I disagree with the statement that there's no way Facebook will go the way of MySpace. It most certainly can.
Indeed there are all sorts of strong arguments for that, from FB no longer being cool, to reaching the top of the mountain (only one way to go), to Facebook's failure to build good mobile products (leaving them weak there), to the need to substantially boost monetization of the platform (likely pissing off users in the process), and I'd also argue their core product is getting worse as they clutter it up.
Alternatively, people could just get bored of facebook and stop using it. It's hard for me to point to any killer feature facebook has. Photo's can be shared a number of other ways, same with text and status updates.
If facebook didn't exist tomorrow would it really matter? Despite their corporate motto of bringing the world together or whatever... I feel like Facebook is entertainment for most people and could easily go out of fashion.
I had myspace but always felt highly unusable and impractical. I don´t feel facebook is that way, in fact the opposite is true (at least for me), maybe it doesn´t have all the features possible but it is terrible useful to be in contact with your friends (mostly for all the stupid things we like to share).
If they keep facebook centered on the costumer, the young people dont migrate to cooler spaces and don´t get lost too much trying to monetize, I think they will be around for quite some time.
It is also true that right now it is maybe on its peak of popularity and public exposure, and its user numbers will be lower or at least growing more slowly.
Note: I find their mobile app awful, it has so many bugs regarding comments, pics... it is almost unusable. I don´t know why it is that bad..( to be honest I have to upgrade it on my Iphone so maybe all this problems have been solved)
"If they keep facebook centered on the costumer, the young people dont migrate to cooler spaces and don´t get lost too much trying to monetize, I think they will be around for quite some time. It is also true that right now it is maybe on its peak of popularity and public exposure, and its user numbers will be lower or at least growing more slowly."
I think you've mixed up the product for the customer. The users are NOT their customers.
As something becomes more pervasive, almost certainly the number of searches for it will go down - it may not (and in this case, dare I say probably doesn't) have anything to do with the level of interest in the search term.
Which I assume was the OP's postulation, despite the 'correlation doesn't infer causation' disclaimer.
I disagree. If you type just "facebook" into the location bar in either Firefox or Chrome, it searches Google for that term and produces Facebook as the first result. This is probably how countless people get to FB. Therefore the reduction in searches is likely to reflect people spending less time on the site.
I think a key difference between FB and MySpace is that FB has my parents, pretty much all my relatives, and all of my friends. MySpace had early internet adopters, which were maybe less than 5-10% of my friends?
For me, it is MUCH harder to leave FB now than it was to forget MySpace ever existed.
I realize though, that some of the HN crowd is completely uninterested in communication through FB, which is ok. HN is really the only place where I have seen people say they have left FB 100% and have no regrets about it. I have to bet that the rest of the world that is already invested on FB will find it much harder to abandon people whose main line of communication is through FB.
If I leave FB, I lose touch with good friends that live far from me (and therefore I do not see often IRL), and vast majority of my family's activities (and them getting fat, telling a joke, expressing a stupid opinion, and so on).
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[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 28.2 ms ] threadIndeed there are all sorts of strong arguments for that, from FB no longer being cool, to reaching the top of the mountain (only one way to go), to Facebook's failure to build good mobile products (leaving them weak there), to the need to substantially boost monetization of the platform (likely pissing off users in the process), and I'd also argue their core product is getting worse as they clutter it up.
If facebook didn't exist tomorrow would it really matter? Despite their corporate motto of bringing the world together or whatever... I feel like Facebook is entertainment for most people and could easily go out of fashion.
If they keep facebook centered on the costumer, the young people dont migrate to cooler spaces and don´t get lost too much trying to monetize, I think they will be around for quite some time. It is also true that right now it is maybe on its peak of popularity and public exposure, and its user numbers will be lower or at least growing more slowly.
Note: I find their mobile app awful, it has so many bugs regarding comments, pics... it is almost unusable. I don´t know why it is that bad..( to be honest I have to upgrade it on my Iphone so maybe all this problems have been solved)
I think you've mixed up the product for the customer. The users are NOT their customers.
Which I assume was the OP's postulation, despite the 'correlation doesn't infer causation' disclaimer.
Also, it'd be consistent with this Reuters poll that showed 34% of users spending less time on FB than 6 months ago (however, 20% reported spending more time): http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/05/net-us-facebook-su...
For me, it is MUCH harder to leave FB now than it was to forget MySpace ever existed.
I realize though, that some of the HN crowd is completely uninterested in communication through FB, which is ok. HN is really the only place where I have seen people say they have left FB 100% and have no regrets about it. I have to bet that the rest of the world that is already invested on FB will find it much harder to abandon people whose main line of communication is through FB.
If I leave FB, I lose touch with good friends that live far from me (and therefore I do not see often IRL), and vast majority of my family's activities (and them getting fat, telling a joke, expressing a stupid opinion, and so on).