12 ms·

Facebook hype will fade

192 points by sdizdar 16y ago

klochner 16y ago
facebook growth went something like this: college --> high school --> young adults --> everyone Trendy stuff generally follows the same cascade, more or less, where you don't see college students emulating the dress habits of the elderly. facebook's biggest potential for failure is in not capturing the next generation of young users. The young users pick up some other social network, everyone else follows suit, and facebook withers, slowly starting to resemble an '85 buick.
- kragen 16y ago
  Most of the teenagers I know have Facebook accounts. Facebook might lose the high school class of 2018, but they already have the class of 2014 sewn up.
  - phuff 16y ago
    They have at least the class of 2016-2017 given the 12 and 13 year-olds I know that have accounts...
    - mscarborough 16y ago
      OK, at least for now. Nothing better for fickle teenagers will pop up in the next 6 years? Doubtful. EDIT: fickleness with social networks not restricted to teenagers, obviously.
      - robryan 16y ago
        Tumblr seems to be big with the younger age groups, it's more of a facebook compliment though.
      - knowsnothing613 16y ago
        The new it social network for tweens/YA is tumblr. Facebook will eventually lose market share to Tumblr. All these social networks are simply an extension of the email use case. It's nothing new, nor do I see Facebook taking down google. Social networks are like hot clubs. Eventually their popularity fades, as soon as another it scene opens, which is why I'd never invest in a social network site. So shall it pass with Facebook
        gcr 16y ago
        What is special about tumblr? (honest question.) I've only thought of it as a blogging platform that focused on small, "multimedia" posts (pictures, video, a short quote, etc)
        Raphael 16y ago
        Multimedia appeals to people who don't read.
        nhangen 16y ago
        If Tumblr was going to take on Facebook, we would have already seen it trend in that direction. I love Tumblr, but I can't see it being as ubiquitous as Facebook.
  - Tichy 16y ago
    Do they like Facebook, or are they only on there because of peer pressure?
    - kragen 16y ago
      Nobody likes Facebook.
      - peteforde 16y ago
        I love Facebook! I derive a huge amount of value out of it. I put in the time to train it to show me what I want to see, and I don't become friends with everyone I meet. It's silly to say that nobody likes Facebook. You don't, and that's fine. But you're in a very small minority (and arguably for a reason).
    - malloreon 16y ago
      Facebook creates incredible peer pressure to join, if only to answer this question: "what if they're talking about me on facebook?" Facebook is directed peer pressure.
  - hnal943 16y ago
    How many people have MySpace accounts they never use anymore? The point of the article is not that people won't ever sign up, but that they'll lose interest.
- lotusleaf1987 16y ago
  I got my Facebook account in 2005 when I was a college freshman. At first it was amazing, then they opened it up to high schoolers which was okay, but not really what I wanted from Facebook. Then they added things like the Friend Feed which bombarded you with "Your friend [name you know] just added [someone you don't know or care about}." Which was okay, but then they opened the gates and suddenly all your coworkers and anyone you've ever talked to for more than 3 minutes is now adding you. I think for me, the longer I've had my Facebook, the less useful it has gotten and the less time I've actually spent on it. It's like talking in a room with everyone you've ever met listening in. It's unnatural. I think Facebook's market will eventually fragment-- LinkedIn being the first chink in FB's armor, I imagine the next will be a college exclusive network like how Facebook got started.
  - kin 16y ago
    I have the exact same feeling about Facebook. I was appalled when they originally let high school students into the gates. The exclusivity was what made it so cool to be a part of. However, I never felt that it has become less useful, it just took a second to adapt to the new environment that it periodically throws at you. Perhaps if you do the same (take advantage of group privacy settings) you can weed out the junk and use it as it used to be?
  - d2viant 16y ago
    Do you really think LinkedIn is a chink in Facebook's armor? I question how many people regularly use LinkedIn as opposed to those who just update when their job title changes. All Facebook needs is for an intern of theirs to add a couple more features around the career section of people's profiles and LinkedIn is toast.
    - yannickt 16y ago
      "and LinkedIn is toast" I doubt that. I think people who take career networking seriously tend to keep their personal and professional lives separate.
      - 16y ago
- fkeidkwdq 16y ago
  facebook beginning in college can be explained because its creator was in college at that time, and is natural to expand in your habitat. Sometime young people copy old habits of old people, so I don't see any trend. The power for expansion is in the marketing, very creative people selling water vapour (in Spain people now smoke water vapour since the prohibition to smoke in public places).
- loire280 16y ago
  My 12 year old brother and all of his friends use Facebook already. Many of them use the mobile site on their iPod touches. (incidentally, the iPod touch is a great way for Apple to build a userbase among the young)
  - cft 16y ago
    mobile site or the fb app?
Synthetase 16y ago
I really think he doesn't know what he's talking about. Let's look at his qualifications. He's a professor of "Media Studies" at the New School. I think he's going to be taking everything with a lot of lit crit palavering. Myspace to Facebook is a shallow analogy. If we would like to make an analogy with that analogy it would be like comparing Yahoo and Google. Facebook has far exceeded the market penetration of MySpace. Facebook has one of the best engineering teams around while MySpace attempted to some sort of media company (failing miserably at that). Facebook has a fairly credible revenue stream while we are never sure if MySpace every developed that.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
  - derwiki 16y ago
    Not to be snarky, but I don't think this is what "begs the question" means: http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/begs.html http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/begs.html
    - wyclif 16y ago
      http://begthequestion.info/ http://begthequestion.info/
- michaelchisari 16y ago
  we are never sure if MySpace every developed that. Myspace revenues are estimated at $385 million. Facebook's are estimated at $1.6 billion. That puts myspace revenues at 24% of Facebook's. Myspace has 66m users. Facebook has 500m users. That puts Myspace's userbase at 13% of Facebook's. In actuality, that means Myspace has found a way to generate more revenue on a per-user basis than Facebook. I'd say that's pretty credible.
aridiculous 16y ago
I don't necessarily agree the article but I'd be interested in hearing opinions on the interesting point the author presents near the end of the article: That social networking sites are like physical social spaces that will rise and fall in popularity.
- coolswan 16y ago
  As social networks get bigger, you keep adding more and more connections to the point where that set you've created doesn't matter / mean anything anymore.
  - glhaynes 16y ago
    You think? I'm more liberal in my friending policy than most (I think - at least that's my perception), but, still, I've met in person >85% of the people I'm friends with on FB. I could see that being true for me regarding something like Twitter, though... there, if something new came along ("SuperTwitter") that replaced it, I'd be able to take the 10% that I really like (the 10% I'd know by name) and follow them on that new network.
- nostromo 16y ago
  My personal experience is exactly that. My parents, a grandparent, nieces, nephews, coworkers, bosses, college friends, and everyone in between are now in my network. My status updates are now a megaphone to everyone I've ever had any relationship with and more frighteningly, anyone I ever will have a relationship with in the future. This kind of assemblage is perfect for weddings and funerals, and that's it. For daily living, it's just too much. If my Facebook friends all went to a building every day to hang out, I wouldn't go there. And I don't find myself using FB nearly as much now as I once did for this very reason. There's too many things to consider when posting even the simplest thing (will I offend my second aunt, will some future boss not like this political view, what if I run for political office in my 50s and find out I friended someone who ended up doing x, etc., etc.)
  - yeahsure 16y ago
whenisall 16y ago
Some people will get a lot of money in shares. The difficult question is when to buy and when to sell. The hype will fade and shares will fall down very quickly but to win in this game you have to determine when it will happen. I don't know when, but I think that the fall down will be the extraordinarily stiff, in one day or two a complete collapse. Wait and see.
michaelchisari 16y ago
I agree that popularity of social networks is faddish, and that Facebook will follow that rise and fall pattern, however... I think that an open, distributed social networking protocol is a game changer. If there exists the ability to move between social networks while maintaining your social graph, that makes the way that social networks rise and fall very different than when sites hold your social graph hostage if you try to leave.
- glhaynes 16y ago
  It continues to be hard for me to envision what that would really look like in practice. I don't mean from a network typology standpoint; I mean how would it look in my browser?
  - michaelchisari 16y ago
    Here is my Appleseed friends list: http://developer.appleseedproject.org/profile/michael.chisari/friends/ http://developer.appleseedproject.org/profile/michael.chisar... Keep in mind, this is beta software in active development, so you'll notice a few bugs here and there (and the live server is missing a major update I'm running locally).
    - glhaynes 16y ago
      Thanks! I'm interested specifically in the day-to-day usage: the situations of signing up, finding/adding my friends, posting statuses, reading and commenting on other peoples', sharing media like photos, etc etc. So to start with a simple one: how does one add somebody else? Can you just search by name? I'm just having a bit of difficulty imagining how that sort of thing would work well in a truly distributed, federated way. But I haven't done much thought on it so I'm interested to hear.
      - michaelchisari 16y ago
        If you'd like, you can get an Appleseed invite. Send an email to invite@appleseedproject.org and I'll send you one back right away (this is open to anyone, by the way). You can sign up for the main beta test site (currently around 500 users). Searching is being worked on, that's coming in the next update, but yes, you just search by name (or other attributes). Distributed search is difficult, but only on the backend, on the frontend, it's similar to what you're used to. Only caveat is that it is not exactly real-time, and is more like a P2P search than a google search. Once you find someone you're looking for, you identify yourself to their site by remotely logging in. This is as simple as giving your ID, which looks like an email address (username@domain). Then you click "Add as friend", and they're sent a friend request. When they approve it, you are mutual friends. You can post stuff to your "page" (what appleseed calls your wall), and an update will be sent to your friends list. You upload a photo, and an update shows up in your friends lists newsfeeds. They click on the thumbnail and it takes them to your photo album on your home node, etc. Some other distributed social networking sites are breaking from convention in a lot of ways, but Appleseed's goal is to try and make it work as much like the current systems people are used to as possible. Certain growing pains are inevitable, but so far it's pretty similar after the first couple minutes.
fkeidkwdq 16y ago
Comparing Google with Facebook. I was using google since it was pretty unknown, I think it is still, after all these years, a good tool for searching. I will never use facebook, I think local solutions for meeting people will emerge soon and they will be much more appealing and useful. Facebook only can exists if it can find a way to be a local tool.
- lotusleaf1987 16y ago
  I've never met anyone on Facebook, they're all people I knew somehow previous to our friending.
  - jupiterj 16y ago
    Interesting. I would like to know if the majority of people use Facebook like you (with people they knew previously) or they use it to get new connections. How can I get this information? Any poll published somewhere?
    - ladon86 16y ago
      I think I can say pretty confidently and without providing any data that most people use Facebook to connect with people they know from real life. I believe that adding a complete stranger is seen as a bit creepy. Maybe the new Groups feature (like the hacker news group) will change that, but that's only a recent addition.
      - hucker 16y ago
        Maybe for our generation it is, but I can confidently say that this has changed amongst high school students and other youngsters. For them (at least the ones I have contact with), facebook is a tool for meeting new people. Hell, even a few people I know professionally has met their SO on facebook.
  - hnal943 16y ago
    I've never met anyone on Facebook either. I've run into the strange misconception from non-facebookers that Facebook is somehow a dating site, which is strange. Obviously those people also perceive that facebook is a way to "meet people."
zinssmeister 16y ago
I see so many people compare facebook to (late '90s) AOL these days. But the two never had much in common with each other. I think if facebook continues to bring out innovative ways/products/features that connect people with each other it will continue to be successful. Will it one day fade away? Probably. As do most huge dotcoms. But some even stay relevant for well over a decade (ebay, match, expedia, google). Most of them get a bit smaller and cruise along.
- lotusleaf1987 16y ago
  Your profile and buddy list on AOL were probably pretty similar to your Facebook friends. I think they have a lot in common.
  - kin 16y ago
    Originally, but AOL never expanded on it. A profile was like a text box and that's it. As for AIM, everyone I know that used to use it still do. I don't think that's changed very much other than that people now use web based clients to chat on AIM.
    - lotusleaf1987 16y ago
      Really? I only know a fraction of people who still use AIM, most just use the Facebook chat. It guessing it must be a generational thing? I'm 23, how about you?
      - kin 16y ago
        Same age. It's probably just the people I know. I grew up in the San Gabriel Valley amongst 90% Asians and the non-tech savvy subset of those I know all use the same AIM screen names but through different interfaces. The tech-savvy subset use multi-clients like Pidgin, Digsby, etc. I personally use Gchat and no one I know uses FB as their main chat client, only for a quick message if two people are coincidentally on FB.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
fkeidkwdq 16y ago
I wonder why my pessimistic 3 points post is in the bottom, there are five or so one point post above it. Well, time for supper. Down vote this one to put the other up.
- T-R 16y ago
  Post ordering doesn't work that way on HN; from the FAQ: > On the front page, [posts are ordered] by points divided by a power of the time since they were submitted. Comments in comment threads are ranked the same way. For clarity, this post isn't getting down voted per your request (which would have no effect on your other post), it's getting down voted for not adding content to the conversation.
Hominem 16y ago
Agree, Just wonder if all these people were incredibly good at cashing in at the top or the overwhelming tidal wave of news stories about them cashing in is what caused their decline
ryanwaggoner 16y ago
Stupid title. Doesn't hype always fade, by definition?
jdp23 16y ago
"This week's news that Goldman Sachs has chosen to invest in Facebook while entreating others to do the same should inspire about as much confidence as their investment in mortgage securities did in 2008." Well said. Sounds like a bubble to me.
- retube 16y ago
  Except of course, GS aren't investing in Facebook. They're backing out their stake to other investors via this SPV they've set up. I doubt they care what happens to facebook stock: there's huge demand at this valuation and all they care about is answering that.
  - beoba 16y ago
    "Goldman will be creating a “special purpose vehicle” to sell the stock to its wealthy clients and then will charge them a 4 percent initial fee plus 5 percent of any profits." Heads we win, tails you lose. I'm just waiting until they start dividing up the stock into tranches. (from http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2071267 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2071267 )
kprobst 16y ago
"We will move on, just as we did from the chat rooms of AOL, without even looking back. When the place is as ethereal as a website, our allegiance is much more abstract than it is to a local pub or gym." I disagree with this, simply because grandma wasn't on any AOL chat rooms, but she _is_ on Facebook. The only reason I'm on FB is because Aunt Tilly and Uncle Bob and grandma are also on there, and I can connect with them that way, and know what's happening in their lives in real time, instead of seeing them once a year at Christmas. Grandma isn't going to sign up for IM or get a blog. She's on Facebook. That's the difference between FB and everything else that came before it. The thing creates its own gravity field that attracts everyone, and as long as everyone I care about is on Facebook, so will I. Even though I really hate the thing. That's the genius of FB, I think. Hate it or love it.
- cookiecaper 16y ago
  This isn't really unique to Facebook. It's called lock-in and it's the desire of every service provider and software maker; they want you to be held hostage to their network, so that even if you want to leave, you can't without potentially serious ramifications (like losing contact with your grandma, or losing access to your documents). Facebook has reached a level that had never been reached by any social network before it. Did your grandma use MySpace or LiveJournal? Once something crosses the threshold of youth and tech-savvy and "regular people" or even old people start using it, you have a much less transient userbase. Look at Microsoft -- the young and tech-savvy are happy to use Apple products over MS, but MS is king and will remain king at least until anyone born before 1975 is well into retirement. Once these things reach a certain level, they become generational standards, and then only minimal effort is needed on the part of the vendor. I know old people that still use AOL. Most old people never would have left AOL in the first place if they'd come up with something sensible for broadband. Perhaps Facebook will come upon a stumbling block that's similarly fatal, but I wouldn't necessarily expect that, at least not within a reasonable timeframe.
  - kprobst 16y ago
    I agree with the way you describe the lock-in, of course that's the whole point of any closed network. But I disagree as far as the phenomena not being unique to Facebook. While grandma might have been on AOL, to her it was just the way to "use the internet" or whatever, she wasn't on any communities or groups or chat rooms. That required a slight uptick in the level of computer savvy one had to possess, which she never had or bothered to acquire. More to the point, her family wasn't on AOL, or wasn't interested in AOL, or if they were they couldn't interact the same way with her. Facebook's success is a combination of making things easy for people like grandma and attracting everyone related to her. Without those two pillars FB would be just another MySpace.
mrleinad 16y ago
Hypes will fade. By definition.
jupiterj 16y ago
If I were 14 years old or so, I would be very much interested in partbook, where part is some part of the body. I think it would be a very visited site, but unfortunately this is not permited by my imaginary Dad, so this site is not real. Edited: I discovered Bart Simpson thought about this.
adamokane 16y ago
It will take more than something "cool" to knock off Facebook - 600m users isn't fad-ish. A competitor has to have a MUCH better product and be very cool. It could happen, but Facebook is much more in the driver's seat than MySpace or Friendster ever were.
krosaen 16y ago
related from 2007: "How Your Creepy Ex-Co-Workers Will Kill Facebook" http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/webdev/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=204203573 http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/webdev/showArti... It certainly hasn't, but can facebook be the first social network to somehow help people maintain their different personas and keep their social circles unentangled when appropriate? Over the summer I facebook updated something about hacking on my front porch, and my wife's aunt commented asking how I got sick. Stuff like that isn't creepy, it's just awkward, and keeps me coming back here and to friendfeed or to reddit or wherever the community feels right for having a discussion.
winternett 16y ago
All social media sites these days are bound for backlash because of the sins of their fathers, Thats why its so hard to get a great idea to catch on, people are growing skeptical about social media's benefits in a sea of high priced commercial promotion. People make sites like facebook popular, commercial entities buy in and then corner the initial value that these sites created. All of the marketing potential individual users had in the initial stages vanishes once commercial ads and user tracking appear, and once a value is placed on a site. Myspace still gets great hits, but mostly from spammers and bots, which makes it value worth less than the computers its hosted on. Its their own damn fault. Tom played the game right when he sold early I tell you. These social media sites aren't doing anything substantial in order to help productivity nor promotion for individual users. They have features that encourage users to spam each other, which make their added peers end up blocking each other because of incessant tagging and messages to user inboxes that require tedious manual deletion, etc [all tactics to generate empty clicks]... These social media sites all make the same mistakes in not emphasizing their talented users, and helping to build followings, while promoting businesses and services that are reliable and relevant to their own users. I'm a firm believer in a future of micro-social sites that focus on specific user communities rather than trying to warehouse everyone into a huge template. Facebook, as it is really doesn't provide much in terms of letting "like minds come together". There should be no reason why I can't communicate [through a social media buffer of course] with Jay Z about rapping, or Kanye about being a douchebag, or ask the real Ivanka Trump out on a date, and they all should be able to block me if they get pissed off in the process, thats what happens on Twitter, and thats why this year Twitter will capture a large percentage of Facebook's user shares, because its much more fulfilling than fake user profiles [for the moment] American Idol has made a lot more people "famous" than Facebook, yet there are many more musicians and artists on Facebook, how is this possible? I see that as a problem. YouTube has been the only consistently unobtrusive and highly functional/useful social media tool that has survived. They do have user profiles, they host content, allow comments, sharing and communication, and do it all pretty much in an amazing and unobtrusive way. YouTube also allows its users to cross-share content on sites completely unrelated to itself, a major hosting expense, but really solid in terms of usefulness to site users, no idiotic "like" button required. Based on this, the concept of YouTube, perhaps, should be used as a key "roadmap" to social media success in the future. Instead of working on promoting normal users you don't know, most social media sites are geared towards the "celebrity machine", for celebrities that are already popular. Promoting the same stuff that's on TV, and the radio, because someone paid for the ad space. Following this "celebrity machine" is a losing battle because it has to put on a new expensive outfit every time its launched, and it fails once people uncover its motives, or once innovation can't disguise it. Facebook makes it appear to users that the only method to generate 5,000 followers requires landing a major record or movie deal, so much for being a talented musician. Programming and monetizing is only a tiny part of creating a successful social media site, this is why most get it wrong. If you want 4 years of profit, who cares, make the next big social media warehouse, if you want a lifetime of success, think carefully of the benefits your site can provide to the average joe, and make sure you keep that in your mantra for as long as your site lives. The motives have to be clear cut, highly functional, and it must offer fair and equal promotion for all of its users while limiting spamming and upholding privacy, otherwise it will stay the game of rise and downfall. There's a reason why YouTube has been a great site all of these years, it sticks to its user base and keeps them content.
pharrington 16y ago
A bubble created around a legitimate service does not itself kill the service; the service becoming obsolete does. The author seems to completely miss this. AOL didn't die because it was bought by TW, it died because broadband became commonplace and people realized there was much more to the internet than AOL's walled garden. Myspace died because it was the last vestige of the "personal homepage" style internet and never ran with its burgeoning use as a network for musicians. Facebook will fade when the next major gap in social connections+communication is filled. Simply saying "something more popular than Facebook will happen" seems a horribly obvious and empty statement. Now talking about what we still need or might discover with connections would prove insightful, but of course no one's going to blog about that until it's launched.
ibejoeb 16y ago
"...the merger turned out to be a disaster: AOL's revenue stream was reduced to a trickle as net users ventured out onto the Web directly." So facebook will fail when people venture out and socialize in real life? Seriously, though, I get the point generally, but I don't think it's quite the same. AOL and MySpace were assimilated and stifled by their parents' ways of doing things, whereas Facebook will likely continue to do things its own way. This is a company that is able to convince its investors that it knows best, and I don't think things will change with the Goldman investment. I don't know if Facebook will be on top in 10 years, but I don't think this is the beginning of the end.
- sskates 16y ago
  I agree. The author's main points seem to be that: 1. Facebook has similarities to AOL, and AOL's bubble burst 2. There was a bubble in the late '90s therefore there must be a bubble now 3. Goldman is investing in Facebook, Goldman invested in other bubbles, therefore the investment must be bad 4. Social is a fad Nothing on why Facebook specifically is doing a bad job and why someone else is positioned to upset them. Not much evidence at all if you ask me. You could write the article with 90% of the content the same and replace "Facebook" with "Google" or "Apple" or "Microsoft"
  - patrickk 16y ago
    Authors main point: "Yet social media is itself as temporary as any social gathering, nightclub or party. It's the people that matter, not the venue." All the other stuff in the article is an attempt to back this argument up (AOL/TW merger stuff, Goldman deal a symptom of cashing-out mentality, MySpace collapse as a precedent.)
- code_duck 16y ago
  Facebook has done great capitalizing on the growth of the web in general, just like AOL. And similarly, Facebook will not be as popular when these new users find out there are other websites out there.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
ojbyrne 16y ago
When you have so much traffic, it's easy to find other avenues for product changes. You can move into new niches. You gain flexibility. But when you also have a high valuation, and have been taking money off the table, those choices become limited to those that are perceived as the highest growth. You lose flexibility. Frugality is good, at all levels.
sdghjrjyt 16y ago
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wilschroter 16y ago
Isn't it safe to just say that every technology fades with time? The only constant in our industry is that we will all become less relevant in time.
robryan 16y ago
Facebook has the advantage of being built into way more mobile devices than anything before it ever was. Many phones now come with a facebook icon on the main page when you first turn it on. Also the amount of free advertising it gets from companies using it's logo everywhere with add us on facebook and have your say on facebook, how many other companies get their logo and a call to action to use there service for free on TV every day around the world?
malloreon 16y ago
I don't understand the comparisons of FB to AOL, besides their seemingly common goal to sandbox the internet. People who use AOL who discovered "the real" internet had no reason to go back. Everything they wanted was just as available + more. There's no friction to switching, beyond learning how to use a search engine. Facebook has billions of photos, posts, comments, friend requests, updates, registrations through connect, all being added to the site every day. The longer someone uses it, the higher the cost to stop using it, or switch to another. That's why FB has the staying power AOL did not.
imkevingao 16y ago
Facebook needs to generate more revenue or if they go public, their stocks are going to tank like crazy after the speculation fades. Facebook's P/E ratio is out of proportion. Doesn't matter how many users Facebook have, if the company doesn't generate the proportional profits to match its valuation, then the company is going to go through some tough phases. Many people are looking at the Facebook stocks like it's a Pablo Picasso painting, and with users twice as the population of United States, it's bound to be valuable. However, in the economy of supply and demand, the bubble will pop if it decides to go public. Unless Facebook can think new ways to earn more money. But that's hard, because Facebook users hate changes. They aren't exactly Obama fans.
gaiusparx 16y ago
Facebook is definitely waning among my friends, but strong areas remains: 1. Social graph. Many are not active Facebook users but are keeping the accounts cos all their contacts are there. Facebook has actually helped people found their long loss friends and classmates. 2. Sharing links, picture and video. Facebook is replacing email as a means to share interesting contents. One friend actually visits Facebook just to read those contents posted by friends instead of going to the source such as YouTube. "It is easier". Twitter is an obvious alternative. 3. Facebook is the new Flickr. 4. Games. Hopefully when people think of FarmVille or CityVille they think of Zynga and not Facebook. Zynga should seriously break loose of this eco, build its own currency/credit system and focus on iOS/Android platforms. 5. All-in-one ness. Grandmas and aunties love this. Contacts, photos, video, links, cute apps are all-in-one. But this will mean less and less, as this group of not savvy web users will decrease with time.
popschedule 16y ago
in the future your time will fade
dmvaldman 16y ago
I don't know how people can seriously believe facebook is a bunch of hype. Or even that it's at the top of its success, as this article claims. The $50 billion valuation, yeah there's some hype there. But whether Facebook will one day surpass such an evaluation is I believe a strong reality. I'm just amazed at how well-run a company Facebook is. I'm in awe of how it is in a constant state of evolution and constantly being tinkered with. Usually when companies get big you see them play the game more conservatively. Facebook is exciting because it doesn't do this. I see so much room for Facebook to grow and surpass my expectations for it, as it has time and time again.
thefox 16y ago
Facebook sucks!
mnml_ 16y ago
TheFacebook hype died in Nov. 2007 when they introduced advertisement.
projectileboy 16y ago
There are at least a few important differences that the author ignored: * Not many "trends" have had 500 million followers. * The other companies mentioned actually ceded control in some fashion; Facebook is simply taking investment dollars. * The other companies mentioned didn't have Mark Zuckerberg at the helm. Only a crank wouldn't acknowledge that Zuckerberg's leadership has been masterful.
podperson 16y ago
The thing which amazes me about Facebook is how perplexing the basic UI is and remains. My wife will tell me "hey someone has made a comment on your wall you HAVE to reply to it" and it will take me five minutes to figure out where this comment is buried. Oh it's not under "status" it's under "profile". WTF?
jdbeast00 16y ago
most of the complaints here could be solved by facebook implementing (better) disjoint friend networks. I would imagine they are working on this. I currently have draconian privacy in place to prevent most of my friends from seeing status updates. Once this becomes easier wont these issues go away?
chopsueyar 16y ago
Read his books, Exit Strategy and also Ecstasy Club, good scifi.
ruedaminute 16y ago
I have no real use for facebook anymore. Honestly, I think most people right now just go there for lack of something to procrastinate with. Twitter is much better for that anyway. Trying to get all my fb friends to jump ship with me. http://blog.ruedaminute.com/2011/01/dear-facebook-friends/ http://blog.ruedaminute.com/2011/01/dear-facebook-friends/ Honestly, the more people on Twitter, the better for the internet IMHO.
kevin_morrill 16y ago
Best quote of the article, "Yet social media is itself as temporary as any social gathering, nightclub or party. It's the people that matter, not the venue." They cost to run the site compared to how much they're making does not work. Their only hope is to run really fast and create a better advertising story. Otherwise, they need to get acquired by MS, Google or Apple and become an augment to a business that actually generates profit. Problem is their market cap is so huge that's becoming nearly impossible.

192 points by sdizdar 16y ago

facebook growth went something like this: college --> high school --> young adults --> everyone Trendy stuff generally follows the same cascade, more or less, where you don't see college students emulating the dress habits of the elderly. facebook's biggest potential for failure is in not capturing the next generation of young users. The young users pick up some other social network, everyone else follows suit, and facebook withers, slowly starting to resemble an '85 buick.

kragen 16y ago
Most of the teenagers I know have Facebook accounts. Facebook might lose the high school class of 2018, but they already have the class of 2014 sewn up.
- phuff 16y ago
  They have at least the class of 2016-2017 given the 12 and 13 year-olds I know that have accounts...
  - mscarborough 16y ago
    OK, at least for now. Nothing better for fickle teenagers will pop up in the next 6 years? Doubtful. EDIT: fickleness with social networks not restricted to teenagers, obviously.
    - robryan 16y ago
      Tumblr seems to be big with the younger age groups, it's more of a facebook compliment though.
    - knowsnothing613 16y ago
      The new it social network for tweens/YA is tumblr. Facebook will eventually lose market share to Tumblr. All these social networks are simply an extension of the email use case. It's nothing new, nor do I see Facebook taking down google. Social networks are like hot clubs. Eventually their popularity fades, as soon as another it scene opens, which is why I'd never invest in a social network site. So shall it pass with Facebook
      - gcr 16y ago
        What is special about tumblr? (honest question.) I've only thought of it as a blogging platform that focused on small, "multimedia" posts (pictures, video, a short quote, etc)
        Raphael 16y ago
        Multimedia appeals to people who don't read.
      - nhangen 16y ago
        If Tumblr was going to take on Facebook, we would have already seen it trend in that direction. I love Tumblr, but I can't see it being as ubiquitous as Facebook.
- Tichy 16y ago
  Do they like Facebook, or are they only on there because of peer pressure?
  - kragen 16y ago
    Nobody likes Facebook.
    - peteforde 16y ago
      I love Facebook! I derive a huge amount of value out of it. I put in the time to train it to show me what I want to see, and I don't become friends with everyone I meet. It's silly to say that nobody likes Facebook. You don't, and that's fine. But you're in a very small minority (and arguably for a reason).
  - malloreon 16y ago
    Facebook creates incredible peer pressure to join, if only to answer this question: "what if they're talking about me on facebook?" Facebook is directed peer pressure.
- hnal943 16y ago
  How many people have MySpace accounts they never use anymore? The point of the article is not that people won't ever sign up, but that they'll lose interest.
lotusleaf1987 16y ago
I got my Facebook account in 2005 when I was a college freshman. At first it was amazing, then they opened it up to high schoolers which was okay, but not really what I wanted from Facebook. Then they added things like the Friend Feed which bombarded you with "Your friend [name you know] just added [someone you don't know or care about}." Which was okay, but then they opened the gates and suddenly all your coworkers and anyone you've ever talked to for more than 3 minutes is now adding you. I think for me, the longer I've had my Facebook, the less useful it has gotten and the less time I've actually spent on it. It's like talking in a room with everyone you've ever met listening in. It's unnatural. I think Facebook's market will eventually fragment-- LinkedIn being the first chink in FB's armor, I imagine the next will be a college exclusive network like how Facebook got started.
- kin 16y ago
  I have the exact same feeling about Facebook. I was appalled when they originally let high school students into the gates. The exclusivity was what made it so cool to be a part of. However, I never felt that it has become less useful, it just took a second to adapt to the new environment that it periodically throws at you. Perhaps if you do the same (take advantage of group privacy settings) you can weed out the junk and use it as it used to be?
- d2viant 16y ago
  Do you really think LinkedIn is a chink in Facebook's armor? I question how many people regularly use LinkedIn as opposed to those who just update when their job title changes. All Facebook needs is for an intern of theirs to add a couple more features around the career section of people's profiles and LinkedIn is toast.
  - yannickt 16y ago
    "and LinkedIn is toast" I doubt that. I think people who take career networking seriously tend to keep their personal and professional lives separate.
    - 16y ago
fkeidkwdq 16y ago
facebook beginning in college can be explained because its creator was in college at that time, and is natural to expand in your habitat. Sometime young people copy old habits of old people, so I don't see any trend. The power for expansion is in the marketing, very creative people selling water vapour (in Spain people now smoke water vapour since the prohibition to smoke in public places).
loire280 16y ago
My 12 year old brother and all of his friends use Facebook already. Many of them use the mobile site on their iPod touches. (incidentally, the iPod touch is a great way for Apple to build a userbase among the young)
- cft 16y ago
  mobile site or the fb app?

Synthetase 16y ago

I really think he doesn't know what he's talking about. Let's look at his qualifications. He's a professor of "Media Studies" at the New School. I think he's going to be taking everything with a lot of lit crit palavering. Myspace to Facebook is a shallow analogy. If we would like to make an analogy with that analogy it would be like comparing Yahoo and Google. Facebook has far exceeded the market penetration of MySpace. Facebook has one of the best engineering teams around while MySpace attempted to some sort of media company (failing miserably at that). Facebook has a fairly credible revenue stream while we are never sure if MySpace every developed that.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
- derwiki 16y ago
  Not to be snarky, but I don't think this is what "begs the question" means: http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/begs.html http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/begs.html
  - wyclif 16y ago
    http://begthequestion.info/ http://begthequestion.info/
michaelchisari 16y ago
we are never sure if MySpace every developed that. Myspace revenues are estimated at $385 million. Facebook's are estimated at $1.6 billion. That puts myspace revenues at 24% of Facebook's. Myspace has 66m users. Facebook has 500m users. That puts Myspace's userbase at 13% of Facebook's. In actuality, that means Myspace has found a way to generate more revenue on a per-user basis than Facebook. I'd say that's pretty credible.

aridiculous 16y ago

I don't necessarily agree the article but I'd be interested in hearing opinions on the interesting point the author presents near the end of the article: That social networking sites are like physical social spaces that will rise and fall in popularity.

coolswan 16y ago
As social networks get bigger, you keep adding more and more connections to the point where that set you've created doesn't matter / mean anything anymore.
- glhaynes 16y ago
  You think? I'm more liberal in my friending policy than most (I think - at least that's my perception), but, still, I've met in person >85% of the people I'm friends with on FB. I could see that being true for me regarding something like Twitter, though... there, if something new came along ("SuperTwitter") that replaced it, I'd be able to take the 10% that I really like (the 10% I'd know by name) and follow them on that new network.
nostromo 16y ago
My personal experience is exactly that. My parents, a grandparent, nieces, nephews, coworkers, bosses, college friends, and everyone in between are now in my network. My status updates are now a megaphone to everyone I've ever had any relationship with and more frighteningly, anyone I ever will have a relationship with in the future. This kind of assemblage is perfect for weddings and funerals, and that's it. For daily living, it's just too much. If my Facebook friends all went to a building every day to hang out, I wouldn't go there. And I don't find myself using FB nearly as much now as I once did for this very reason. There's too many things to consider when posting even the simplest thing (will I offend my second aunt, will some future boss not like this political view, what if I run for political office in my 50s and find out I friended someone who ended up doing x, etc., etc.)
- yeahsure 16y ago

whenisall 16y ago

Some people will get a lot of money in shares. The difficult question is when to buy and when to sell. The hype will fade and shares will fall down very quickly but to win in this game you have to determine when it will happen. I don't know when, but I think that the fall down will be the extraordinarily stiff, in one day or two a complete collapse. Wait and see.

michaelchisari 16y ago

I agree that popularity of social networks is faddish, and that Facebook will follow that rise and fall pattern, however... I think that an open, distributed social networking protocol is a game changer. If there exists the ability to move between social networks while maintaining your social graph, that makes the way that social networks rise and fall very different than when sites hold your social graph hostage if you try to leave.

glhaynes 16y ago
It continues to be hard for me to envision what that would really look like in practice. I don't mean from a network typology standpoint; I mean how would it look in my browser?
- michaelchisari 16y ago
  Here is my Appleseed friends list: http://developer.appleseedproject.org/profile/michael.chisari/friends/ http://developer.appleseedproject.org/profile/michael.chisar... Keep in mind, this is beta software in active development, so you'll notice a few bugs here and there (and the live server is missing a major update I'm running locally).
  - glhaynes 16y ago
    Thanks! I'm interested specifically in the day-to-day usage: the situations of signing up, finding/adding my friends, posting statuses, reading and commenting on other peoples', sharing media like photos, etc etc. So to start with a simple one: how does one add somebody else? Can you just search by name? I'm just having a bit of difficulty imagining how that sort of thing would work well in a truly distributed, federated way. But I haven't done much thought on it so I'm interested to hear.
    - michaelchisari 16y ago
      If you'd like, you can get an Appleseed invite. Send an email to invite@appleseedproject.org and I'll send you one back right away (this is open to anyone, by the way). You can sign up for the main beta test site (currently around 500 users). Searching is being worked on, that's coming in the next update, but yes, you just search by name (or other attributes). Distributed search is difficult, but only on the backend, on the frontend, it's similar to what you're used to. Only caveat is that it is not exactly real-time, and is more like a P2P search than a google search. Once you find someone you're looking for, you identify yourself to their site by remotely logging in. This is as simple as giving your ID, which looks like an email address (username@domain). Then you click "Add as friend", and they're sent a friend request. When they approve it, you are mutual friends. You can post stuff to your "page" (what appleseed calls your wall), and an update will be sent to your friends list. You upload a photo, and an update shows up in your friends lists newsfeeds. They click on the thumbnail and it takes them to your photo album on your home node, etc. Some other distributed social networking sites are breaking from convention in a lot of ways, but Appleseed's goal is to try and make it work as much like the current systems people are used to as possible. Certain growing pains are inevitable, but so far it's pretty similar after the first couple minutes.

fkeidkwdq 16y ago

Comparing Google with Facebook. I was using google since it was pretty unknown, I think it is still, after all these years, a good tool for searching. I will never use facebook, I think local solutions for meeting people will emerge soon and they will be much more appealing and useful. Facebook only can exists if it can find a way to be a local tool.

lotusleaf1987 16y ago
I've never met anyone on Facebook, they're all people I knew somehow previous to our friending.
- jupiterj 16y ago
  Interesting. I would like to know if the majority of people use Facebook like you (with people they knew previously) or they use it to get new connections. How can I get this information? Any poll published somewhere?
  - ladon86 16y ago
    I think I can say pretty confidently and without providing any data that most people use Facebook to connect with people they know from real life. I believe that adding a complete stranger is seen as a bit creepy. Maybe the new Groups feature (like the hacker news group) will change that, but that's only a recent addition.
    - hucker 16y ago
      Maybe for our generation it is, but I can confidently say that this has changed amongst high school students and other youngsters. For them (at least the ones I have contact with), facebook is a tool for meeting new people. Hell, even a few people I know professionally has met their SO on facebook.
- hnal943 16y ago
  I've never met anyone on Facebook either. I've run into the strange misconception from non-facebookers that Facebook is somehow a dating site, which is strange. Obviously those people also perceive that facebook is a way to "meet people."

zinssmeister 16y ago

I see so many people compare facebook to (late '90s) AOL these days. But the two never had much in common with each other. I think if facebook continues to bring out innovative ways/products/features that connect people with each other it will continue to be successful. Will it one day fade away? Probably. As do most huge dotcoms. But some even stay relevant for well over a decade (ebay, match, expedia, google). Most of them get a bit smaller and cruise along.

lotusleaf1987 16y ago
Your profile and buddy list on AOL were probably pretty similar to your Facebook friends. I think they have a lot in common.
- kin 16y ago
  Originally, but AOL never expanded on it. A profile was like a text box and that's it. As for AIM, everyone I know that used to use it still do. I don't think that's changed very much other than that people now use web based clients to chat on AIM.
  - lotusleaf1987 16y ago
    Really? I only know a fraction of people who still use AIM, most just use the Facebook chat. It guessing it must be a generational thing? I'm 23, how about you?
    - kin 16y ago
      Same age. It's probably just the people I know. I grew up in the San Gabriel Valley amongst 90% Asians and the non-tech savvy subset of those I know all use the same AIM screen names but through different interfaces. The tech-savvy subset use multi-clients like Pidgin, Digsby, etc. I personally use Gchat and no one I know uses FB as their main chat client, only for a quick message if two people are coincidentally on FB.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

fkeidkwdq 16y ago

I wonder why my pessimistic 3 points post is in the bottom, there are five or so one point post above it. Well, time for supper. Down vote this one to put the other up.

T-R 16y ago
Post ordering doesn't work that way on HN; from the FAQ: > On the front page, [posts are ordered] by points divided by a power of the time since they were submitted. Comments in comment threads are ranked the same way. For clarity, this post isn't getting down voted per your request (which would have no effect on your other post), it's getting down voted for not adding content to the conversation.

Hominem 16y ago

Agree, Just wonder if all these people were incredibly good at cashing in at the top or the overwhelming tidal wave of news stories about them cashing in is what caused their decline

ryanwaggoner 16y ago

Stupid title. Doesn't hype always fade, by definition?

jdp23 16y ago

"This week's news that Goldman Sachs has chosen to invest in Facebook while entreating others to do the same should inspire about as much confidence as their investment in mortgage securities did in 2008." Well said. Sounds like a bubble to me.

retube 16y ago
Except of course, GS aren't investing in Facebook. They're backing out their stake to other investors via this SPV they've set up. I doubt they care what happens to facebook stock: there's huge demand at this valuation and all they care about is answering that.
- beoba 16y ago
  "Goldman will be creating a “special purpose vehicle” to sell the stock to its wealthy clients and then will charge them a 4 percent initial fee plus 5 percent of any profits." Heads we win, tails you lose. I'm just waiting until they start dividing up the stock into tranches. (from http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2071267 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2071267 )

kprobst 16y ago

"We will move on, just as we did from the chat rooms of AOL, without even looking back. When the place is as ethereal as a website, our allegiance is much more abstract than it is to a local pub or gym." I disagree with this, simply because grandma wasn't on any AOL chat rooms, but she _is_ on Facebook. The only reason I'm on FB is because Aunt Tilly and Uncle Bob and grandma are also on there, and I can connect with them that way, and know what's happening in their lives in real time, instead of seeing them once a year at Christmas. Grandma isn't going to sign up for IM or get a blog. She's on Facebook. That's the difference between FB and everything else that came before it. The thing creates its own gravity field that attracts everyone, and as long as everyone I care about is on Facebook, so will I. Even though I really hate the thing. That's the genius of FB, I think. Hate it or love it.

cookiecaper 16y ago
This isn't really unique to Facebook. It's called lock-in and it's the desire of every service provider and software maker; they want you to be held hostage to their network, so that even if you want to leave, you can't without potentially serious ramifications (like losing contact with your grandma, or losing access to your documents). Facebook has reached a level that had never been reached by any social network before it. Did your grandma use MySpace or LiveJournal? Once something crosses the threshold of youth and tech-savvy and "regular people" or even old people start using it, you have a much less transient userbase. Look at Microsoft -- the young and tech-savvy are happy to use Apple products over MS, but MS is king and will remain king at least until anyone born before 1975 is well into retirement. Once these things reach a certain level, they become generational standards, and then only minimal effort is needed on the part of the vendor. I know old people that still use AOL. Most old people never would have left AOL in the first place if they'd come up with something sensible for broadband. Perhaps Facebook will come upon a stumbling block that's similarly fatal, but I wouldn't necessarily expect that, at least not within a reasonable timeframe.
- kprobst 16y ago
  I agree with the way you describe the lock-in, of course that's the whole point of any closed network. But I disagree as far as the phenomena not being unique to Facebook. While grandma might have been on AOL, to her it was just the way to "use the internet" or whatever, she wasn't on any communities or groups or chat rooms. That required a slight uptick in the level of computer savvy one had to possess, which she never had or bothered to acquire. More to the point, her family wasn't on AOL, or wasn't interested in AOL, or if they were they couldn't interact the same way with her. Facebook's success is a combination of making things easy for people like grandma and attracting everyone related to her. Without those two pillars FB would be just another MySpace.

mrleinad 16y ago

Hypes will fade. By definition.

jupiterj 16y ago

If I were 14 years old or so, I would be very much interested in partbook, where part is some part of the body. I think it would be a very visited site, but unfortunately this is not permited by my imaginary Dad, so this site is not real. Edited: I discovered Bart Simpson thought about this.

adamokane 16y ago

It will take more than something "cool" to knock off Facebook - 600m users isn't fad-ish. A competitor has to have a MUCH better product and be very cool. It could happen, but Facebook is much more in the driver's seat than MySpace or Friendster ever were.

krosaen 16y ago

related from 2007: "How Your Creepy Ex-Co-Workers Will Kill Facebook" http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/webdev/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=204203573 http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/webdev/showArti... It certainly hasn't, but can facebook be the first social network to somehow help people maintain their different personas and keep their social circles unentangled when appropriate? Over the summer I facebook updated something about hacking on my front porch, and my wife's aunt commented asking how I got sick. Stuff like that isn't creepy, it's just awkward, and keeps me coming back here and to friendfeed or to reddit or wherever the community feels right for having a discussion.

winternett 16y ago

All social media sites these days are bound for backlash because of the sins of their fathers, Thats why its so hard to get a great idea to catch on, people are growing skeptical about social media's benefits in a sea of high priced commercial promotion. People make sites like facebook popular, commercial entities buy in and then corner the initial value that these sites created. All of the marketing potential individual users had in the initial stages vanishes once commercial ads and user tracking appear, and once a value is placed on a site. Myspace still gets great hits, but mostly from spammers and bots, which makes it value worth less than the computers its hosted on. Its their own damn fault. Tom played the game right when he sold early I tell you. These social media sites aren't doing anything substantial in order to help productivity nor promotion for individual users. They have features that encourage users to spam each other, which make their added peers end up blocking each other because of incessant tagging and messages to user inboxes that require tedious manual deletion, etc [all tactics to generate empty clicks]... These social media sites all make the same mistakes in not emphasizing their talented users, and helping to build followings, while promoting businesses and services that are reliable and relevant to their own users. I'm a firm believer in a future of micro-social sites that focus on specific user communities rather than trying to warehouse everyone into a huge template. Facebook, as it is really doesn't provide much in terms of letting "like minds come together". There should be no reason why I can't communicate [through a social media buffer of course] with Jay Z about rapping, or Kanye about being a douchebag, or ask the real Ivanka Trump out on a date, and they all should be able to block me if they get pissed off in the process, thats what happens on Twitter, and thats why this year Twitter will capture a large percentage of Facebook's user shares, because its much more fulfilling than fake user profiles [for the moment] American Idol has made a lot more people "famous" than Facebook, yet there are many more musicians and artists on Facebook, how is this possible? I see that as a problem. YouTube has been the only consistently unobtrusive and highly functional/useful social media tool that has survived. They do have user profiles, they host content, allow comments, sharing and communication, and do it all pretty much in an amazing and unobtrusive way. YouTube also allows its users to cross-share content on sites completely unrelated to itself, a major hosting expense, but really solid in terms of usefulness to site users, no idiotic "like" button required. Based on this, the concept of YouTube, perhaps, should be used as a key "roadmap" to social media success in the future. Instead of working on promoting normal users you don't know, most social media sites are geared towards the "celebrity machine", for celebrities that are already popular. Promoting the same stuff that's on TV, and the radio, because someone paid for the ad space. Following this "celebrity machine" is a losing battle because it has to put on a new expensive outfit every time its launched, and it fails once people uncover its motives, or once innovation can't disguise it. Facebook makes it appear to users that the only method to generate 5,000 followers requires landing a major record or movie deal, so much for being a talented musician. Programming and monetizing is only a tiny part of creating a successful social media site, this is why most get it wrong. If you want 4 years of profit, who cares, make the next big social media warehouse, if you want a lifetime of success, think carefully of the benefits your site can provide to the average joe, and make sure you keep that in your mantra for as long as your site lives. The motives have to be clear cut, highly functional, and it must offer fair and equal promotion for all of its users while limiting spamming and upholding privacy, otherwise it will stay the game of rise and downfall. There's a reason why YouTube has been a great site all of these years, it sticks to its user base and keeps them content.

pharrington 16y ago

A bubble created around a legitimate service does not itself kill the service; the service becoming obsolete does. The author seems to completely miss this. AOL didn't die because it was bought by TW, it died because broadband became commonplace and people realized there was much more to the internet than AOL's walled garden. Myspace died because it was the last vestige of the "personal homepage" style internet and never ran with its burgeoning use as a network for musicians. Facebook will fade when the next major gap in social connections+communication is filled. Simply saying "something more popular than Facebook will happen" seems a horribly obvious and empty statement. Now talking about what we still need or might discover with connections would prove insightful, but of course no one's going to blog about that until it's launched.

ibejoeb 16y ago

"...the merger turned out to be a disaster: AOL's revenue stream was reduced to a trickle as net users ventured out onto the Web directly." So facebook will fail when people venture out and socialize in real life? Seriously, though, I get the point generally, but I don't think it's quite the same. AOL and MySpace were assimilated and stifled by their parents' ways of doing things, whereas Facebook will likely continue to do things its own way. This is a company that is able to convince its investors that it knows best, and I don't think things will change with the Goldman investment. I don't know if Facebook will be on top in 10 years, but I don't think this is the beginning of the end.

sskates 16y ago
I agree. The author's main points seem to be that: 1. Facebook has similarities to AOL, and AOL's bubble burst 2. There was a bubble in the late '90s therefore there must be a bubble now 3. Goldman is investing in Facebook, Goldman invested in other bubbles, therefore the investment must be bad 4. Social is a fad Nothing on why Facebook specifically is doing a bad job and why someone else is positioned to upset them. Not much evidence at all if you ask me. You could write the article with 90% of the content the same and replace "Facebook" with "Google" or "Apple" or "Microsoft"
- patrickk 16y ago
  Authors main point: "Yet social media is itself as temporary as any social gathering, nightclub or party. It's the people that matter, not the venue." All the other stuff in the article is an attempt to back this argument up (AOL/TW merger stuff, Goldman deal a symptom of cashing-out mentality, MySpace collapse as a precedent.)
code_duck 16y ago
Facebook has done great capitalizing on the growth of the web in general, just like AOL. And similarly, Facebook will not be as popular when these new users find out there are other websites out there.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

ojbyrne 16y ago

When you have so much traffic, it's easy to find other avenues for product changes. You can move into new niches. You gain flexibility. But when you also have a high valuation, and have been taking money off the table, those choices become limited to those that are perceived as the highest growth. You lose flexibility. Frugality is good, at all levels.

sdghjrjyt 16y ago

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wilschroter 16y ago

Isn't it safe to just say that every technology fades with time? The only constant in our industry is that we will all become less relevant in time.

robryan 16y ago

Facebook has the advantage of being built into way more mobile devices than anything before it ever was. Many phones now come with a facebook icon on the main page when you first turn it on. Also the amount of free advertising it gets from companies using it's logo everywhere with add us on facebook and have your say on facebook, how many other companies get their logo and a call to action to use there service for free on TV every day around the world?

malloreon 16y ago

I don't understand the comparisons of FB to AOL, besides their seemingly common goal to sandbox the internet. People who use AOL who discovered "the real" internet had no reason to go back. Everything they wanted was just as available + more. There's no friction to switching, beyond learning how to use a search engine. Facebook has billions of photos, posts, comments, friend requests, updates, registrations through connect, all being added to the site every day. The longer someone uses it, the higher the cost to stop using it, or switch to another. That's why FB has the staying power AOL did not.

imkevingao 16y ago

Facebook needs to generate more revenue or if they go public, their stocks are going to tank like crazy after the speculation fades. Facebook's P/E ratio is out of proportion. Doesn't matter how many users Facebook have, if the company doesn't generate the proportional profits to match its valuation, then the company is going to go through some tough phases. Many people are looking at the Facebook stocks like it's a Pablo Picasso painting, and with users twice as the population of United States, it's bound to be valuable. However, in the economy of supply and demand, the bubble will pop if it decides to go public. Unless Facebook can think new ways to earn more money. But that's hard, because Facebook users hate changes. They aren't exactly Obama fans.

gaiusparx 16y ago

Facebook is definitely waning among my friends, but strong areas remains: 1. Social graph. Many are not active Facebook users but are keeping the accounts cos all their contacts are there. Facebook has actually helped people found their long loss friends and classmates. 2. Sharing links, picture and video. Facebook is replacing email as a means to share interesting contents. One friend actually visits Facebook just to read those contents posted by friends instead of going to the source such as YouTube. "It is easier". Twitter is an obvious alternative. 3. Facebook is the new Flickr. 4. Games. Hopefully when people think of FarmVille or CityVille they think of Zynga and not Facebook. Zynga should seriously break loose of this eco, build its own currency/credit system and focus on iOS/Android platforms. 5. All-in-one ness. Grandmas and aunties love this. Contacts, photos, video, links, cute apps are all-in-one. But this will mean less and less, as this group of not savvy web users will decrease with time.

popschedule 16y ago

in the future your time will fade

dmvaldman 16y ago

I don't know how people can seriously believe facebook is a bunch of hype. Or even that it's at the top of its success, as this article claims. The $50 billion valuation, yeah there's some hype there. But whether Facebook will one day surpass such an evaluation is I believe a strong reality. I'm just amazed at how well-run a company Facebook is. I'm in awe of how it is in a constant state of evolution and constantly being tinkered with. Usually when companies get big you see them play the game more conservatively. Facebook is exciting because it doesn't do this. I see so much room for Facebook to grow and surpass my expectations for it, as it has time and time again.

thefox 16y ago

Facebook sucks!

mnml_ 16y ago

TheFacebook hype died in Nov. 2007 when they introduced advertisement.

projectileboy 16y ago

There are at least a few important differences that the author ignored: * Not many "trends" have had 500 million followers. * The other companies mentioned actually ceded control in some fashion; Facebook is simply taking investment dollars. * The other companies mentioned didn't have Mark Zuckerberg at the helm. Only a crank wouldn't acknowledge that Zuckerberg's leadership has been masterful.

podperson 16y ago

The thing which amazes me about Facebook is how perplexing the basic UI is and remains. My wife will tell me "hey someone has made a comment on your wall you HAVE to reply to it" and it will take me five minutes to figure out where this comment is buried. Oh it's not under "status" it's under "profile". WTF?

jdbeast00 16y ago

most of the complaints here could be solved by facebook implementing (better) disjoint friend networks. I would imagine they are working on this. I currently have draconian privacy in place to prevent most of my friends from seeing status updates. Once this becomes easier wont these issues go away?

chopsueyar 16y ago

Read his books, Exit Strategy and also Ecstasy Club, good scifi.

ruedaminute 16y ago

I have no real use for facebook anymore. Honestly, I think most people right now just go there for lack of something to procrastinate with. Twitter is much better for that anyway. Trying to get all my fb friends to jump ship with me. http://blog.ruedaminute.com/2011/01/dear-facebook-friends/ http://blog.ruedaminute.com/2011/01/dear-facebook-friends/ Honestly, the more people on Twitter, the better for the internet IMHO.

kevin_morrill 16y ago

Best quote of the article, "Yet social media is itself as temporary as any social gathering, nightclub or party. It's the people that matter, not the venue." They cost to run the site compared to how much they're making does not work. Their only hope is to run really fast and create a better advertising story. Otherwise, they need to get acquired by MS, Google or Apple and become an augment to a business that actually generates profit. Problem is their market cap is so huge that's becoming nearly impossible.