4 ms·

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.

by 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.
    - crocowhile 16y ago
      No idea. It's not the only one if I remember correctly. It could be a brilliant social engineering experiment: you make a bunch of wealthy doctors and lawyers believe they are chatting with paris hilton and at the same time you collect info out of juicy targets for scams and thefts.
- asmithmd1 16y ago
  or small world which has been around for longer than Facebook: http://www.asmallworld.net http://www.asmallworld.net I still haven't received an invite:)
  - mbesto 16y ago
    Yes, unfortunately the community is slowing go down hill. You're not missing much. :)
  - mindcrime 16y ago
    I still haven't received an invite:) Me either.. but if somebody has an invite available... well... my email address is in my profile. :-)
- ryanwaggoner 16y ago
  This doesn't really make much sense to me...very rich people have their own real-world private social networks already, and unless they're ridiculously wealthy, they probably have lots of not-as-wealthy friends, family members, and acquaintances that they want to keep in touch with too, so now they have to maintain two networks. Seems like they'd just use FB with extra privacy settings or not use anything at all. Also, I like how both of the exclusive networks for the rich mentioned in sibling comments apparently couldn't afford a .com domain name :)
- chollida1 16y ago
  The rich have had such networks for a long time. They are currently called country clubs.
qjz 16y ago
...it is built from the ground up around a flat social network and that maps really poorly onto real social networks. This flaw is obvious enough that it inspired an SNL parody ("Damn It, My Mom Is On Facebook Filter"): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0Bd9-xOQjU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0Bd9-xOQjU It's pretty funny, and its appeal isn't limited to geeks.
- mechanical_fish 16y ago
  What will be truly ironic is when Facebook falls out of fashion in the youth market. Yes, the very thing that it was designed for and that made it great. It will be astonishing if that does not happen, at least in America. If there is one consistent factor in American culture, it is that your kids will find something to do that is superficially different from what you did. They don't dance to their grandmother's music - except as retro kitsch - and they won't use her social network either. Alterna-Facebook may be almost exactly like Facebook, it might be compatible with Facebook and it might even be built and run by Zuckerberg, but it won't look like Facebook and it won't be branded as Facebook. Facebook itself will not die, of course. But it might just settle into its niche. Consider a related - but more primitive - example of a niche genre: high school yearbooks. They are a steady, stable, hundred-year-old tradition but they never grew to threaten, say, newsmagazines, or scientific journals. They are what they are. They are just one genre. Everyone has one, and for a couple years in everyone's life it might even seem important.
  - IsaacL 16y ago
    MySpace. I read somewhere that a few years ago, their staff were walking around wearing t-shirts emblazoned with "Your Mom has a Facebook Page". The article was about how they were trying to position themselves as a more youthful, 'alternative' social network. Don't think it really worked, though there's certainly still a lot of bands on there. Besides, if some upstart did recast themselves as young and hip and Facebook as old and fuddy-duddy, Facebook could reframe themselves as classic and sophisticated (similar to the changing brands of Pepsi and Coca-Cola).
    - 16y ago

by msy 16y ago

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.
  - crocowhile 16y ago
    No idea. It's not the only one if I remember correctly. It could be a brilliant social engineering experiment: you make a bunch of wealthy doctors and lawyers believe they are chatting with paris hilton and at the same time you collect info out of juicy targets for scams and thefts.
asmithmd1 16y ago
or small world which has been around for longer than Facebook: http://www.asmallworld.net http://www.asmallworld.net I still haven't received an invite:)
- mbesto 16y ago
  Yes, unfortunately the community is slowing go down hill. You're not missing much. :)
- mindcrime 16y ago
  I still haven't received an invite:) Me either.. but if somebody has an invite available... well... my email address is in my profile. :-)
ryanwaggoner 16y ago
This doesn't really make much sense to me...very rich people have their own real-world private social networks already, and unless they're ridiculously wealthy, they probably have lots of not-as-wealthy friends, family members, and acquaintances that they want to keep in touch with too, so now they have to maintain two networks. Seems like they'd just use FB with extra privacy settings or not use anything at all. Also, I like how both of the exclusive networks for the rich mentioned in sibling comments apparently couldn't afford a .com domain name :)
chollida1 16y ago
The rich have had such networks for a long time. They are currently called country clubs.

qjz 16y ago

...it is built from the ground up around a flat social network and that maps really poorly onto real social networks. This flaw is obvious enough that it inspired an SNL parody ("Damn It, My Mom Is On Facebook Filter"): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0Bd9-xOQjU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0Bd9-xOQjU It's pretty funny, and its appeal isn't limited to geeks.

mechanical_fish 16y ago
What will be truly ironic is when Facebook falls out of fashion in the youth market. Yes, the very thing that it was designed for and that made it great. It will be astonishing if that does not happen, at least in America. If there is one consistent factor in American culture, it is that your kids will find something to do that is superficially different from what you did. They don't dance to their grandmother's music - except as retro kitsch - and they won't use her social network either. Alterna-Facebook may be almost exactly like Facebook, it might be compatible with Facebook and it might even be built and run by Zuckerberg, but it won't look like Facebook and it won't be branded as Facebook. Facebook itself will not die, of course. But it might just settle into its niche. Consider a related - but more primitive - example of a niche genre: high school yearbooks. They are a steady, stable, hundred-year-old tradition but they never grew to threaten, say, newsmagazines, or scientific journals. They are what they are. They are just one genre. Everyone has one, and for a couple years in everyone's life it might even seem important.
- IsaacL 16y ago
  MySpace. I read somewhere that a few years ago, their staff were walking around wearing t-shirts emblazoned with "Your Mom has a Facebook Page". The article was about how they were trying to position themselves as a more youthful, 'alternative' social network. Don't think it really worked, though there's certainly still a lot of bands on there. Besides, if some upstart did recast themselves as young and hip and Facebook as old and fuddy-duddy, Facebook could reframe themselves as classic and sophisticated (similar to the changing brands of Pepsi and Coca-Cola).
  - 16y ago