7 ms·

The end of the Facebook era

153 points by chrysb 13y ago

speakme 13y ago
"Facebook is a public company now, which means it has to operate like a business." Pretty sad indictment of the tech industry that operating like a business had to be qualified.
chm 13y ago
Facebook is a fad. There is no Facebook "era".
- chrysb 13y ago
  "Fad" or "era" – semantics. Everything rises and falls in popularity with varying timelines.
- TrainedMonkey 13y ago
  Sounds about right. While we are on the same page: Google reads your email and Microsoft is a small company that makes excellent computers mouses.
- untog 13y ago
  If it's a fad then it has a time period where it is popular, which is entirely reasonable to call an "era".
  - chm 13y ago
    I had similar comments from other people, so I will reply here: In my native tongue, 10 years wouldn't be called an "era", hence the disagreement.
neakor 13y ago
I see the evolution of social networking evolving from connecting with everyone in the world, aka public networking to only connect with the ones you actually care about, aka private networking. When Facebook was cool, it was cool to know that you can post a status update and have the "whole world" see it. With the rise of messaging services (snapchat, whatsapp, line and so on), we are moving to the stage where you only share with a very small group of closely connected individuals. A more intimate network.
leokun 13y ago
A big counter point to the Facebook is a fad is Pepsi. Pepsi was considered a fad in the 60's when it was already 40 years old. It's still around. It buys coolness with a massive marketing budget. Pepsi is water + corn syrup + some flavor. And it's been around for many, many decades. Pepsi, and Cola, show that being old does not mean you can't still be cool.
- neakor 13y ago
  It's a different market with different customer mind sets. More importantly, "cool" is relative. Coke is family oriented, aka not cool. This allows pepsi to be "cool" by associating its brand with "hot" celebrities and trends. On the other hand, Facebook has nothing older to compare to. It's "cool" relative to myspace I suppose.
- coldtea 13y ago
  >Pepsi was considered a fad in the 60's when it was already 40 years old. It's still around. Tons of things have been considered fads through the decades, some rightly (hula-hoops) and some not (rock music). The question, when making an analogy, is how they relate to Facebook. Unless you connect Pepsi and Facebook with something more besides (both have been considered a fad), we cannot draw any conclusions from Pepsi with regards to Facebook's situation except this: Sometimes, people can consider something as a fad when it isn't. If you want to make this analogy work, you have to show why Facebook will be more like Pepsi and less like the hula-hoop or piano neck-ties.
  - bentcorner 13y ago
    Maybe it'll be that the concept of social networks is here to stay forevermore, but Facebook is just a brand. Social networks are becoming a dime a dozen, so using Facebook is a brand choice. There's a social cost to be seen doing the things that everyone else is doing (the equivalent, say, of wearing a mainstream band t-shirt), so having a presence on Facebook is just meeting the bar. To be "cool" you need to find the social networks nobody else knows about, and hang out with your friends there. Bonus points for alluding, on Facebook, to conversations you had on the not-Facebook social network. It may be amusing to find in 10 years that using Facebook becomes a new fad again and is seen as "retro". Certainly a possibility if Facebook does not innovate itself to non-recognizability.
PaulHoule 13y ago
I can say I use Facebook Connect to log into web sites everyday, and sometimes I post to Facebook using other sites (if I pin something on Pinterest) but I actually check my facebook page one a month or so.
chaz 13y ago
An alternate opinion: Facebook is heading toward the Trough of Disillusionment of the Hype Cycle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle Facebook was so ridiculously hot a few years ago that it couldn't possibly have met all of its expectations for changing how we all communicate, replacing all other messaging mediums, dominating how we shop and buy, the portal for all things entertainment, etc. > Teens likely see Facebook the same way the Facebook generation sees LinkedIn – like a utilitarian place to manage connections. This sounds a lot like the Plateau of Productivity to me.
- technotony 13y ago
  Yeah, plateau of productivity is when 20-30% of people have adopted. Globally Facebook is probably at that point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hype-Cycle-General.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hype-Cycle-General.png
- Theodores 13y ago
  Weirdly the Google 'trends' graph correlates if you click on the 'forecast' button: http://www.google.co.uk/trends/explore#q=%2Fm%2F02y1vz%2C%20%2Fm%2F04ny5g&geo=GB&cmpt=q http://www.google.co.uk/trends/explore#q=%2Fm%2F02y1vz%2C%20... However, a forecast is just a forecast, not happened yet. The 'trend' graph spikes with the IPO which had no relevance for 99% of Facebook users. Take that spike out, ignore the 'forecast' and Facebook is doing the 'myspace curve' and in a similar time frame. Anyway, where is the Facebook login for Hacker News?
  - Gustomaximus 13y ago
    I got GB region only from your link. The worldwide view shows ongoing growth: http://bit.ly/1dIbkpF http://bit.ly/1dIbkpF
neals 13y ago
I see it so much around me. Small Whatsapp groups, going back to sharing with just the ones we want to share it with. No content police. No long on-line history.
a3voices 13y ago
I think Facebook will change from a product to a technology conglomerate, similar to Yahoo or Google.
- ghostdiver 13y ago
  Low traffic on facebook.com domain = no money
davidbyttow 13y ago
I think FB is simply transitioning from product to utility, like electricity. Just one example is its utility to sign up and log in to other services, which is 95%+ of my FB activity.
- dr_doom 13y ago
  Unlikely. I have never had a facebook and with the exception of spotify, which now has email sign up, no service I use has required fb to log in.
vezzy-fnord 13y ago
All social networks have remarkably short golden eras. That said, even though Facebook is declining, I still think all the articles about the "end of the Facebook era" and "death of Facebook" are sensational and exaggerated. They're still, what?... The second or the third highest traffic website internationally? Over a billion registered accounts (regardless of whether only half are legitimate and being used, it's a lot). As the author noted though, Facebook can still thrive in the "cool factor" with their acquisitions.
wpietri 13y ago
Very interesting. A few years back, I was fascinated to see how much Facebook had become the native medium for the whippersnappers. Some of our interns thought of email like I thought of fax machines. But even if Facebook is prone to stumble, I'd encourage entrepreneurs not to try to be the "next Facebook". As I wrote elsewhere [1]: "Honestly, there probably won't be a 'next Facebook', for the same reason there hasn't been a next Amazon, next Oracle, next Google, or next Apple. There hasn't even been a next Yahoo, because the secret to success for many startups wasn't being another Yahoo, it was being different. Something you should think hard on: Zuckerberg didn't set out to make the next Facebook, or the next anything. He was just making something fun for himself and his fellow Harvard students. It was only when he saw how powerful his creation was that his ambitions increased." This seems especially relevant to me now that I'm seeing ads around San Francisco for two new social networks that are lamely trying to be the next Facebook. [1] https://www.quora.com/Entrepreneurship/Is-it-foolish-to-go-to-Startup-Weekend-like-events-and-widely-pitch-my-next-Facebook-idea-in-search-of-co-founders/answer/William-Pietri?share=1 https://www.quora.com/Entrepreneurship/Is-it-foolish-to-go-t...
- dworin 13y ago
  I'd argue that Facebook is actually the next AOL (a tool for managing your connections, communicating, and viewing curated content in a walled garden). Teenagers in the late 90s/early 00s lived on AOL in the same way that they later lived on Facebook. But you don't become the next anything by trying to be it, you try to become something different, and it's only in hindsight that they look the same. It's also true that the company that looks indomitable today is seen as an anachronism tomorrow. At one point there were lawsuits against AOL to open up the instant messenger network because it was seen as an anti-competitive monopoly. Now nobody seems to care.
- chasing 13y ago
  Wasn't Facebook the "next Friendster?" I feel like it was actually a relative latecomer to the social networking party of the early '00s. Not to diss FB or their achievement, but it certainly felt like an evolution rather than a revolution upon launch. Only once they built up steam did it really begin to become an entirely new sort of beast. Same with Google, no? I feel like they entered a crowded market of search engines and came out on top, but certainly weren't the first of their kind.
the_watcher 13y ago
>> Teens likely see Facebook the same way the Facebook generation sees LinkedIn – like a utilitarian place to manage connections. This is why the "millennials are leaving Facebook" worry isn't actually real. Yes, middle schoolers and high schoolers aren't using Facebook. They are at a stage in their life where the idea of their parents being able to see into their life is scary. Their social circle is also disproportionately made up of people they can easily see every day. Facebook's utility for contact management, event planning, and keeping in touch doesn't really begin until people turn 18 and go out on their own. This doesn't even begin to touch the ease of using it to sign up for other products that are built on top of it.
- wehadfun 13y ago
  >Their social circle is also disproportionately made up of people they can easily see every day Great point
- Jhsto 13y ago
  I'am 18 and I agree with you. The way the discussion one day happened in status updates have now moved to usually hidden groups. The groups are usually built around some specific event, say prams, or alternatively around some common interest such as LAN gaming or binge drinking. It works as a new and more appealing way to create what you may consider mailing lists. Engaging in those groups is easier as you post something relevant to the topic and know that your or your friends aunt will not see what you said.
  - boomzilla 13y ago
    Great, welcome to the age of bulletin board.
    - the_watcher 13y ago
      >> welcome to the age of bulletin board. Facebook was created as an online replacement for something that had been around in physical form for a long time. Welcome to Facebook.
jokoon 13y ago
Even if you don't care or agree about what revolves around Snowden and the NSA, I'm sure it got many people wondering about how facebook operated and how information works. Even if nothing is done about the NSA, it will have the merit of making facebook less and less popular, and make people not trust websites who might be information hungry. I wonder if people thwarting the way they post their info can really make those info gathering useless. That'd fun to watch.
melling 13y ago
Here are some titles for the next story. "The end of the Apple era" "The end of the Microsoft era" "The end of the Netflix era" "The end of the Yahoo era" Seriously, why do people waste time writing these types of stories? My guess is that it's because it's so much easier than actually trying to build something of value. The real problem is there is no penalty for being wrong. Everyone simply forgets. Write a thousand stories and if just one of them is right then you get to claim your genius. Where are those guys who predicated that Apple Stores were such a stupid idea? We need to start keeping score. http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2001-05-20/commentary-sorry-steve-heres-why-apple-stores-wont-work http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2001-05-20/commentary-so...
- zmitri 13y ago
  The same thing can be said for comments like yours. He actually does a pretty great job in this article in my opinion: Strong narrative, uses facts + common knowledge and personal insight to build a strong point. He is informing people on a particular topic they might not be so well acquainted with. Whether or not he's right about Facebook, we'll have to see but he makes a good case.
- msoad 13y ago
  Also: 5 Reasons Why Apple's iPad Tablet Will Fail[1] [1] http://webtrends.about.com/b/2010/01/26/5-reasons-why-apples-islate-tablet-will-fail.htm http://webtrends.about.com/b/2010/01/26/5-reasons-why-apples...
- johnrob 13y ago
  Facebook would be the odd man out if included in your big-tech-company list. It would be the only service that you couldn't use by yourself.
- selmnoo 13y ago
  Why. Why must you do this. Why must you dismiss articles on hackneyed grounds and kill the chance for an interesting discussion about the nature and direction of social technologies. I thought this article was very interesting, it brought to light several factual points, and several not-heard-before insights -- e.g., I thought this in particular was very true and interesting: This is why social networks, like Google+ (where I worked for one year), are struggling even more than Facebook to get a foothold in the future of social networking. They are betting on last year’s fashion I'm surprised it wasn't Google that made an offer on Snapchat, since it's normally quite forward-looking. But then again, social has never been Google's forte has it.
alphonse23 13y ago
Very well written. Bravo! No doubt, facebook hasn't been cool to me for a least 2-3 years now for me -- if it ever was from the very beginning.
Touche 13y ago
> What teenager wants to hang out in the same place as their parents? Parents have been on Facebook for a long time. Why are teenagers today leaving but not teenagers from 3 years ago? Also, why is it assumed that teenagers who stopped using Facebook today aren't going to come back when they get older and have adult-things they want to share?
- chippy 13y ago
  ahh, it's not that the teenagers are seeing adults share things and not liking what is being posted, it's that people are uncomfortable posting things because other people may see them.
at-fates-hands 13y ago
>>> But it’s rich, so it can buy cool. Facebook’s $1 billion acquisition of Instagram was their first big move to strengthen their position with the youth of this country. But with young people, if Facebook is uncool, then by proxy Instagram is uncool as well. This is how teenagers think these days. They can sink as much money into other social platforms, but you won't ever get rid of the Facebook stigma.
- elwell 13y ago
  I think you're overestimating how many teens know that Facebook owns Instagram.
  - cdcarter 13y ago
    No, I bet quite a lot of teens are at least aware the sale happened. But they don't think about it every day. They don't care. Because Instagram is cool. In spite of facebook.
shanev 13y ago
I believe another reason teenagers are leaving Facebook is the insistence of using your real identity. Teens don't want their mom finding them online. That's why they're flocking to services where they can be anonymous, like Tumblr, where you can also meet new people outside of your circle of friends.
deleted 13y ago
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asmman1 13y ago
Who cares about Facebook "era".
deleted 13y ago
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marban 13y ago
What about leaving the endless discussion about FB's destiny aside and just focus on creating a __new pattern of behavior or activity__ that appeals to a mass audience if you really want to build a large network on its own? Examples of things that worked: - Follow updates of celebrities - Collect nice looking things on a website - Make even the worst picture look good - Be the best cat gif curator Examples of things that didn't work: - Facebook but for ten friends - Facebook for Google Accounts - Facebook with open data portability Let Zuck worry about the hype cycle and start building.
post_break 13y ago
Facebook used to be fun. Now it's a chore.
shmerl 13y ago
Decentralized social networks is the new thing.
ek 13y ago
I found this article really interesting. I started using Facebook in high school, back when high schoolers were to use hs.facebook.com to access Facebook and networks were heavily emphasized. I left Facebook about one year ago today. One particular observation that the article makes that I want to flesh out a bit is the following: Facebook has grown and grown in terms of the size of the application itself, and it is clear that they have pushed very heavily for the 'platform' model. It seems like this is getting replaced by a series of more specialized, more mobile-centric social applications, like Snapchat and Tumblr. Of course FB owns Instagram so they have that going for them, but this does seem to hint at a bit of a growing trend in social networking.
TrevorJ 13y ago
Social networking needs to be a specification. Imagine if email worked the same way social networks worked, it would be ridiculous. You could only communicate with other gmail users, or whatever users were on the platform you adopted. I understand from a business standpoint why social networks have evolved the way they have, but from a utility standpoint it is a lose/lose to have these walled gardens. What would be much better, is to let users use whatever platform they wish and implement some common protocol for following, status updates and private messaging.
- VLM 13y ago
  RSS feeds on a blog and "click here to email me" links? Personally I'm waiting for someone to "reinvent" NNTP.
  - quesera 13y ago
    Done. It's called reddit, and unfortunately not federated. We're in a recentralization cycle of services, because it's easier to build (and more monetizable) than similar distributed services. When we have the technical building blocks and business creativity to break the cycle, things will get interesting again.
  - TrevorJ 13y ago
    The key utility of social networking sites is that allows you to stay in touch and up to date with a larger circle of associates than you could otherwise. Facebook lowered the cost of maintaining those associations by making the process more efficient. They have been steadily raising the cost with every added feature since then.
tannerc 13y ago
While much of the debate here on HN is around why authors continue to write pieces about "the end of X" or "the demise of Y", I couldn't help but ask the question: "Why do we continue to read them/link to them? Possible answers: 1. Many of us (or our employers) rely on these audiences for revenue, so knowing where they are and what they're interested in enables us to have success 2. We're interested in what drives success/failure, despite logic indicating that -- in both scenarios -- random chance plays one of the largest parts 3. It's like good old-fashioned gossip, where everyone who doesn't actually have anything to say can still speak up 4. We hope to learn from history as it happens to us; if we can accurately predict why people are leaving Facebook and where they're going, we can be part of -- or the driver of -- the next wave.
mlyang 13y ago
The downfall of Facebook is what was the crux of its initial success: the comprehensive largeness of one's social network. On Facebook, most people accept all acquaintances and friends they have in real life (should they get a friend request)-- it would be rude not to-- and as a result, one's Friends List is usually a pretty good indication of one's entire social network. This allowed Facebook to gain its initial network effects, but this is also now paralyzing the activity of its individual users. I feel uncomfortable posting extensively online because there are many people in my friends list who I feel uncomfortable seeing my things (and I don't care enough to create Private lists). As far as addressing the teen exodus, and related to the above impact, Facebook's NewsFeed is just not interesting anymore. Back when Facebook started, I was friends largely with 100-300 people whose lives I actually was interested in. I am not interested in the minutiae of my current 1000+ friends' lives, and their endless and meaningless statuses bore me to no end. Facebook wanted its NewsFeed to break out of the echo chamber effect, and therefore made the NewsFeed algorithm more random, putting the onus of creating relevant NewsFeeds on the individual user (through the creation of individual lists of friends). But USERS WANT THE ECHO CHAMBER EFFECT! I don't want to know what's happening in the "town square,"-- I want to know what's happening with my 20 closest friends. Because teens joined on when this new paradigm was already in place, there's nothing to draw them in. It's just not interesting-- and apps like Instagram and Snapchat are more engaging as a result because they're more personal. Lastly, Facebook is way too cluttered. It has an atrocious UI, so many buttons all over the place. Mark Zuckerberg's utilitarian aesthetic lives to today, only it's way worse because Facebook has so much more (useless) functionality. Instagram and Snapchat are clean and elegant-- it's not jarring to open those apps like it is to navigate Facebook.
edgrimley 13y ago
Mobile has radically changed the social adoption cycle more than we've realized. Facebook is clearly the product of desktop world, where much of the information that made it valuable, particularly the social graph, needed to be contributed to the product to be effective. The move to quickly-adopted "apps" has accelerated in mobile because the plumbing is already in place: 1. Contact list / address book Implicit network already exists, does not need to be built in the new product. 2. Location GPS takes apps beyond check-ins - adding context and information to posts. Even enabling new sorts of dating networks. 3. Media Photos and video, combined with location, contacts and persistent connections on one device make it easier than ever to include photos and video. This combination (not to mention building on the Facebook platform) will continue to enable faster developing and more narrow focused "networks".
VLM 13y ago
"What was cool in the 70s wasn’t cool in the 80s." Its very important he phrased it that way, because bell bottoms had another day in the sun. Happily young women wearing skin tight spandex/yoga pants from the 90s had another day in the 10s. Its difficult to find a womens fashion fad that doesn't repeat every 20-ish years. The endless rotating wheel of fashion and fads doesn't rotate at a speed of 1 rotation per decade. Its more like 1 rotation per 2 decades aka generation. I predict that 2030 will be an excellent year for 2010 style social networks.
- scelerat 13y ago
  I'm unaware of communications and technological trends falling into cycles like sartorial fashion. You can use a 20-, 30-, or 50-year-old scarf or jacket you find in a thrift store, but not a phone or a computer. And very few people would want to.
  - sirkneeland 13y ago
    On the other hand... http://www.dailydot.com/opinion/mac-plus-introduce-modern-web/ http://www.dailydot.com/opinion/mac-plus-introduce-modern-we...
  - VLM 13y ago
    This is very much like the first century of clothing probably was. After technological innovation in the field ceases, you'll be able to use old stuff. You can use a 50 year old wired POTS phone no problem. The sound quality is superior to modern wired phones, and those are superior to any cell or voip tech.
crazygringo 13y ago
> Teens likely see Facebook the same way the Facebook generation sees LinkedIn – like a utilitarian place to manage connections. I've heard it a billion times that teens aren't using Facebook. But who cares? I just don't see any evidence that this heralds the end of Facebook. It's not necessarily any more meaningful than "people ages 65-70 don't use Facebook". It's a small percentage of the population. And there's no indication that teens are using something else that will replace Facebook when they're in their 20's and 30's -- you can't organize parties on Instagram or Snapchat. Every indication is that teens get onto Facebook once they stop being teens, correct me if I'm wrong. Can we stop talking about this ineffable "cool" factor, until there's any kind of evidence that it is actually necessary for Facebook's continued success? I mean, I don't remember Facebook ever being cool. It's always been pretty drab, a pretty bland boring blue, with an interface much like an OS. But it just works better than the alternatives, and keeps working better. Why people are suddenly constantly talking about this "lack of cool" is beyond me.
- cdcarter 13y ago
  > you can't organize parties on Instagram or Snapchat You can. Beyond that, the interesting part is the sentence you yourself quoted. It's utilitarian, it's contact management, it's messaging, but it's not a primary source of content and engagement within the demo, and that's by it's own virtue interesting.
  - basch 13y ago
    Well facebook owns instagram, so in reality, they are probably perfectly ok with teens using instagram over facebook.
    - judk 13y ago
      Is instagram as monetized ad the FB feed?
- owenmarshall 13y ago
  > It's not necessarily any more meaningful than "people ages 65-70 don't use Facebook". From an advertising perspective, there's a massive gulf between "teens don't use Facebook" and "senior citizens don't use Facebook". To put it flippantly: one group is headed into a coveted demographic, the other group buys denture paste. That's not to say that Facebook wouldn't do fine even if the only people that used it were "uncool and old" like the rest of us, but to an advertiser it's a bit of a worrying sign.
michaelochurch 13y ago
Snapchat is a frivolous, silly app mainly used for sexting. I agree that there is something in combing asynchrony and ephemerality, but come on. Nothing run by the likes of Evan Spiegel is going to threaten Facebook. He's not in the same class as Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates. He's not even in the same class as me. He's a rich kid and a lottery winner and should have sold at $3 billion and let someone else run it. Now, what's going to beat Facebook and LinkedIn and much else in the long run-- and by "long" I mean 2020-25 is something I call "quality social". Facebook provides "social" and there is no meaningful filter on quality. That's not a knock on Facebook; that's not its job. People can fill your feed with junk. Of your 400 "friends", 390 are really acquaintances. I have the most respect for what Meetup is doing ("use the Internet to get off the Internet") but the problem of providing a quality social experience over the Internet is an unsolved one. (Meetup just helps people plan offline experiences.) I think that it will start with multiplayer games. Board games are great at alleviating social awkwardness that forms when people are new to each other or haven't kept in touch for a while. It goes beyond games, though; really, the problem is how to allow people to have meaningful and social experiences in such a way that they can be online, offline, or mixed (i.e. a game where some people are physically in the same place and some are not, or a game that persists as their locations change). Maybe we should try this out, do an Ambition tournament some time in 2014. Anyway, there are a lot of unknown variables-- especially around mobile devices-- but Quality Social is where the future (of social/consumer web) is coming from.
- freyr 13y ago
  > Snapchat is a frivolous, silly app Sure. > mainly used for sexting. Is this actually true? It hasn't really been my experience, but maybe my friends are prudes. > I agree that there is something in combing asynchrony and ephemerality, but come on. Nothing run by the likes of Evan Spiegel is going to threaten Facebook. He's not in the same class as Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates. He's not even in the same class as me. He's a rich kid and a lottery winner and should have sold at $3 billion and let someone else run it. The amount of butthurt in this comment is off the charts. You just took butthurt to 11. Mark Zuckerberg was also a snotty, privileged rich kid once (he's not a kid anymore). In any case, who are you to put limits on what some 20-something kid is capable of? Because you have a lot of imaginary points on a comment board? Maybe his success is due to luck, or maybe it's because he didn't spend his time tearing down other people on a comment board. Anyway, go ahead and build out Quality Social. Take the $3B offer, or maybe you should decline it because you're in another class.
Swizec 13y ago
>As your Facebook network becomes saturated, it can feel very public. It puts the focus on managing your image, rather than truly bonding with people. Young startups like Snapchat are providing shelter from the institution of Facebook by serving as a place where you can express yourself comfortably. A place where you don’t feel like your every move is being watched. This is something I will likely never understand. Why do people have so much trouble with being themselves? This isn't a Facebook problem, this is a society problem. Facebook just exposed it. Instead of talking about the end of the FB era and making new social networks, we should talk about making people more comfortable with being themselves. The first step is to stop spending so much time judging everyone.
- rsl7 13y ago
  Wow. Ok. The answer is that there is no you. It's not a society problem. My read on a comment like yours is that you are young and have not experienced a life partitioned into parts that you don't want to overlap. That, if anything, is the reality of the human experience. Forcing together what should be separate is what is wrong and unnatural. Sorry.
  - Swizec 13y ago
    Oh I've done plenty of partitioning life into parts that I didn't want to overlap. But then I grew up and became me. What I've found is that people are far more accepting of me, like me much better, and I generally build better and deeper relationships quicker. My life has also become much simpler since I no longer have to filter myself all the freaking time. It's really nice. You should try it. But it does take oodles of confidence. If you aren't confident in yourself, then you will not be able to pull it off.
    - katbyte 13y ago
      I would think it also depends on who "you" are, where you live and the people around you. If your gay and live in the middle east or certain parts of Africa your going to have a bad time simply being yourself.
deleted 13y ago
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amerika_blog 13y ago
It can't end soon enough. The open internet meant that anyone with TCP/IP could see all content. Facebook put everything behind a wall that was both effective at blocking open access and ineffective at protecting privacy. The centralization of the internet into a handful of sites -- Twitter, Wikipedia, Facebook, and Google -- is destructive to the original mission and concept of the internet.
aorshan 13y ago
As a younger person that these types of articles are so fond of talking about (I'm 21), I don't agree that members of my generation are leaving and that we don't perceive Facebook as cool. I think what's changed with the new social media companies is the timeliness of when we do things. Perfect example- I was out for a Secret Santa dinner with a bunch of my friends. While we were at the dinner, we took tons of pictures, some of which ended up as Snapchat stories or on Instagram. But later that night, every single one of those pictures went up on Facebook. Cover photos were updated aplently. Why? Because all of us are on Facebook and Facebook is still the best way to permanently store and share the experiences you've had with your friends (while also tagging them in the photos).
stevenj 13y ago
Friendly wager offer: I'll bet anyone $100 that Facebook is still the largest social network based on monthly active users in 5 years. (Facebook itself, not any companies it acquires.) We can either use public company stats, or a couple of respected publications' reported usage stats, or a combination of both to decide the winner.
- chippy 13y ago
  >largest I think myspace probably still claims it's the largest!
- sirkneeland 13y ago
  Just as Microsoft Windows is still the largest desktop OS, but nobody seems to care. It is entirely possible to have continued dominance of industry (X) only to find that the value of dominating industry (X) isn't what it used to be...
chippy 13y ago
"No one wants to play in your creepy tree house" Facebook has turned into a creepy tree house - it's no longer a place for people to play. Because it's creepy.
tn13 13y ago
Do Teens spend a lot of money online ? If they dont then Facebook need not worry about "teens" as such. What happens to todays teens once they are in their 20s ? That is more important question here.
goggles99 13y ago
Teen use on Facebook is declining? Well teens don't generally have much money anyway. How does this translate to the end of Facebook? How many teens use Linkedin?
DanielBMarkham 13y ago
The author here makes a convincing argument that there is a "cool factor" in internet apps but then overstates his case dramatically when he sees the end of FB on the horizon. Simply because a tool loses it's cachet doesn't mean that the network effects go away. Or put more directly: sure, hip 20-somethings don't give Facebook the love they once did. Who cares? FB doesn't have to play the "I'm the coolest kid in town" game any more. As the author says, they can buy cool. All they have to do now is remain the only tool to wish Grandma a happy birthday. Or, as some FB'er put it years ago, they're the phonebook, dammit. Their goal is to be a utility. They want to be the radio station, not the rock band.
mikeg8 13y ago
I really enjoyed this post and found it oddly inspiring. Similar to the Steve Jobs quote about knowing you will die someday and how it helps make decisions. Thanks to the author.
wcummings 13y ago
I agree 100% with the author. I log into Facebook once a day, maybe. I don't have fb messenger on my phone. I use mailing lists (set one up for your friends, great, simple way to share photos etc w/ a select group of people)/WhatsApp/Snapchat/IRC (IRCCloud on my phone, because SSH eats up battery). I used to be a much heavier Facebook user. Now I get hassled by family for saying uncouth things, and generally see it as a chore. Everything you do on Facebook is chronicled on your timeline, and has a certain amount of permanency, and while I'm sure you can delete a lot of it its clearly not the intention, so it does require more "curation", as compared to transient chat apps. The privacy controls are opaque and its hard to be sure exactly who you're sharing with, which makes it hard to be comfortable really sharing a lot on Facebook.
- qq66 13y ago
  You "log into Facebook once a day, maybe." How few companies can you say that about? That you use their product every day? Your mattress. Your refrigerator. Your toothpaste. Your car. Not only have all of their manufacturers have been around for nearly a century, but they all have perfect substitutes: Crest and Colgate. By your own anecdote, Facebook is in a very enviable position.
  - wcummings 13y ago
    They're not going to disappear, that's for sure, my point was my level of engagement on Facebook is not what it used to be, the way I use it has changed.
michaelwww 13y ago
Teenagers become soccer Moms and sports watching Dads wondering what happened to their high school friends. There is no better place than Facebook to casually stay in touch. It's part of our life now, like it or not, even though it's not new or fresh anymore.
userulluipeste 13y ago
"We filter too much, and with that, we lose real human connection." The one (most outstanding) treat that turned me off from the very first moment I saw that site is that the most "facebook people" tend to filter too little!
johnclass 13y ago
In my experience, comments are moving from Facebook to apps such as whatsapp.
ExpendableGuy 13y ago
"Social" isn't a fad, but channels dedicated to being "social" might be. This is pure conjecture, but I think a major component of Twitter's success was that participating did not require you to use an official Twitter client. Ubiquity spurred growth. It's an example of "social media," not a "channel for social." Another major component of Facebook's decline was their lack of a mobile strategy. Again, pure conjecture, but as mobile use in teens increases, the mobile experience matters more -- the Facebook app was unusable for a long time, and that probably had an effect on growth and reputation. In my opinion, the biggest risk for Facebook is the paradigm shift in how we share photos. A big component of their growth in 2009 - 2011 was their dominance in the photo sharing space. They're the number one photo sharing site in the world. Now photo sharing and picture taking are a mobile experience (e.g., Snapchat, Instragram), being the number one photo sharing site isn't as big of a deal. The purchase of Instagram was smart.

153 points by chrysb 13y ago

"Facebook is a public company now, which means it has to operate like a business." Pretty sad indictment of the tech industry that operating like a business had to be qualified.

chm 13y ago

Facebook is a fad. There is no Facebook "era".

chrysb 13y ago
"Fad" or "era" – semantics. Everything rises and falls in popularity with varying timelines.
TrainedMonkey 13y ago
Sounds about right. While we are on the same page: Google reads your email and Microsoft is a small company that makes excellent computers mouses.
untog 13y ago
If it's a fad then it has a time period where it is popular, which is entirely reasonable to call an "era".
- chm 13y ago
  I had similar comments from other people, so I will reply here: In my native tongue, 10 years wouldn't be called an "era", hence the disagreement.

neakor 13y ago

I see the evolution of social networking evolving from connecting with everyone in the world, aka public networking to only connect with the ones you actually care about, aka private networking. When Facebook was cool, it was cool to know that you can post a status update and have the "whole world" see it. With the rise of messaging services (snapchat, whatsapp, line and so on), we are moving to the stage where you only share with a very small group of closely connected individuals. A more intimate network.

leokun 13y ago

A big counter point to the Facebook is a fad is Pepsi. Pepsi was considered a fad in the 60's when it was already 40 years old. It's still around. It buys coolness with a massive marketing budget. Pepsi is water + corn syrup + some flavor. And it's been around for many, many decades. Pepsi, and Cola, show that being old does not mean you can't still be cool.

neakor 13y ago
It's a different market with different customer mind sets. More importantly, "cool" is relative. Coke is family oriented, aka not cool. This allows pepsi to be "cool" by associating its brand with "hot" celebrities and trends. On the other hand, Facebook has nothing older to compare to. It's "cool" relative to myspace I suppose.
coldtea 13y ago
>Pepsi was considered a fad in the 60's when it was already 40 years old. It's still around. Tons of things have been considered fads through the decades, some rightly (hula-hoops) and some not (rock music). The question, when making an analogy, is how they relate to Facebook. Unless you connect Pepsi and Facebook with something more besides (both have been considered a fad), we cannot draw any conclusions from Pepsi with regards to Facebook's situation except this: Sometimes, people can consider something as a fad when it isn't. If you want to make this analogy work, you have to show why Facebook will be more like Pepsi and less like the hula-hoop or piano neck-ties.
- bentcorner 13y ago
  Maybe it'll be that the concept of social networks is here to stay forevermore, but Facebook is just a brand. Social networks are becoming a dime a dozen, so using Facebook is a brand choice. There's a social cost to be seen doing the things that everyone else is doing (the equivalent, say, of wearing a mainstream band t-shirt), so having a presence on Facebook is just meeting the bar. To be "cool" you need to find the social networks nobody else knows about, and hang out with your friends there. Bonus points for alluding, on Facebook, to conversations you had on the not-Facebook social network. It may be amusing to find in 10 years that using Facebook becomes a new fad again and is seen as "retro". Certainly a possibility if Facebook does not innovate itself to non-recognizability.

PaulHoule 13y ago

I can say I use Facebook Connect to log into web sites everyday, and sometimes I post to Facebook using other sites (if I pin something on Pinterest) but I actually check my facebook page one a month or so.

chaz 13y ago

An alternate opinion: Facebook is heading toward the Trough of Disillusionment of the Hype Cycle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle Facebook was so ridiculously hot a few years ago that it couldn't possibly have met all of its expectations for changing how we all communicate, replacing all other messaging mediums, dominating how we shop and buy, the portal for all things entertainment, etc. > Teens likely see Facebook the same way the Facebook generation sees LinkedIn – like a utilitarian place to manage connections. This sounds a lot like the Plateau of Productivity to me.

technotony 13y ago
Yeah, plateau of productivity is when 20-30% of people have adopted. Globally Facebook is probably at that point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hype-Cycle-General.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hype-Cycle-General.png
Theodores 13y ago
Weirdly the Google 'trends' graph correlates if you click on the 'forecast' button: http://www.google.co.uk/trends/explore#q=%2Fm%2F02y1vz%2C%20%2Fm%2F04ny5g&geo=GB&cmpt=q http://www.google.co.uk/trends/explore#q=%2Fm%2F02y1vz%2C%20... However, a forecast is just a forecast, not happened yet. The 'trend' graph spikes with the IPO which had no relevance for 99% of Facebook users. Take that spike out, ignore the 'forecast' and Facebook is doing the 'myspace curve' and in a similar time frame. Anyway, where is the Facebook login for Hacker News?
- Gustomaximus 13y ago
  I got GB region only from your link. The worldwide view shows ongoing growth: http://bit.ly/1dIbkpF http://bit.ly/1dIbkpF

neals 13y ago

I see it so much around me. Small Whatsapp groups, going back to sharing with just the ones we want to share it with. No content police. No long on-line history.

a3voices 13y ago

I think Facebook will change from a product to a technology conglomerate, similar to Yahoo or Google.

ghostdiver 13y ago
Low traffic on facebook.com domain = no money

davidbyttow 13y ago

I think FB is simply transitioning from product to utility, like electricity. Just one example is its utility to sign up and log in to other services, which is 95%+ of my FB activity.

dr_doom 13y ago
Unlikely. I have never had a facebook and with the exception of spotify, which now has email sign up, no service I use has required fb to log in.

vezzy-fnord 13y ago

All social networks have remarkably short golden eras. That said, even though Facebook is declining, I still think all the articles about the "end of the Facebook era" and "death of Facebook" are sensational and exaggerated. They're still, what?... The second or the third highest traffic website internationally? Over a billion registered accounts (regardless of whether only half are legitimate and being used, it's a lot). As the author noted though, Facebook can still thrive in the "cool factor" with their acquisitions.

wpietri 13y ago

Very interesting. A few years back, I was fascinated to see how much Facebook had become the native medium for the whippersnappers. Some of our interns thought of email like I thought of fax machines. But even if Facebook is prone to stumble, I'd encourage entrepreneurs not to try to be the "next Facebook". As I wrote elsewhere [1]: "Honestly, there probably won't be a 'next Facebook', for the same reason there hasn't been a next Amazon, next Oracle, next Google, or next Apple. There hasn't even been a next Yahoo, because the secret to success for many startups wasn't being another Yahoo, it was being different. Something you should think hard on: Zuckerberg didn't set out to make the next Facebook, or the next anything. He was just making something fun for himself and his fellow Harvard students. It was only when he saw how powerful his creation was that his ambitions increased." This seems especially relevant to me now that I'm seeing ads around San Francisco for two new social networks that are lamely trying to be the next Facebook. [1] https://www.quora.com/Entrepreneurship/Is-it-foolish-to-go-to-Startup-Weekend-like-events-and-widely-pitch-my-next-Facebook-idea-in-search-of-co-founders/answer/William-Pietri?share=1 https://www.quora.com/Entrepreneurship/Is-it-foolish-to-go-t...

dworin 13y ago
I'd argue that Facebook is actually the next AOL (a tool for managing your connections, communicating, and viewing curated content in a walled garden). Teenagers in the late 90s/early 00s lived on AOL in the same way that they later lived on Facebook. But you don't become the next anything by trying to be it, you try to become something different, and it's only in hindsight that they look the same. It's also true that the company that looks indomitable today is seen as an anachronism tomorrow. At one point there were lawsuits against AOL to open up the instant messenger network because it was seen as an anti-competitive monopoly. Now nobody seems to care.
chasing 13y ago
Wasn't Facebook the "next Friendster?" I feel like it was actually a relative latecomer to the social networking party of the early '00s. Not to diss FB or their achievement, but it certainly felt like an evolution rather than a revolution upon launch. Only once they built up steam did it really begin to become an entirely new sort of beast. Same with Google, no? I feel like they entered a crowded market of search engines and came out on top, but certainly weren't the first of their kind.

the_watcher 13y ago

>> Teens likely see Facebook the same way the Facebook generation sees LinkedIn – like a utilitarian place to manage connections. This is why the "millennials are leaving Facebook" worry isn't actually real. Yes, middle schoolers and high schoolers aren't using Facebook. They are at a stage in their life where the idea of their parents being able to see into their life is scary. Their social circle is also disproportionately made up of people they can easily see every day. Facebook's utility for contact management, event planning, and keeping in touch doesn't really begin until people turn 18 and go out on their own. This doesn't even begin to touch the ease of using it to sign up for other products that are built on top of it.

wehadfun 13y ago
>Their social circle is also disproportionately made up of people they can easily see every day Great point
Jhsto 13y ago
I'am 18 and I agree with you. The way the discussion one day happened in status updates have now moved to usually hidden groups. The groups are usually built around some specific event, say prams, or alternatively around some common interest such as LAN gaming or binge drinking. It works as a new and more appealing way to create what you may consider mailing lists. Engaging in those groups is easier as you post something relevant to the topic and know that your or your friends aunt will not see what you said.
- boomzilla 13y ago
  Great, welcome to the age of bulletin board.
  - the_watcher 13y ago
    >> welcome to the age of bulletin board. Facebook was created as an online replacement for something that had been around in physical form for a long time. Welcome to Facebook.

jokoon 13y ago

Even if you don't care or agree about what revolves around Snowden and the NSA, I'm sure it got many people wondering about how facebook operated and how information works. Even if nothing is done about the NSA, it will have the merit of making facebook less and less popular, and make people not trust websites who might be information hungry. I wonder if people thwarting the way they post their info can really make those info gathering useless. That'd fun to watch.

melling 13y ago

Here are some titles for the next story. "The end of the Apple era" "The end of the Microsoft era" "The end of the Netflix era" "The end of the Yahoo era" Seriously, why do people waste time writing these types of stories? My guess is that it's because it's so much easier than actually trying to build something of value. The real problem is there is no penalty for being wrong. Everyone simply forgets. Write a thousand stories and if just one of them is right then you get to claim your genius. Where are those guys who predicated that Apple Stores were such a stupid idea? We need to start keeping score. http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2001-05-20/commentary-sorry-steve-heres-why-apple-stores-wont-work http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2001-05-20/commentary-so...

zmitri 13y ago
The same thing can be said for comments like yours. He actually does a pretty great job in this article in my opinion: Strong narrative, uses facts + common knowledge and personal insight to build a strong point. He is informing people on a particular topic they might not be so well acquainted with. Whether or not he's right about Facebook, we'll have to see but he makes a good case.
msoad 13y ago
Also: 5 Reasons Why Apple's iPad Tablet Will Fail[1] [1] http://webtrends.about.com/b/2010/01/26/5-reasons-why-apples-islate-tablet-will-fail.htm http://webtrends.about.com/b/2010/01/26/5-reasons-why-apples...
johnrob 13y ago
Facebook would be the odd man out if included in your big-tech-company list. It would be the only service that you couldn't use by yourself.
selmnoo 13y ago
Why. Why must you do this. Why must you dismiss articles on hackneyed grounds and kill the chance for an interesting discussion about the nature and direction of social technologies. I thought this article was very interesting, it brought to light several factual points, and several not-heard-before insights -- e.g., I thought this in particular was very true and interesting: This is why social networks, like Google+ (where I worked for one year), are struggling even more than Facebook to get a foothold in the future of social networking. They are betting on last year’s fashion I'm surprised it wasn't Google that made an offer on Snapchat, since it's normally quite forward-looking. But then again, social has never been Google's forte has it.

alphonse23 13y ago

Very well written. Bravo! No doubt, facebook hasn't been cool to me for a least 2-3 years now for me -- if it ever was from the very beginning.

Touche 13y ago

> What teenager wants to hang out in the same place as their parents? Parents have been on Facebook for a long time. Why are teenagers today leaving but not teenagers from 3 years ago? Also, why is it assumed that teenagers who stopped using Facebook today aren't going to come back when they get older and have adult-things they want to share?

chippy 13y ago
ahh, it's not that the teenagers are seeing adults share things and not liking what is being posted, it's that people are uncomfortable posting things because other people may see them.

at-fates-hands 13y ago

>>> But it’s rich, so it can buy cool. Facebook’s $1 billion acquisition of Instagram was their first big move to strengthen their position with the youth of this country. But with young people, if Facebook is uncool, then by proxy Instagram is uncool as well. This is how teenagers think these days. They can sink as much money into other social platforms, but you won't ever get rid of the Facebook stigma.

elwell 13y ago
I think you're overestimating how many teens know that Facebook owns Instagram.
- cdcarter 13y ago
  No, I bet quite a lot of teens are at least aware the sale happened. But they don't think about it every day. They don't care. Because Instagram is cool. In spite of facebook.

shanev 13y ago

I believe another reason teenagers are leaving Facebook is the insistence of using your real identity. Teens don't want their mom finding them online. That's why they're flocking to services where they can be anonymous, like Tumblr, where you can also meet new people outside of your circle of friends.

deleted 13y ago

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asmman1 13y ago

Who cares about Facebook "era".

deleted 13y ago

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marban 13y ago

What about leaving the endless discussion about FB's destiny aside and just focus on creating a __new pattern of behavior or activity__ that appeals to a mass audience if you really want to build a large network on its own? Examples of things that worked: - Follow updates of celebrities - Collect nice looking things on a website - Make even the worst picture look good - Be the best cat gif curator Examples of things that didn't work: - Facebook but for ten friends - Facebook for Google Accounts - Facebook with open data portability Let Zuck worry about the hype cycle and start building.

post_break 13y ago

Facebook used to be fun. Now it's a chore.

shmerl 13y ago

Decentralized social networks is the new thing.

ek 13y ago

I found this article really interesting. I started using Facebook in high school, back when high schoolers were to use hs.facebook.com to access Facebook and networks were heavily emphasized. I left Facebook about one year ago today. One particular observation that the article makes that I want to flesh out a bit is the following: Facebook has grown and grown in terms of the size of the application itself, and it is clear that they have pushed very heavily for the 'platform' model. It seems like this is getting replaced by a series of more specialized, more mobile-centric social applications, like Snapchat and Tumblr. Of course FB owns Instagram so they have that going for them, but this does seem to hint at a bit of a growing trend in social networking.

TrevorJ 13y ago

Social networking needs to be a specification. Imagine if email worked the same way social networks worked, it would be ridiculous. You could only communicate with other gmail users, or whatever users were on the platform you adopted. I understand from a business standpoint why social networks have evolved the way they have, but from a utility standpoint it is a lose/lose to have these walled gardens. What would be much better, is to let users use whatever platform they wish and implement some common protocol for following, status updates and private messaging.

VLM 13y ago
RSS feeds on a blog and "click here to email me" links? Personally I'm waiting for someone to "reinvent" NNTP.
- quesera 13y ago
  Done. It's called reddit, and unfortunately not federated. We're in a recentralization cycle of services, because it's easier to build (and more monetizable) than similar distributed services. When we have the technical building blocks and business creativity to break the cycle, things will get interesting again.
- TrevorJ 13y ago
  The key utility of social networking sites is that allows you to stay in touch and up to date with a larger circle of associates than you could otherwise. Facebook lowered the cost of maintaining those associations by making the process more efficient. They have been steadily raising the cost with every added feature since then.

tannerc 13y ago

While much of the debate here on HN is around why authors continue to write pieces about "the end of X" or "the demise of Y", I couldn't help but ask the question: "Why do we continue to read them/link to them? Possible answers: 1. Many of us (or our employers) rely on these audiences for revenue, so knowing where they are and what they're interested in enables us to have success 2. We're interested in what drives success/failure, despite logic indicating that -- in both scenarios -- random chance plays one of the largest parts 3. It's like good old-fashioned gossip, where everyone who doesn't actually have anything to say can still speak up 4. We hope to learn from history as it happens to us; if we can accurately predict why people are leaving Facebook and where they're going, we can be part of -- or the driver of -- the next wave.

mlyang 13y ago

The downfall of Facebook is what was the crux of its initial success: the comprehensive largeness of one's social network. On Facebook, most people accept all acquaintances and friends they have in real life (should they get a friend request)-- it would be rude not to-- and as a result, one's Friends List is usually a pretty good indication of one's entire social network. This allowed Facebook to gain its initial network effects, but this is also now paralyzing the activity of its individual users. I feel uncomfortable posting extensively online because there are many people in my friends list who I feel uncomfortable seeing my things (and I don't care enough to create Private lists). As far as addressing the teen exodus, and related to the above impact, Facebook's NewsFeed is just not interesting anymore. Back when Facebook started, I was friends largely with 100-300 people whose lives I actually was interested in. I am not interested in the minutiae of my current 1000+ friends' lives, and their endless and meaningless statuses bore me to no end. Facebook wanted its NewsFeed to break out of the echo chamber effect, and therefore made the NewsFeed algorithm more random, putting the onus of creating relevant NewsFeeds on the individual user (through the creation of individual lists of friends). But USERS WANT THE ECHO CHAMBER EFFECT! I don't want to know what's happening in the "town square,"-- I want to know what's happening with my 20 closest friends. Because teens joined on when this new paradigm was already in place, there's nothing to draw them in. It's just not interesting-- and apps like Instagram and Snapchat are more engaging as a result because they're more personal. Lastly, Facebook is way too cluttered. It has an atrocious UI, so many buttons all over the place. Mark Zuckerberg's utilitarian aesthetic lives to today, only it's way worse because Facebook has so much more (useless) functionality. Instagram and Snapchat are clean and elegant-- it's not jarring to open those apps like it is to navigate Facebook.

edgrimley 13y ago

Mobile has radically changed the social adoption cycle more than we've realized. Facebook is clearly the product of desktop world, where much of the information that made it valuable, particularly the social graph, needed to be contributed to the product to be effective. The move to quickly-adopted "apps" has accelerated in mobile because the plumbing is already in place: 1. Contact list / address book Implicit network already exists, does not need to be built in the new product. 2. Location GPS takes apps beyond check-ins - adding context and information to posts. Even enabling new sorts of dating networks. 3. Media Photos and video, combined with location, contacts and persistent connections on one device make it easier than ever to include photos and video. This combination (not to mention building on the Facebook platform) will continue to enable faster developing and more narrow focused "networks".

VLM 13y ago

"What was cool in the 70s wasn’t cool in the 80s." Its very important he phrased it that way, because bell bottoms had another day in the sun. Happily young women wearing skin tight spandex/yoga pants from the 90s had another day in the 10s. Its difficult to find a womens fashion fad that doesn't repeat every 20-ish years. The endless rotating wheel of fashion and fads doesn't rotate at a speed of 1 rotation per decade. Its more like 1 rotation per 2 decades aka generation. I predict that 2030 will be an excellent year for 2010 style social networks.

scelerat 13y ago
I'm unaware of communications and technological trends falling into cycles like sartorial fashion. You can use a 20-, 30-, or 50-year-old scarf or jacket you find in a thrift store, but not a phone or a computer. And very few people would want to.
- sirkneeland 13y ago
  On the other hand... http://www.dailydot.com/opinion/mac-plus-introduce-modern-web/ http://www.dailydot.com/opinion/mac-plus-introduce-modern-we...
- VLM 13y ago
  This is very much like the first century of clothing probably was. After technological innovation in the field ceases, you'll be able to use old stuff. You can use a 50 year old wired POTS phone no problem. The sound quality is superior to modern wired phones, and those are superior to any cell or voip tech.

crazygringo 13y ago

> Teens likely see Facebook the same way the Facebook generation sees LinkedIn – like a utilitarian place to manage connections. I've heard it a billion times that teens aren't using Facebook. But who cares? I just don't see any evidence that this heralds the end of Facebook. It's not necessarily any more meaningful than "people ages 65-70 don't use Facebook". It's a small percentage of the population. And there's no indication that teens are using something else that will replace Facebook when they're in their 20's and 30's -- you can't organize parties on Instagram or Snapchat. Every indication is that teens get onto Facebook once they stop being teens, correct me if I'm wrong. Can we stop talking about this ineffable "cool" factor, until there's any kind of evidence that it is actually necessary for Facebook's continued success? I mean, I don't remember Facebook ever being cool. It's always been pretty drab, a pretty bland boring blue, with an interface much like an OS. But it just works better than the alternatives, and keeps working better. Why people are suddenly constantly talking about this "lack of cool" is beyond me.

cdcarter 13y ago
> you can't organize parties on Instagram or Snapchat You can. Beyond that, the interesting part is the sentence you yourself quoted. It's utilitarian, it's contact management, it's messaging, but it's not a primary source of content and engagement within the demo, and that's by it's own virtue interesting.
- basch 13y ago
  Well facebook owns instagram, so in reality, they are probably perfectly ok with teens using instagram over facebook.
  - judk 13y ago
    Is instagram as monetized ad the FB feed?
owenmarshall 13y ago
> It's not necessarily any more meaningful than "people ages 65-70 don't use Facebook". From an advertising perspective, there's a massive gulf between "teens don't use Facebook" and "senior citizens don't use Facebook". To put it flippantly: one group is headed into a coveted demographic, the other group buys denture paste. That's not to say that Facebook wouldn't do fine even if the only people that used it were "uncool and old" like the rest of us, but to an advertiser it's a bit of a worrying sign.

michaelochurch 13y ago

Snapchat is a frivolous, silly app mainly used for sexting. I agree that there is something in combing asynchrony and ephemerality, but come on. Nothing run by the likes of Evan Spiegel is going to threaten Facebook. He's not in the same class as Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates. He's not even in the same class as me. He's a rich kid and a lottery winner and should have sold at $3 billion and let someone else run it. Now, what's going to beat Facebook and LinkedIn and much else in the long run-- and by "long" I mean 2020-25 is something I call "quality social". Facebook provides "social" and there is no meaningful filter on quality. That's not a knock on Facebook; that's not its job. People can fill your feed with junk. Of your 400 "friends", 390 are really acquaintances. I have the most respect for what Meetup is doing ("use the Internet to get off the Internet") but the problem of providing a quality social experience over the Internet is an unsolved one. (Meetup just helps people plan offline experiences.) I think that it will start with multiplayer games. Board games are great at alleviating social awkwardness that forms when people are new to each other or haven't kept in touch for a while. It goes beyond games, though; really, the problem is how to allow people to have meaningful and social experiences in such a way that they can be online, offline, or mixed (i.e. a game where some people are physically in the same place and some are not, or a game that persists as their locations change). Maybe we should try this out, do an Ambition tournament some time in 2014. Anyway, there are a lot of unknown variables-- especially around mobile devices-- but Quality Social is where the future (of social/consumer web) is coming from.

freyr 13y ago
> Snapchat is a frivolous, silly app Sure. > mainly used for sexting. Is this actually true? It hasn't really been my experience, but maybe my friends are prudes. > I agree that there is something in combing asynchrony and ephemerality, but come on. Nothing run by the likes of Evan Spiegel is going to threaten Facebook. He's not in the same class as Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates. He's not even in the same class as me. He's a rich kid and a lottery winner and should have sold at $3 billion and let someone else run it. The amount of butthurt in this comment is off the charts. You just took butthurt to 11. Mark Zuckerberg was also a snotty, privileged rich kid once (he's not a kid anymore). In any case, who are you to put limits on what some 20-something kid is capable of? Because you have a lot of imaginary points on a comment board? Maybe his success is due to luck, or maybe it's because he didn't spend his time tearing down other people on a comment board. Anyway, go ahead and build out Quality Social. Take the $3B offer, or maybe you should decline it because you're in another class.

Swizec 13y ago

>As your Facebook network becomes saturated, it can feel very public. It puts the focus on managing your image, rather than truly bonding with people. Young startups like Snapchat are providing shelter from the institution of Facebook by serving as a place where you can express yourself comfortably. A place where you don’t feel like your every move is being watched. This is something I will likely never understand. Why do people have so much trouble with being themselves? This isn't a Facebook problem, this is a society problem. Facebook just exposed it. Instead of talking about the end of the FB era and making new social networks, we should talk about making people more comfortable with being themselves. The first step is to stop spending so much time judging everyone.

rsl7 13y ago
Wow. Ok. The answer is that there is no you. It's not a society problem. My read on a comment like yours is that you are young and have not experienced a life partitioned into parts that you don't want to overlap. That, if anything, is the reality of the human experience. Forcing together what should be separate is what is wrong and unnatural. Sorry.
- Swizec 13y ago
  Oh I've done plenty of partitioning life into parts that I didn't want to overlap. But then I grew up and became me. What I've found is that people are far more accepting of me, like me much better, and I generally build better and deeper relationships quicker. My life has also become much simpler since I no longer have to filter myself all the freaking time. It's really nice. You should try it. But it does take oodles of confidence. If you aren't confident in yourself, then you will not be able to pull it off.
  - katbyte 13y ago
    I would think it also depends on who "you" are, where you live and the people around you. If your gay and live in the middle east or certain parts of Africa your going to have a bad time simply being yourself.

deleted 13y ago

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amerika_blog 13y ago

It can't end soon enough. The open internet meant that anyone with TCP/IP could see all content. Facebook put everything behind a wall that was both effective at blocking open access and ineffective at protecting privacy. The centralization of the internet into a handful of sites -- Twitter, Wikipedia, Facebook, and Google -- is destructive to the original mission and concept of the internet.

aorshan 13y ago

As a younger person that these types of articles are so fond of talking about (I'm 21), I don't agree that members of my generation are leaving and that we don't perceive Facebook as cool. I think what's changed with the new social media companies is the timeliness of when we do things. Perfect example- I was out for a Secret Santa dinner with a bunch of my friends. While we were at the dinner, we took tons of pictures, some of which ended up as Snapchat stories or on Instagram. But later that night, every single one of those pictures went up on Facebook. Cover photos were updated aplently. Why? Because all of us are on Facebook and Facebook is still the best way to permanently store and share the experiences you've had with your friends (while also tagging them in the photos).

stevenj 13y ago

Friendly wager offer: I'll bet anyone $100 that Facebook is still the largest social network based on monthly active users in 5 years. (Facebook itself, not any companies it acquires.) We can either use public company stats, or a couple of respected publications' reported usage stats, or a combination of both to decide the winner.

chippy 13y ago
>largest I think myspace probably still claims it's the largest!
sirkneeland 13y ago
Just as Microsoft Windows is still the largest desktop OS, but nobody seems to care. It is entirely possible to have continued dominance of industry (X) only to find that the value of dominating industry (X) isn't what it used to be...

chippy 13y ago

"No one wants to play in your creepy tree house" Facebook has turned into a creepy tree house - it's no longer a place for people to play. Because it's creepy.

tn13 13y ago

Do Teens spend a lot of money online ? If they dont then Facebook need not worry about "teens" as such. What happens to todays teens once they are in their 20s ? That is more important question here.

goggles99 13y ago

Teen use on Facebook is declining? Well teens don't generally have much money anyway. How does this translate to the end of Facebook? How many teens use Linkedin?

DanielBMarkham 13y ago

The author here makes a convincing argument that there is a "cool factor" in internet apps but then overstates his case dramatically when he sees the end of FB on the horizon. Simply because a tool loses it's cachet doesn't mean that the network effects go away. Or put more directly: sure, hip 20-somethings don't give Facebook the love they once did. Who cares? FB doesn't have to play the "I'm the coolest kid in town" game any more. As the author says, they can buy cool. All they have to do now is remain the only tool to wish Grandma a happy birthday. Or, as some FB'er put it years ago, they're the phonebook, dammit. Their goal is to be a utility. They want to be the radio station, not the rock band.

mikeg8 13y ago

I really enjoyed this post and found it oddly inspiring. Similar to the Steve Jobs quote about knowing you will die someday and how it helps make decisions. Thanks to the author.

wcummings 13y ago

I agree 100% with the author. I log into Facebook once a day, maybe. I don't have fb messenger on my phone. I use mailing lists (set one up for your friends, great, simple way to share photos etc w/ a select group of people)/WhatsApp/Snapchat/IRC (IRCCloud on my phone, because SSH eats up battery). I used to be a much heavier Facebook user. Now I get hassled by family for saying uncouth things, and generally see it as a chore. Everything you do on Facebook is chronicled on your timeline, and has a certain amount of permanency, and while I'm sure you can delete a lot of it its clearly not the intention, so it does require more "curation", as compared to transient chat apps. The privacy controls are opaque and its hard to be sure exactly who you're sharing with, which makes it hard to be comfortable really sharing a lot on Facebook.

qq66 13y ago
You "log into Facebook once a day, maybe." How few companies can you say that about? That you use their product every day? Your mattress. Your refrigerator. Your toothpaste. Your car. Not only have all of their manufacturers have been around for nearly a century, but they all have perfect substitutes: Crest and Colgate. By your own anecdote, Facebook is in a very enviable position.
- wcummings 13y ago
  They're not going to disappear, that's for sure, my point was my level of engagement on Facebook is not what it used to be, the way I use it has changed.

michaelwww 13y ago

Teenagers become soccer Moms and sports watching Dads wondering what happened to their high school friends. There is no better place than Facebook to casually stay in touch. It's part of our life now, like it or not, even though it's not new or fresh anymore.

userulluipeste 13y ago

"We filter too much, and with that, we lose real human connection." The one (most outstanding) treat that turned me off from the very first moment I saw that site is that the most "facebook people" tend to filter too little!

johnclass 13y ago

In my experience, comments are moving from Facebook to apps such as whatsapp.

ExpendableGuy 13y ago

"Social" isn't a fad, but channels dedicated to being "social" might be. This is pure conjecture, but I think a major component of Twitter's success was that participating did not require you to use an official Twitter client. Ubiquity spurred growth. It's an example of "social media," not a "channel for social." Another major component of Facebook's decline was their lack of a mobile strategy. Again, pure conjecture, but as mobile use in teens increases, the mobile experience matters more -- the Facebook app was unusable for a long time, and that probably had an effect on growth and reputation. In my opinion, the biggest risk for Facebook is the paradigm shift in how we share photos. A big component of their growth in 2009 - 2011 was their dominance in the photo sharing space. They're the number one photo sharing site in the world. Now photo sharing and picture taking are a mobile experience (e.g., Snapchat, Instragram), being the number one photo sharing site isn't as big of a deal. The purchase of Instagram was smart.