Facebook, can it fall?

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[JunBringer]

It'll definitely be around for years to come, but as it gets more and more ghetto by the day snooty people will want somewhere new to go. Problem is Twitter isn't as fully featured and I don't see anything else lined up that can take FB's place.

 

[netlinkz]

**** facebook!!!!!!....doesat help?

 

[SB13X]

Yes No Maybe.......can you repeat the question?

 

[Vihzel]

It will stay for many years to come. It has essentially "conquered" any other social networking site like it (ex. MySpace). Facebook is so mainstream now that it'll be very difficult for it to die away... like Twitter. There is also more room for it to grow in other countries where Facebook is still competing with native social networking sites.

I remember when Facebook used to be more of a "college thing" and that once you graduated from college, you moved up from MySpace to Facebook. That has definitely changed and more and more people are getting Facebook at far younger ages. When you grow up with Facebook... it's very difficult to stop using it, especially when all your friends are using it.

 

[B2L]

The only reason i have a Facebook account is because my friends are on there. I will gladly delete it and switch to Google's +1 when it becomes more popular. I can't stand Facebook and i can't wait until everyone stops using it so much. I mean for god sakes i don't want to hear what you had for breakfast. Lol.

 

[takeshi]

Impossible to say. There have been countless "it" social networking sites in the past. Why would anyone believe that Facebook would be on top until the end of time? Things can and do change.

"Those who do not learn from history..."

 

[ParishL31]

MySpace was dominant for a while, then Facebook came and took over. Facebook is going downhill pretty quick and will fall pretty soon too.

The problems with MySpace were all the bots, hacking, link spoofs, and five billion surveys from one person in the last ten minutes. Also the complete saturation of drama queen 12 year olds, teenagers who think they can do whatever they want with no consequences, and 40 year olds who think they're still 18.

All those things are beginning to come into Facebook. Especially the emergence of idiots after they allowed the general public access to it. In all honesty, the college e-mail requirement kept a lot of those morons out.

 

[pantlesspenguin]

I still like facebook. I only have close family and friends on my list, which helps A LOT. I've gotten dozens of requests from people I might've said 2 words to in high school, siblings of old friends, acquaintances of friends, etc that I just don't allow on my page. It keeps facebook fun because I genuinely want to know what's going on with the people I keep on my list.

That said, I think facebook can go down. I don't think it'll happen with the advent of the next "it" social network. I think in order for it to fall, there would need to be a widespread data mining/hacking incident. And I definitely don't want to see that happen.

 

[Vihzel]

MySpace was dominant for a while, then Facebook came and took over. Facebook is going downhill pretty quick and will fall pretty soon too.

How is it going downhill? and to whom? From what I understand, Facebook's user base is growing and revenue is growing.

 

[ParishL31]

Just in my opinion. The bots, hacking, spam and all that nonsense is slowly making it's way to Facebook now. If Facebook steps up and prevents it, it'll be fine; but if they don't it'll end up just as infested as MySpace got with all that junk.

Business wise, they're growing very strong. Especially after they opened it to the general public.

 

[log1c]

i don't see it falling anytime soon, people are all over it like white on rice, parents and families are doing it and when we all have kids we will be on it as it associates itself as the norm

but yes it can fall, just like what everyone else said with bots and spam which may cause fb to crash and burn.....or not

I do miss the old .edu signing in back in school, i thought it was cool, it was exclusive.........and then high school came along......and then global.....lol

i can say one thing about all social networking or well mainly myspace and facebook, it made advertising a whole lot easier on the music/movie industry

 

[_mw_]

I have to wonder if gr8erminds is a developer from the Diaspora project or something similar.... or... a Facebook marketing executive. If you're the former, all the power to you! If you're the latter, Bill Hicks (RIP) said it best...

 

[gr8erminds]

I have to wonder if gr8erminds is a developer from the Diaspora project or something similar.... or... a Facebook marketing executive. If you're the former, all the power to you! If you're the latter, Bill Hicks (RIP) said it best...

We are the former, but not Diaspora. We are new to the scene, and excited to be here.

 

[d4005]

I think FaceBook might be nearing it's peak real soon. I personally deactivated my account last week. So sick of everything I do getting echoed to my wall for all to see. Does everyone I know need to be told that I just wrote "love you Justin" on Bieber's fanpage (not seriously, but if I was a closet Bieber fan - I couldn't keep it secret). Also really sick of hearing about those places checkins. Some of my friends were doing 20 checkins per day (at home, coffee shop, work, lunch etc ad nauseum). I would like to keep them unblocked for when they've got something to say or share, but in keeping them on my feed I'm tortured by all this places bullshit. And why don't FB want to allow you to hide stuff like that? Because it would mean you spending less time on there viewing their ads.

The key difference between FaceBook now and how it was say 5 years ago, is that back then they wanted it to be all that it could be. To be all that we wanted it to be and to offer us all of the features we wanted and functionality we wanted. Now though it's a corporate giant and it's all about revenue. Zuckerberg himself has less than 20% stake in the company so how can he (even if he wanted to) have a majority say in how it's run.

We've seen how rapidly MySpace declined. FaceBook has the power to remain in the lead position, I just don't think they have the motivation to do so. They're effectively like a drug dealer that will happily sell an addict enough heroin to kill themselves. A clever one would ration it to just enough to get their fix and keep them coming back (alive). Same deal with FB and their lust for advertising eyeball views. They're so keen to keep you coming back for hours and hours that they don't realize they might "kill you" in the form of you getting so pissed off with it that you quit cold turkey.

I did it and haven't regretted it for a minute.

Oh one more thing. I found it inexplicably saddening when someone I know very well (in person, not just a cyberfriend) unfriended me. Sometimes someone would appear to have unfriended you, but when you searched and didn't find them, and you saw that they were gone from all your other mutual friends, you then realized they just quit FB (I counted 5-10 that have done that). But the sad thing is when someone you've spent many a fun time at work, at play, having beers, playing poker, meeting their spouse and generally being proper friends. When they unfriend you but haven't unfriended a few dozen mutual friends. You can't help wondering wtf did I do? It ends up occupying your mind for at least the rest of the day. That was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. My last unfriending.

I'm still in linkedin.com and yammer.com because they're more worky/businessy related. If I do join another social network, or even go back to FaceBook, it will only be if they give me the option of controlling every single item in both the incoming news feed, and what gets written to my wall (by me or by anyone else). Let me control every single possible thing, and I'll be back. I can't see it happening though, they're not intelligent enough to see that. Despite the many thousands of people and groups calling for it on facebook itself.

 

[zuben el genub]

I only use FB as a replacement for customer service. There are some companies that only use Twitter and FB for problems.

If I do log in, I am using Adblock, NoScript and Tab permissions. I have everything set to me only, won't friend anyone, and I wish they'd add a dislike button - especially for companies.

 

[A.Nonymous]

MySpace was the king of the hill in social at one point. Now it's basically dead. Can Facebook fail just like MySpace did? Absolutely it can. Will it do so in the near future? I really doubt it.

 

[Vihzel]

The main reason that MySpace fell was due to market competition, especially by Facebook. Today... Facebook really has eliminated all major market competition in the US (I wouldn't put Twitter as market competition with Facebook). The only thing that I can really see happening is another, much better site comes along that REALLY convince Facebook users to switch over. I don't see that happening anytime soon. I doubt Facebook will destroy itself, especially when Facebook is integral in the lives of hundreds of millions. Facebook has essentially become part of my morning and evening routine.

 

[330D]

Facebook is the devil

 

[SolidOrange]

It failed for me the day my 89 year old grandmother added me as a friend. Trying to use facebook for social purposes becomes alot harder when your entire extended family reads it. You may as well just start taking grandma to the bar with you every time you go at that point, lol.

 

[Aggie12]

It failed for me the day my 89 year old grandmother added me as a friend. Trying to use facebook for social proposes becomes alot harder when your entire extended family reads it. You may as well just start taking grandma to the bar with you every time you go at that point, lol.

That's what I don't like about it. I feel bad if I don't accept their friend request but then hate that I have to censor everything I put on there.

 

[SolidOrange]

That's what I don't like about it. I feel bad if I don't accept their friend request but then hate that I have to censor everything I put on there.

Exactly.

 

[Vihzel]

That's what I don't like about it. I feel bad if I don't accept their friend request but then hate that I have to censor everything I put on there.

Thankfully that's not the case for me. The only family I'm friends with is my brother and cousins. I don't have anything on Facebook that needed censoring anyways...

 

[karandpr]

Stagnancy can kill anything .And there is no such thing as champion.

 

[d4005]

I think FaceBook might be nearing it's peak real soon.

You called it "d". Nice one

Facebook may be inching ever-closer to the 700 million user mark, but user numbers have begun falling in the UK and US. The US, in particular, experienced its first fall in monthly active users, losing almost six million in May this year.