6 ms·

Social Networks Implode Quickly

45 points by dmuino 14y ago

andrewflnr 14y ago
Interesting. I can see Quora having that long tail of useful traffic, even if the community collapses.
- diego 14y ago
  In fact Quora ranks pretty high in Alexa for what I believe is a relatively small user base. They must have a significant number of lurkers and decent SEO. http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/quora.com http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/quora.com
autotravis 14y ago
"TL;DR: Big social networks need to take advantage of the spotlight, and solidify their position to rely less on network effects. Otherwise, they are extremely risky investments." Very good point.
- agilord 14y ago
  "Social networks are extremely risky investments, no matter what." ?
lrem 14y ago
One lesson from reading this text is: if your site has googleable content, it will not decay as fast as if you rely on (semi-)active following. Seems quite obvious when stated this way.
- agilord 14y ago
  yes, although I'd include an AND condition, like "If your site has googleable content AND you engage your users in a meaningful way..."
Avalaxy 14y ago
I don't think Facebook will die, for two good reasons: 1) there are many more people on facebook than networks like myspace ever had. This makes a transition much, much harder. 2) facebook is not only used for facebook, but for many third-party apps as well. People will keep their facebook accounts so that they can log in to external services.
- upinsmoke 14y ago
  Facebook is similar to people who still use hotmail. There are much better ones now, but they still keep the old hotmail account.
  - agilord 14y ago
    e-mail account is different, as it gives you an address that others will use exclusively to communicate with you. On the other hand, Facebook friends will use your name and the search field to look up for you, unique address is not that critical in such infrastructure.
  - Livven 14y ago
    Only that Hotmail has been much improved recently and even got a completely new design with Outlook.com. Also, care to elaborate on what "much better ones" there are? I barely use Facebook while Twitter is essential for me, but I don't see a better social network for most people than Facebook.
- moocow01 14y ago
  In regard to 1 you may want to think of it in terms of percentage of internet users who are on Facebook rather than sheer numbers. My guess would be that Friendster, Myspace, and Facebook may have had similar percentages in their prime and as a result Facebook may be just as fragile. The key driver seems to always be user frustration. Friendster was slow, MySpace had UX issues - for the masses (non-techies) is there something about Facebook that frustrates average Joe?
  - drcube 14y ago
dm8 14y ago
Network effects are not indefensible. I don't understand why so many people in the bay area think that network effects are impossible to break in. Here is an example. Orkut. All my friends including myself were on Orkut in 2004/2005. By 2008 everyone moved to FB. Why? Orkut had horrible UX and buggy system. FB was breath of fresh air compared to that. Even though Orkut has superior privacy features (I still say they had best privacy features for any social app). FB is moving in that direction. It's quite buggy system and if FB must address the overall quality of application. It looks like Orkut in 2007.
_suoiruc 14y ago
I think MS will acquire FB. The FB social network will die, in time, but it's still the world's largest email address list, plus all sorts of personal information that can be used to insidiously coax consumers. Every FB user should gather up all the email addys of their friends and keep them in a safe place offline. This way you never lose contact. FB allowed people to submit their email addresses to a central website and thereby connect/reconnect with friends, colleagues and so forth. This sharing of email addresses is not a new thing, but with FB it occurred on an unprecendented scale. Billions of email addresses (that work!). That is FB's contribution. Gather those email addresses and keep them offline. Soon you may be able to form your own social networks that are private, secure and more functional than FB. But you will need the email addresses of your friends to get it started. Don't believe that FB should be the safe keeper of your email address book. They will do what they have to in order to survive as their business winds down. Those email addresses are its most valuable asset.
- smokinjoe 14y ago
  I'm not making the MS connection - are you saying that Facebook will be eventually required solely for its email addresses?
  - _suoiruc 14y ago
    No connection. Two separate points: 1. A prediction that FB will be acquired 2. A suggestion about the importance of email addresses, both for you, the FB user, and for FB. Hypothetical: You need to contact one or more of your FB friends. The only contact info you have for them is what they submitted to FB. But you never copied their email address from FB to your computer, phone, etc. FB "implodes". Or maybe you just want to switch to another social network and you want to let your friends know about it, but for some reason you cannot do it via FB. Email is how things gets boostrapped. This is why there was a battle using dirty tactics between Google/Gmail and Facebook early on over snarfing people's email address books. Your email address is valuable. Valuable to you. And to FB. And to any company that might acquire FB. My suggestion is make sure you have your own copy (e.g. saved on a USB stick, SD card, HDD, or even printed out on a sheet of paper) that is not controlled by some web startup. My guess would be a lot of FB users don't. If FB implodes, they could lose contact with certain people.
drp4929 14y ago
Growing a company is one aspect while sustaining a company is another. Social Networks naturally take advantage of network effect while growing. It is not easy to sustain the company if perceived value provided by the company erodes quickly from its core customers' point of view. Whenever a company collapses usually it is because customers do not want its products for whatever reason.
tokenadult 14y ago
There are various historical examples of various online networks. The one I began with in 1992 was the Prodigy commercial online network (which I had actually tried out as early as 1989). My paradigmatic example of an online network that faded away is AOL, which is still in business. My prediction about Facebook, posted previously here on HN, is "Facebook will go the way of AOL, still being a factor in the industry years from now, but also serving as an example of a company that could never monetize up to the level of the hype surrounding it." I could be wrong, but that's my sense of where Facebook is in the market.

45 points by dmuino 14y ago

andrewflnr 14y ago

Interesting. I can see Quora having that long tail of useful traffic, even if the community collapses.

diego 14y ago
In fact Quora ranks pretty high in Alexa for what I believe is a relatively small user base. They must have a significant number of lurkers and decent SEO. http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/quora.com http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/quora.com

autotravis 14y ago

"TL;DR: Big social networks need to take advantage of the spotlight, and solidify their position to rely less on network effects. Otherwise, they are extremely risky investments." Very good point.

agilord 14y ago
"Social networks are extremely risky investments, no matter what." ?

lrem 14y ago

One lesson from reading this text is: if your site has googleable content, it will not decay as fast as if you rely on (semi-)active following. Seems quite obvious when stated this way.

agilord 14y ago
yes, although I'd include an AND condition, like "If your site has googleable content AND you engage your users in a meaningful way..."

Avalaxy 14y ago

I don't think Facebook will die, for two good reasons: 1) there are many more people on facebook than networks like myspace ever had. This makes a transition much, much harder. 2) facebook is not only used for facebook, but for many third-party apps as well. People will keep their facebook accounts so that they can log in to external services.

upinsmoke 14y ago
Facebook is similar to people who still use hotmail. There are much better ones now, but they still keep the old hotmail account.
- agilord 14y ago
  e-mail account is different, as it gives you an address that others will use exclusively to communicate with you. On the other hand, Facebook friends will use your name and the search field to look up for you, unique address is not that critical in such infrastructure.
- Livven 14y ago
  Only that Hotmail has been much improved recently and even got a completely new design with Outlook.com. Also, care to elaborate on what "much better ones" there are? I barely use Facebook while Twitter is essential for me, but I don't see a better social network for most people than Facebook.
moocow01 14y ago
In regard to 1 you may want to think of it in terms of percentage of internet users who are on Facebook rather than sheer numbers. My guess would be that Friendster, Myspace, and Facebook may have had similar percentages in their prime and as a result Facebook may be just as fragile. The key driver seems to always be user frustration. Friendster was slow, MySpace had UX issues - for the masses (non-techies) is there something about Facebook that frustrates average Joe?
- drcube 14y ago

dm8 14y ago

Network effects are not indefensible. I don't understand why so many people in the bay area think that network effects are impossible to break in. Here is an example. Orkut. All my friends including myself were on Orkut in 2004/2005. By 2008 everyone moved to FB. Why? Orkut had horrible UX and buggy system. FB was breath of fresh air compared to that. Even though Orkut has superior privacy features (I still say they had best privacy features for any social app). FB is moving in that direction. It's quite buggy system and if FB must address the overall quality of application. It looks like Orkut in 2007.

_suoiruc 14y ago

I think MS will acquire FB. The FB social network will die, in time, but it's still the world's largest email address list, plus all sorts of personal information that can be used to insidiously coax consumers. Every FB user should gather up all the email addys of their friends and keep them in a safe place offline. This way you never lose contact. FB allowed people to submit their email addresses to a central website and thereby connect/reconnect with friends, colleagues and so forth. This sharing of email addresses is not a new thing, but with FB it occurred on an unprecendented scale. Billions of email addresses (that work!). That is FB's contribution. Gather those email addresses and keep them offline. Soon you may be able to form your own social networks that are private, secure and more functional than FB. But you will need the email addresses of your friends to get it started. Don't believe that FB should be the safe keeper of your email address book. They will do what they have to in order to survive as their business winds down. Those email addresses are its most valuable asset.

smokinjoe 14y ago
I'm not making the MS connection - are you saying that Facebook will be eventually required solely for its email addresses?
- _suoiruc 14y ago
  No connection. Two separate points: 1. A prediction that FB will be acquired 2. A suggestion about the importance of email addresses, both for you, the FB user, and for FB. Hypothetical: You need to contact one or more of your FB friends. The only contact info you have for them is what they submitted to FB. But you never copied their email address from FB to your computer, phone, etc. FB "implodes". Or maybe you just want to switch to another social network and you want to let your friends know about it, but for some reason you cannot do it via FB. Email is how things gets boostrapped. This is why there was a battle using dirty tactics between Google/Gmail and Facebook early on over snarfing people's email address books. Your email address is valuable. Valuable to you. And to FB. And to any company that might acquire FB. My suggestion is make sure you have your own copy (e.g. saved on a USB stick, SD card, HDD, or even printed out on a sheet of paper) that is not controlled by some web startup. My guess would be a lot of FB users don't. If FB implodes, they could lose contact with certain people.

drp4929 14y ago

Growing a company is one aspect while sustaining a company is another. Social Networks naturally take advantage of network effect while growing. It is not easy to sustain the company if perceived value provided by the company erodes quickly from its core customers' point of view. Whenever a company collapses usually it is because customers do not want its products for whatever reason.

tokenadult 14y ago

There are various historical examples of various online networks. The one I began with in 1992 was the Prodigy commercial online network (which I had actually tried out as early as 1989). My paradigmatic example of an online network that faded away is AOL, which is still in business. My prediction about Facebook, posted previously here on HN, is "Facebook will go the way of AOL, still being a factor in the industry years from now, but also serving as an example of a company that could never monetize up to the level of the hype surrounding it." I could be wrong, but that's my sense of where Facebook is in the market.