again the barrier to entry for competing aggregators of social network verticals would fall substantially and allow innovation and specialization. I know of at least one stealth startup working on such a vertical, but I can't mention who just quite yet. From the ideas I've heard, the potential is definitely there in the idea to corner one aspect of a users life that Facebook couldn't possibly match due to the high level of abstraction FB needs to maintain as a generic social networking site. I think verticals could also erode Google as well. Quora is going after one aspect of knowledge. Wikipedia as well. If I were to create a search engine today, I'd go after one vertical. For example, a search engine focused entirely on helping you find code would be immensely valuable. Sites like Github and Freshmeat have search, but the search isn't specialized to add any value over what Google already offers. In fact, in many cases sites with specialized knowledge about one vertical choose to use Google's search for its own site instead of building a new search from scratch that better serves the need of that vertical. Examples of verticals where I see value in creating a specialized social network or search engine: -- Nightlife -- Code/Programming -- Educational resources.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- bad_user 16y ago
  Problem with verticals is that people lose interest fast. Nightlife? Sure, but once you have a favorite club or 2 where you hang out with friends regularly, you don't need a website to tell where to go anymore. Educational resources? You mean like lots of scanned books that you can search? What will make Google irrelevant is a better search engine: just the other day I remembered a piece of article I first read a couple of years ago. It's somewhere out there but I can't find it because of all the junk and all I remember are a couple of words and a number. In 2002 when I first used Google's search, I had been using Altavista previously. The results from Google were so good compared to Altavista that it wasn't even funny. If the same would happen today, Google would be in big trouble. Also Facebook is already irrelevant to me. I log in from time to time, responding to a friendship request, but these days I only view it as a tool with which I could spam my acquaintances in case I need it :)
geoffw8 16y ago
This really made it to the front page? "What will be the next giant wave?" Great conclusion.
- mindcrime 16y ago
  Half (or more) of the problem with finding an answer is knowing what the question is. It was actually a very good article, in terms of framing and context setting, to help seed the discussion about what the question is. In that regard, it was very valuable. Don't underestimate the value of a good question; and don't expect every informative article to spoon feed the reader the answers.
fredliu 16y ago
Major premise: Startups won't be killed by competitors but only by themselves (ref to pg?). Minor premise: Facebook is still a "startup" (well... in some sense). Conclusion: Facebook won't be killed by anyone but themselves.
chopsueyar 16y ago
Time?
- frostbyte 16y ago
  Very true. Just like Bing is beginning to give Google a run for their money. There will be something that will eventually make Facebook's tiniest nuances look like glaring flaws. Look at how IE is struggling against Chrome and Firefox. A few years ago Microsoft was in the comfort zone in terms of market share. Things began to stagnate. Now they are being pushed. They know they have to innovate, or face the possibility of fading away. It's not a question of what will kill Facebook. It's a question of when.
  - phodo 16y ago
    As long as the "when" is: after the investors and principals have played it through. Sure, every company gets more vulnerable as it gets bigger and markets evolve, etc. as stated here. but if you notice, NONE of the examples cited above "became vulnerable" before the liquidity event happened. I could make an exception with Apple, but that seems to be the exception not the rule. in fact, you could argue that there is a 3rd phase of a company (which Apple is in), after the liquidity event, after the company gets vulnerable (think apple 10 years ago, think yahoo now). some die - but some survive to see a new healthy dominance.
AngeloAnolin 16y ago
Nothing. Until the time that it is evolving with the way how people wants to connect socially. And Facebook does a good job at it by hiring visionaries, getting people with a good common sense and attracting talents whom they know would be excited being part of a technical social revolution. Nonetheless, the only thing that could probably kill Facebook is when people stop using it. Simple as that.
oldpond 16y ago
Why do we have radios in all our cars? So we can pipe advertising to a captive audience. Why do we have TV's in all our homes? So we can pipe advertising to a captive audience. Why do we have our computers plugged into the internet? Hm. Why is it that when you buy a phone now it comes with Facebook (and twitter and google)? And, on many plans it's "free" to use Facebook and twitter, and you can't remove it. It's all about the channel. Facebook/Google/Twitter + ISP/Phone Provider = secure advertising channel. Can you turn off your radio? Can you turn off your TV? Can you use a plain old cellphone that just dials a number? The only way to kill Facebook is to turn off the advertising channel.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
untamedmedley 16y ago
My guess is the lack of adequate revenues that lead to real profits. Last I read, Facebook was breaking even. As they grow toward a billion users, I imagine those costs will rise. This is fine if ad revenues can keep up, but last I checked their average CTR was less than half a percent. Facebook is odd in that it improves on a previous solution (communication tools: mail, phone, cellphones), but doesn't charge for the utility it brings.
aufreak3 16y ago
Top level observation - the linked post was made on a blog and was shared via Hacker News. "Facebook" only features as a word in this whole multi-log. That means, to me, that there is a really solid and significant world outside of Facebook.
zephyrfalcon 16y ago
The strong point of Facebook is that so many people are on there, including many who are normally less comfortable using computers. I assume it will keep growing for a while, as there is no real contender in sight. So let's say we reach the point where pretty much everybody has a Facebook account. At that point, it would only seem stronger than before. The weak point of Facebook is that it lumps everybody into the same "friends" pool. This is not a new observation of course, but is is still a problem, and Facebook hasn't really done much to alleviate it. Sure, you can add people to different groups, set different filters, but for most people (especially those who are less tech-savvy) this is just too much work (or too difficult, even). So the problem remains, and as Facebook gets bigger, so does the problem. I think that at some point, there will be huge opportunities for "spin-off" sites, that address some kind of niche. There would be a mini-social network were you talk to your family. Another one for friends (of the kind that you go to bars with, for example). One for networking. One for co-workers. Ones for specific games (quite a few people on Facebook have thousands of "friends", most of which they don't really know, but were added for the benefit of playing Mafia Wars, Farmville, etc). And so on. Some of these already exist, like LinkedIn; and likely, the process is already underway. However, I think such sites would have more success if they were friendly with Facebook in some form or another; log in with your Facebook account, maybe share certain things, etc. (Look at Zynga; would their games have anywhere near the current number of users if they had not integrated with Facebook?) When you meet new people, online or in real life, in whatever situation, the common denominator would be that they all have Facebook. (Still going by the assumption here that Facebook would get so big that people without an account would be rare.) So it would retain its function as a "hub" where you can find anybody at all; but the actual social interaction, in whatever form, would be done at the spin-off sites. You don't post work-related things to your Facebook because nobody cares but your co-workers. If you had a wild night out, you don't post pictures of it to a specific site, not to Facebook where your mom/kids/spouse/boss can see it. For those things, there would be the aforementioned specialized sites. Likely, it wouldn't be long before we would think of such a situation as normal; you won't post specialized info on Facebook, any more than you would post it in the newspaper. I am just brainstorming here, but if that would actually happen, Facebook would slowly be supplanted by a myriad of smaller sites, each with their own purpose. Facebook itself would slowly become irrelevant other than as a hub to connect all those specialized sites. Like Microsoft nowadays, it would be big, bulky, probably rich, but it would just kinda sit there; the action and innovation would happen elsewhere. tl;dr: Hypothetically, there might not be one Facebook killer, rather, it might be replaced by many smaller, specialized sites.
ojbyrne 16y ago
Market saturation (everyone who wants to be on facebook is probably already on it) and excessive valuations (which assume the whole world will eventually be on it).
camworld 16y ago
I used to hate Facebook, but over the years I've come to enjoy it. But now I am starting to hate it again. The reasons have nothing to do with Facebook's privacy issues or Facebook's business decisions. No, the issues I am having are that Facebook has enabled friends, family members and acquaintances to inject their dumb ideas, religious quotes, backwards thinking, ridiculous opinions, FOX news talking points and political beliefs into my everyday life. What I used to be able to ignore is now front-and-center on my Facebook Wall because I have friends and family members who I love dearly but who aren't necessarily the sharpest knives in the drawer. So, what will "kill" Facebook? It's simple. What will kill Facebook will be its own stupid users. “Just think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize half of them are even stupider!” - George Carlin
- dasil003 16y ago
  I don't even necessarily agree, but Carlin's delivery of that line is priceless, I can hear it my head. RIP George.
- code_duck 16y ago
  Yep, the AOLification of facebook has gotten so extreme that I think many people are now seeing that they don't WANT to be connected to their acquaintances in such a fashion.
EGreg 16y ago
The difference between Facebook and all the software and internet companies that preceded it, is a big one: All the other companies won because of their products, for whatever reason -- usefulness, ubiquity, etc. If someone came up with a product that had better usefulness, ubiquity, etc. then users could leave. Google leveraged network effects with publishers. A search engine to rule them all. It had publishers by the proverbial "balls" -- if they didn't play nice, Google could just delist them and they'd lose their main source of traffic. But the users were always free. Free to switch to yahoo, or bing, at the drop of a hat if they liked their search engines better. Facebook is the first company I know that has successfully pulled off the following: it has its own USERS by the balls. If you don't like facebook, you can bitch about it and even delete your facebook account, as various random people claim. And then a couple months later your friends want to share their X (pictures, notes, etc.) with you and not EVERYONE IN THE WORLD. And to do that, you have to join facebook again. Yes, facebook, because joining some other site will do no good. This works because leaving facebook is no longer as easy as making a personal choice. You now have to create more work for all your "friends" who are sharing stuff with you on facebook. "Larry, didn't you hear? I got married! Everyone came to my engagement party! It was all over facebook" "Sorry baby, I'm not on facebook anymore... I guess I'm out of the loop" This is a new ball game. Of course, facebook also has PUBLISHERS by the balls, just like Google, since it drives lots of traffic to them. But it's the first company to have users by the balls. So what if you delete your account? You are in a tiny minority. And chances are, half of you will be right back on there the minute your friends refuse to share with you anywhere else.
- brc 16y ago
  I would agree with you, but I've had 1 new friend join facebook in the last year or two. I've had about 5 leave. I also have a significant number of people who either never will join Facebook (due to attitude, principle or plain un-interestedness) and probably the majority who never log on, even if you send them a direct mail. So I would be a pretty lousy friend if I just notified people within facebook and ignored my other friends.
maxawaytoolong 16y ago
This article assumes that companies die due to competition. In reality, tech companies die from within. What would kill Facebook is a bunch of dumbbells on the inside making stupid decisions and sticking to them.
- dkasper 16y ago
  > The only company that can kill Facebook is Facebook. From the end of the third paragraph in the post.
honza 16y ago
I will.
qq66 16y ago
Someone.
michaelchisari 16y ago
Distributed social networking will "kill" Facebook. Except that it won't kill it, but will make it less relevant. The same thing will happen to Facebook as happened to AOL. It will exist for years to come, but it will be forced to open it's walls, and play nice with an open standard. Younger users will leave for more niche communities which interconnect, and older users will stay with what they're used to. In other words, in 5 years, Facebook will be for old people. As well as other people who prefer familiarity. The history of the internet is a history of decentralization winning over walled gardens. There are too many projects pushing for decentralized protocols and solutions. Appleseed, GNU Social, OneSocialWeb, etc. I think the last time I checked the spreadsheet, there was over 50 such projects. Some of us are pretty close to providing a viable alternative, too. But most importantly, we're not going to give up. No matter how much people may think of Facebook as infallible, we're never going to throw up our arms and say "oh well, I guess we can't win". We're going to keep pushing and refining our solutions and building momentum until we win. The Next Big Social Network tm may even run our software on the back end, and people will move to a distributed system without even realizing it.
sabat 16y ago
Time.
InclinedPlane 16y ago
Ultimately? A combination of factors will kill* facebook. (* where "kill" is defined as dethroning them from their spot as seemingly a social media monopoly) Firstly, facebook's technology advantage will evaporate, especially as hardware improves. The cost of serving facebook's traffic and of managing the infrastructure to serve that traffic will come down over time until ultimately it's as abundant and cheap as a linux VPS is today. Somewhere along that trend you'll see an explosion in very capable facebook competitors. People as savvy as Apple and as technologically competent as google. Ultimately I think the result will be fragmentation and loosely federated disjoint services (much like email is today). Secondly, facebook will one day become un-cool. When your parents' generation and your grand parents' generation move into your social media platform en masse that can change its nature. Eventually facebook's allure will fade, and perhaps some new thing will draw the attention of the younger generation as it always has. Thirdly, facebook has a pretty sloppy business plan. Their core idea has always been "grow big first, figure out how to monetize that second". The downside of this is that if their growth stalls or they shrink then they are left high and dry with no revenue and no wealth to try to turn things around (see digg, myspace, etc.) More sophisticated competitors with more robust business plans from the get go have a chance to take facebook to the cleaners. I competing social media platform able to be far more efficient in terms of revenue generation would be a serious threat to facebook.
Finster 16y ago
As soon as we all find out what will kill Facebook, we can figure out what will kill WoW!
krakensden 16y ago
You could kill facebook in a year or so under the right kind of management. Set a rapid pace of change that users dislike, let the spammers back in, lose data, crash constantly.
dr_ 16y ago
Facebook is different than Yahoo, Google, Microsoft etc, because of it's social aspect. There will be decades upon decades of memories, photos, videos and all the comments associated with them on fb that most people are not going to want to give up. Today I could switch away from Yahoo to AOL or MSN, Google to Bing and Microsoft Windows to Mac OS X and I wouldn't notice any huge difference. I can't switch away from facebook to another social networking site and have it be of any utility to me - and I can only imagine the dominance of facebook because of this social aspect growing in the years to come. As an aside, the author feels that Microsoft tried to kill itself with all the delays and bugs in Vista, which I would also disagree with. Google, along with a host of other companies, killed Microsoft - because of the talent drain. Once your best and brightest are jumping ship for, as Michael Lewis would call it, the "new new thing", you are pretty much screwed because your product development is going to start going down the tubes.
te_chris 16y ago
What's with all the Vista hate? I mean seriously. I run a MBP mostly with OSX, but on my music mixing machine @ home I run vista and have never had a single problem and greatly prefer it to XP. The whole thing was just manufactured by angry computerworld journo's who couldn't believe that MS actually started considering making an OS easier to use.

189 points by ssclafani 16y ago

greyman 16y ago

Conclusion of the article: I don't know what will kill Facebook.

swombat 16y ago
False. Conclusion is: nothing will kill Facebook, or Google, or Microsoft. Stop worrying about "what will kill Facebook".
- narag 16y ago
  OK, so the question is "what will be the next giant wave"? What about "will people use whatever the next giant wave will be instead of Facebook?" IOW, will the next big think overlap enough with Facebook usefullness to mean a hit for Facebook? Supposing the answer is "yes", I'd say FB flaws matter a lot. Even flaws that users don't see now as such, maybe because they see them as unavoidable. What if a new service, based on another model, arised and it hadn't such flaws?
  - swombat 16y ago
    No, the next giant wave will not overlap with Facebook's wave. Whatever overlaps with their wave, Facebook will be on top of. People will use whatever that next big thing is along with Facebook, not instead of it.
    - lwhi 16y ago
      But you're assuming that there isn't anything that people will choose to use instead of Facebook. I think it's possible that Facebook could be supplanted by another platform. There'll always be overlap when a competing platform comes into the picture - so any 'death' will necessarily be drawn out. I like your wave analogy, because it highlights the way that these service-orientated companies are tied to the current socio-economic landscape. This helps to show how competition between companies isn't the most important factor. A change in market conditions can prove just as disastrous (as a good competitor) for a company like Facebook, and this kind of change is probably more likely to signal its demise, because a market-leader's success tends to increase exponentially when conditions stay the same. I think the most interesting question is; what change would be necessary for people to migrate from Facebook to another platform? It will happen - but when and how?

angusgr 16y ago

It's funny that I was already composing my "this *killer business is nonsense, where are the historical examples of one tech company really annihilating a market leader, etc., etc." rant comment in my head, when I clicked to read the article. :)

skbohra123 16y ago

The article adds zero value to my knowledge. It's all noise it seems.

RP_Joe 16y ago
Google is killing themselves. In case you have not noticed many of the SERRPS are not good. Today I did a search for "acronis true image". Acronis was not of the first page. In Bing they are number one. These daily changes in the code are finally catching up with them. Then there is the stupid stuff with all the ads, image search that shows other websites with adwords and doorway pages. http://www.seobook.com/google-doorway-pages http://www.seobook.com/google-doorway-pages No one can kill Google except Google. No one can kill Facebook except Facebook. Many people don't trust Facebook. That's a problem.
- trotsky 16y ago
  Today I did a search for "acronis true image". Acronis was not of the first page. Err? You should check again, acronis.com ranks #1 #2 and #3 for "acronis true image", acronis true image, acronis and "true image" as well. Wild divergence from actual search results sounds like local malicious activity.
- d0mine 16y ago
  The first 4 links point to the product site: acronis.com http://www.google.com/search?q=acronis+true+image http://www.google.com/search?q=acronis+true+image The 5th - to the wikipedia page about the product.
- Matt_Cutts 16y ago
  Acronis is #1 for me. Maybe you've got something weird going on with your computer? Fire up incognito mode of Chrome and see whether you see Acronis then. P.S. Thanks for posting a specific query. 90% of the complaints I see like this never mention a specific query, which kills me because I want to dig into it. :)

lyudmil 16y ago

I don't think thinking about "the next big wave" gets you anywhere either. Zuckerberg and Anderson didn't figure out that social networking was going to be big - they invented it instead. When you think about it the basic idea isn't even remarkably clever. However, it turned out keeping track of friends online was really compelling for people. I have to believe this came as a surprise to them as well. As always, the trick is to think about a problem you're having and to build something to solve it (a cliché at this point). That's certainly what Zuckerberg did with Facebook, which is why it was initially aimed specifically at college students at specific campuses. He was scratching his own itch. The rest of Facebook's story is one of coincidence and evolution.

chopsueyar 16y ago
Zuckerberg did not 'invent' social networking. If he had, Facebook would not have spent millions of dollars buying patents from Friendster.

david927 16y ago

First, the author doesn't understand what is meant by the expression "killing". It's not a morbid death wish for the company not to exist but simply to supplant their position as pace setter. Yes, IBM, Yahoo and MySpace still exist (and are doing fine in many respects), but what we're talking about is becoming the setting where innovation is going. Google, similarly, will be killed not by a competitor rising out of nowhere, but by falling into irrelevance. Be careful. What's the quote? "It's difficult to make predictions, especially about the future." People said the same of Yahoo in the late 1990's. It had many competitors but wasn't really challenged for the top spot. Google came out of nowhere and relegated its dominance of search. "Facebook, on the other hand, doesn't have any such flaws." ... "Facebook is as unkillable as Google." ... "You won 't kill Facebook. No one will." Facebook and Google usurped their predecessors from out of nowhere. They both wouldn't exist if their founders said to themselves, "I'm not going to try to overtake Yahoo/MySpace -- they're unkillable." Your flimsy advice is now recorded to be ridiculed later because you seem not to understand the very nature of technology. The next leaders get this sort of insipid advice all the time but, luckily for all of us, they aren't listening.

ThomPete 16y ago
There is another quote though. We seem to overestimate change in the short run and underestimate it in the long.
haydenchambers 16y ago
"Facebook, on the other hand, doesn't have any such flaws." stopped reading here
js3309 16y ago
A counterpoint...You can quit using Google, MSFT, Yahoo, and etc. But you can't quit your friends. Social networking is a winner take all. That is why i agree with the author that Facebook would have to shoot itself in the foot first.
- greyman 16y ago
  Why you mean by "quit your friends"? About 50% of my friends are not on the Facebook, and I communicate with them using phone, email, or directly meet them. The same with the folks who are on FB...I usually reach them by other means, anyway.

andrewljohnson 16y ago

I have this theory that anything build by a network effect, can be undone by a network effect. I agree that no company ever gets flat out killed - well, not if they have a billion in cash and not in just a year or two. However, I don't think comparing Facebook to Google in the unkillable sense is correct. Google is far more unkillable than Facebook, because: A) You need to accumulate lots of data to even have a chance to beat Google. No algorithm you come up with will be competitive until you have a mound of data similar to theirs, and accumulating that data takes years. B) My friends leaving Google has little impact on me. So, with a Facebook, you can pick off a city or social group, and snowball that. That's exactly what Facebook did to MySpace, and there's no analog in beating Google. To beat Google, you need time, money, and it's a moving target. That's why the only serious contender is Bing. To beat Facebook, you need a better design, indomitable passion, and clever marketing. Really clever marketing. What is keeping you on Facebook is just the fact that they have your list of friends and family. I'm not saying Facebook is easy to beat, and I believe over time, they have accumulated some of the defenses that Google has. However, a company built on a network effect can die by a network effect. Easy come, easy go.

encoderer 16y ago
Interesting. What if somebody wanted to immensely improve one niche of search? Maybe become THE tool to use to find a very narrow and specific kind of information. I think there is a vector there that could be used against google.
IgorPartola 16y ago
Your theory is sound, but I think for the wrong reasons. The only way to kill a network effect product is with network effect. You cannot bribe 30M users. You cannot offer a marginally better product (e.g.: better privacy controls). You have to offer a different product that will not directly compete with Facebook, but will take eyeballs away from them. Think Farmville. Farmville is genious: it uses Facebook itself to get into people's brains and then they spend hours on it. Imagine if Farmville became just slightly more fun to play than to stalk your ex and her new boyfriend, etc. If you must create a social network to compete with Facebook, make it be a part of Facebook at first too. Integrate it. Make sure that it takes me zero effort to jump between Facebook and your Smashbook. Then start improving your Smashbook in ways that Facebook cannot or will not. Add those better privacy controls. Implement a better social model. Remove annoying ads. Basically, do what Gmail did to Hotmail: it uses the same system and I am not cut off from my friends if I switch, but I get to use better tools. But there is no way in hell that you can start a social network about collecting stamps and gradually outgrow Facebook. You may make a decent chunk of change on this, so it may be worthwhile, but it will not kill Facebook.

wooptoo 16y ago

The inability to adapt. And short sight. This can kill any company.

msy 16y ago

While I agree with the redefinition of 'kill' I couldn't disagree more about Facebook not having any flaws that might kill it. Facebook has two that I can see. The first is that it is built from the ground up around a flat social network and that maps really poorly onto real social networks. Sure they can add things like groups to try and address this but it's baked into the DNA of the site and the way people think about the site. The blog post that accompanied the recent profile refresh really brought home how they do not understand this. Listing work projects and who you worked on them with on a friend-oriented service? Promoting parts of your life so more 'friends' can learn about them? Who on earth wants to do this stuff? The second, which is part of the reason for the first (college social networks are relatively speaking flat) is that Facebook was built and initially populated by the Ivy League. It was the classy, exclusive social network. Now it's everybody's, there's like buttons on every site, every brand from downmarket crap to luxury. Every market has price differentiation, social networks will be no different, there is a huge opportunity for a more exclusive, more upmarket network and when those users bail on Facebook there's a real chance it'll cause a cascade.

zeemonkee 16y ago
> It was the classy, exclusive social network Exclusive maybe, I'd stop short of referring to Ivy League students as classy ;-)
ssp 16y ago
How about a social network for very rich people? Charge something like $1,000,000 to keep the riff-raff out.
- crocowhile 16y ago
  >How about a social network for very rich people? http://www.affluence.org/ http://www.affluence.org/
  - joshz 16y ago
    Out of curiosity I spent a bit looking around this site and reading about it. What I found were half-truths, inconsistencies (at least one), broken links, somebody calls it a scam, somebody else calls it legit... very weird, I wouldn't buy into it.

lwhi 16y ago

A lot of the time, it takes a few iterations before a product becomes truly useful. Once a product has become useful and has fully integrated itself into its customers lives - it's very difficult to replace it. For many, Facebook solves a unique problem - it provides them with tools to help them manage their various relationships. It's ubiquity is a key part of its solution, and any other platform that wanted to supplant Facebook is obviously going to find it difficult. Having said that, I think it's perfectly reasonable to think about what will replace Facebook. As a company becomes larger - it will usually become less nimble. Unforeseen changes in the market's landscape, provide opportunities for new entrants - where the larger Goliath companies aren't as able (or willing) to adapt. Facebook will be killed (replaced / supplanted) .. but without the benefit of hindsight, it's very difficult to know which company will succeed.

malandrew 16y ago

Zuckerberg already said what will kill Facebook, but he didn't phrase it as such: verticals. There are several social aspects of our lives that are very poorly served by Facebook and that's where verticals will come in. Verticals won't necessarily kill Facebook, but they have the potential to chip away at the centralization of data inside of the Facebook social graph itself. Under this scenario Facebook would still act as an aggregator, but then again the barrier to entry for competing aggregators of social network verticals would fall substantially and allow innovation and specialization. I know of at least one stealth startup working on such a vertical, but I can't mention who just quite yet. From the ideas I've heard, the potential is definitely there in the idea to corner one aspect of a users life that Facebook couldn't possibly match due to the high level of abstraction FB needs to maintain as a generic social networking site. I think verticals could also erode Google as well. Quora is going after one aspect of knowledge. Wikipedia as well. If I were to create a search engine today, I'd go after one vertical. For example, a search engine focused entirely on helping you find code would be immensely valuable. Sites like Github and Freshmeat have search, but the search isn't specialized to add any value over what Google already offers. In fact, in many cases sites with specialized knowledge about one vertical choose to use Google's search for its own site instead of building a new search from scratch that better serves the need of that vertical. Examples of verticals where I see value in creating a specialized social network or search engine: -- Nightlife -- Code/Programming -- Educational resources.

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bad_user 16y ago
Problem with verticals is that people lose interest fast. Nightlife? Sure, but once you have a favorite club or 2 where you hang out with friends regularly, you don't need a website to tell where to go anymore. Educational resources? You mean like lots of scanned books that you can search? What will make Google irrelevant is a better search engine: just the other day I remembered a piece of article I first read a couple of years ago. It's somewhere out there but I can't find it because of all the junk and all I remember are a couple of words and a number. In 2002 when I first used Google's search, I had been using Altavista previously. The results from Google were so good compared to Altavista that it wasn't even funny. If the same would happen today, Google would be in big trouble. Also Facebook is already irrelevant to me. I log in from time to time, responding to a friendship request, but these days I only view it as a tool with which I could spam my acquaintances in case I need it :)

geoffw8 16y ago

This really made it to the front page? "What will be the next giant wave?" Great conclusion.

mindcrime 16y ago
Half (or more) of the problem with finding an answer is knowing what the question is. It was actually a very good article, in terms of framing and context setting, to help seed the discussion about what the question is. In that regard, it was very valuable. Don't underestimate the value of a good question; and don't expect every informative article to spoon feed the reader the answers.

fredliu 16y ago

Major premise: Startups won't be killed by competitors but only by themselves (ref to pg?). Minor premise: Facebook is still a "startup" (well... in some sense). Conclusion: Facebook won't be killed by anyone but themselves.

chopsueyar 16y ago

Time?

frostbyte 16y ago
Very true. Just like Bing is beginning to give Google a run for their money. There will be something that will eventually make Facebook's tiniest nuances look like glaring flaws. Look at how IE is struggling against Chrome and Firefox. A few years ago Microsoft was in the comfort zone in terms of market share. Things began to stagnate. Now they are being pushed. They know they have to innovate, or face the possibility of fading away. It's not a question of what will kill Facebook. It's a question of when.
- phodo 16y ago
  As long as the "when" is: after the investors and principals have played it through. Sure, every company gets more vulnerable as it gets bigger and markets evolve, etc. as stated here. but if you notice, NONE of the examples cited above "became vulnerable" before the liquidity event happened. I could make an exception with Apple, but that seems to be the exception not the rule. in fact, you could argue that there is a 3rd phase of a company (which Apple is in), after the liquidity event, after the company gets vulnerable (think apple 10 years ago, think yahoo now). some die - but some survive to see a new healthy dominance.

AngeloAnolin 16y ago

Nothing. Until the time that it is evolving with the way how people wants to connect socially. And Facebook does a good job at it by hiring visionaries, getting people with a good common sense and attracting talents whom they know would be excited being part of a technical social revolution. Nonetheless, the only thing that could probably kill Facebook is when people stop using it. Simple as that.

oldpond 16y ago

Why do we have radios in all our cars? So we can pipe advertising to a captive audience. Why do we have TV's in all our homes? So we can pipe advertising to a captive audience. Why do we have our computers plugged into the internet? Hm. Why is it that when you buy a phone now it comes with Facebook (and twitter and google)? And, on many plans it's "free" to use Facebook and twitter, and you can't remove it. It's all about the channel. Facebook/Google/Twitter + ISP/Phone Provider = secure advertising channel. Can you turn off your radio? Can you turn off your TV? Can you use a plain old cellphone that just dials a number? The only way to kill Facebook is to turn off the advertising channel.

deleted 16y ago

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untamedmedley 16y ago

My guess is the lack of adequate revenues that lead to real profits. Last I read, Facebook was breaking even. As they grow toward a billion users, I imagine those costs will rise. This is fine if ad revenues can keep up, but last I checked their average CTR was less than half a percent. Facebook is odd in that it improves on a previous solution (communication tools: mail, phone, cellphones), but doesn't charge for the utility it brings.

aufreak3 16y ago

Top level observation - the linked post was made on a blog and was shared via Hacker News. "Facebook" only features as a word in this whole multi-log. That means, to me, that there is a really solid and significant world outside of Facebook.

zephyrfalcon 16y ago

The strong point of Facebook is that so many people are on there, including many who are normally less comfortable using computers. I assume it will keep growing for a while, as there is no real contender in sight. So let's say we reach the point where pretty much everybody has a Facebook account. At that point, it would only seem stronger than before. The weak point of Facebook is that it lumps everybody into the same "friends" pool. This is not a new observation of course, but is is still a problem, and Facebook hasn't really done much to alleviate it. Sure, you can add people to different groups, set different filters, but for most people (especially those who are less tech-savvy) this is just too much work (or too difficult, even). So the problem remains, and as Facebook gets bigger, so does the problem. I think that at some point, there will be huge opportunities for "spin-off" sites, that address some kind of niche. There would be a mini-social network were you talk to your family. Another one for friends (of the kind that you go to bars with, for example). One for networking. One for co-workers. Ones for specific games (quite a few people on Facebook have thousands of "friends", most of which they don't really know, but were added for the benefit of playing Mafia Wars, Farmville, etc). And so on. Some of these already exist, like LinkedIn; and likely, the process is already underway. However, I think such sites would have more success if they were friendly with Facebook in some form or another; log in with your Facebook account, maybe share certain things, etc. (Look at Zynga; would their games have anywhere near the current number of users if they had not integrated with Facebook?) When you meet new people, online or in real life, in whatever situation, the common denominator would be that they all have Facebook. (Still going by the assumption here that Facebook would get so big that people without an account would be rare.) So it would retain its function as a "hub" where you can find anybody at all; but the actual social interaction, in whatever form, would be done at the spin-off sites. You don't post work-related things to your Facebook because nobody cares but your co-workers. If you had a wild night out, you don't post pictures of it to a specific site, not to Facebook where your mom/kids/spouse/boss can see it. For those things, there would be the aforementioned specialized sites. Likely, it wouldn't be long before we would think of such a situation as normal; you won't post specialized info on Facebook, any more than you would post it in the newspaper. I am just brainstorming here, but if that would actually happen, Facebook would slowly be supplanted by a myriad of smaller sites, each with their own purpose. Facebook itself would slowly become irrelevant other than as a hub to connect all those specialized sites. Like Microsoft nowadays, it would be big, bulky, probably rich, but it would just kinda sit there; the action and innovation would happen elsewhere. tl;dr: Hypothetically, there might not be one Facebook killer, rather, it might be replaced by many smaller, specialized sites.

ojbyrne 16y ago

Market saturation (everyone who wants to be on facebook is probably already on it) and excessive valuations (which assume the whole world will eventually be on it).

camworld 16y ago

I used to hate Facebook, but over the years I've come to enjoy it. But now I am starting to hate it again. The reasons have nothing to do with Facebook's privacy issues or Facebook's business decisions. No, the issues I am having are that Facebook has enabled friends, family members and acquaintances to inject their dumb ideas, religious quotes, backwards thinking, ridiculous opinions, FOX news talking points and political beliefs into my everyday life. What I used to be able to ignore is now front-and-center on my Facebook Wall because I have friends and family members who I love dearly but who aren't necessarily the sharpest knives in the drawer. So, what will "kill" Facebook? It's simple. What will kill Facebook will be its own stupid users. “Just think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize half of them are even stupider!” - George Carlin

dasil003 16y ago
I don't even necessarily agree, but Carlin's delivery of that line is priceless, I can hear it my head. RIP George.
code_duck 16y ago
Yep, the AOLification of facebook has gotten so extreme that I think many people are now seeing that they don't WANT to be connected to their acquaintances in such a fashion.

EGreg 16y ago

The difference between Facebook and all the software and internet companies that preceded it, is a big one: All the other companies won because of their products, for whatever reason -- usefulness, ubiquity, etc. If someone came up with a product that had better usefulness, ubiquity, etc. then users could leave. Google leveraged network effects with publishers. A search engine to rule them all. It had publishers by the proverbial "balls" -- if they didn't play nice, Google could just delist them and they'd lose their main source of traffic. But the users were always free. Free to switch to yahoo, or bing, at the drop of a hat if they liked their search engines better. Facebook is the first company I know that has successfully pulled off the following: it has its own USERS by the balls. If you don't like facebook, you can bitch about it and even delete your facebook account, as various random people claim. And then a couple months later your friends want to share their X (pictures, notes, etc.) with you and not EVERYONE IN THE WORLD. And to do that, you have to join facebook again. Yes, facebook, because joining some other site will do no good. This works because leaving facebook is no longer as easy as making a personal choice. You now have to create more work for all your "friends" who are sharing stuff with you on facebook. "Larry, didn't you hear? I got married! Everyone came to my engagement party! It was all over facebook" "Sorry baby, I'm not on facebook anymore... I guess I'm out of the loop" This is a new ball game. Of course, facebook also has PUBLISHERS by the balls, just like Google, since it drives lots of traffic to them. But it's the first company to have users by the balls. So what if you delete your account? You are in a tiny minority. And chances are, half of you will be right back on there the minute your friends refuse to share with you anywhere else.

brc 16y ago
I would agree with you, but I've had 1 new friend join facebook in the last year or two. I've had about 5 leave. I also have a significant number of people who either never will join Facebook (due to attitude, principle or plain un-interestedness) and probably the majority who never log on, even if you send them a direct mail. So I would be a pretty lousy friend if I just notified people within facebook and ignored my other friends.

maxawaytoolong 16y ago

This article assumes that companies die due to competition. In reality, tech companies die from within. What would kill Facebook is a bunch of dumbbells on the inside making stupid decisions and sticking to them.

dkasper 16y ago
> The only company that can kill Facebook is Facebook. From the end of the third paragraph in the post.

honza 16y ago

I will.

qq66 16y ago

Someone.

michaelchisari 16y ago

Distributed social networking will "kill" Facebook. Except that it won't kill it, but will make it less relevant. The same thing will happen to Facebook as happened to AOL. It will exist for years to come, but it will be forced to open it's walls, and play nice with an open standard. Younger users will leave for more niche communities which interconnect, and older users will stay with what they're used to. In other words, in 5 years, Facebook will be for old people. As well as other people who prefer familiarity. The history of the internet is a history of decentralization winning over walled gardens. There are too many projects pushing for decentralized protocols and solutions. Appleseed, GNU Social, OneSocialWeb, etc. I think the last time I checked the spreadsheet, there was over 50 such projects. Some of us are pretty close to providing a viable alternative, too. But most importantly, we're not going to give up. No matter how much people may think of Facebook as infallible, we're never going to throw up our arms and say "oh well, I guess we can't win". We're going to keep pushing and refining our solutions and building momentum until we win. The Next Big Social Network tm may even run our software on the back end, and people will move to a distributed system without even realizing it.

sabat 16y ago

Time.

InclinedPlane 16y ago

Ultimately? A combination of factors will kill* facebook. (* where "kill" is defined as dethroning them from their spot as seemingly a social media monopoly) Firstly, facebook's technology advantage will evaporate, especially as hardware improves. The cost of serving facebook's traffic and of managing the infrastructure to serve that traffic will come down over time until ultimately it's as abundant and cheap as a linux VPS is today. Somewhere along that trend you'll see an explosion in very capable facebook competitors. People as savvy as Apple and as technologically competent as google. Ultimately I think the result will be fragmentation and loosely federated disjoint services (much like email is today). Secondly, facebook will one day become un-cool. When your parents' generation and your grand parents' generation move into your social media platform en masse that can change its nature. Eventually facebook's allure will fade, and perhaps some new thing will draw the attention of the younger generation as it always has. Thirdly, facebook has a pretty sloppy business plan. Their core idea has always been "grow big first, figure out how to monetize that second". The downside of this is that if their growth stalls or they shrink then they are left high and dry with no revenue and no wealth to try to turn things around (see digg, myspace, etc.) More sophisticated competitors with more robust business plans from the get go have a chance to take facebook to the cleaners. I competing social media platform able to be far more efficient in terms of revenue generation would be a serious threat to facebook.

Finster 16y ago

As soon as we all find out what will kill Facebook, we can figure out what will kill WoW!

krakensden 16y ago

You could kill facebook in a year or so under the right kind of management. Set a rapid pace of change that users dislike, let the spammers back in, lose data, crash constantly.

dr_ 16y ago

Facebook is different than Yahoo, Google, Microsoft etc, because of it's social aspect. There will be decades upon decades of memories, photos, videos and all the comments associated with them on fb that most people are not going to want to give up. Today I could switch away from Yahoo to AOL or MSN, Google to Bing and Microsoft Windows to Mac OS X and I wouldn't notice any huge difference. I can't switch away from facebook to another social networking site and have it be of any utility to me - and I can only imagine the dominance of facebook because of this social aspect growing in the years to come. As an aside, the author feels that Microsoft tried to kill itself with all the delays and bugs in Vista, which I would also disagree with. Google, along with a host of other companies, killed Microsoft - because of the talent drain. Once your best and brightest are jumping ship for, as Michael Lewis would call it, the "new new thing", you are pretty much screwed because your product development is going to start going down the tubes.

te_chris 16y ago

What's with all the Vista hate? I mean seriously. I run a MBP mostly with OSX, but on my music mixing machine @ home I run vista and have never had a single problem and greatly prefer it to XP. The whole thing was just manufactured by angry computerworld journo's who couldn't believe that MS actually started considering making an OS easier to use.