Chawlk

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No, I think you are on target. I think Facebook is going to suffer the same fate as AOL since they are going down similar paths. No one thought AOL would be what it is today...because it once reigned supreme.

I don't know.. I don't think it'll take that long.

How many points we placing in the betting pool?

Well, I pretty much put everything up on the Pats being upset by Miami...

So I'll wager all of what I have left after the game.

How's that, Sparky?

I think you are giving them WAY to much credit. id say mid 2008 we will see heavy decline.

I am not so quick to shutdown Facebook. You forget that there is a never-ending new influx of students to come. So unlike some social networks, there will always be new students who want to interact with their friends.

Now, if their friends move on to something else, I can see Facebook declining a bit, but I still see it as well-positioned just like your physical yearbook, to have a lasting power with that perpetually renewing audience.

I'm with Peroty, something else has to emerge for FB to see a decline. Sure you will see drops in pageviews, which is inevitable with a site that size, but the next big thing will have to emerge for the brand itself to fall apart.

My bold prediction for the year, Facebook is over as a brand by 2010.

Over as a brand is different than out of business. AOL still exists, still makes millions a year but their brand sucks and the company is dying. I still see people using Facebook but I don't see it being as "hot" as it is now. If something else hasn't emerged by 2010 to give it serious competition then the niche itself would have become stagnant.

Myspace has the whole school angle already, yes they got onto it after facebook (and classmates etc before it,) but it's there.

After facebook opened up, the main draw was that it was not myspace. It wasn't taken over by gaudy sparkles and music, and it wasn't' shoving ads in your face every time you looked.

That's no longer a feature on facebook. It's full of ads and profiles are getting cluttered. It's still a lot better, but the main draw is disappearing. For facebook suceed or even survive, they're going to have to keep adding features and staying ahead of the curve. I think the recent changes with the advertising is the nail in the coffin.

I'm not against advertising, but I log onto facebook and that's over half of what I see anymore.

Would you call AOL unsuccessful? Of all the major blogs out there, AOL's TMZ is the only one that gets real coverage on TV. Almost everyone uses AIM, and tons of people are still subscribed to their mail service.

Saying AOL the brand and company is a bit hard because as MIchael has suggested they branched out and went many different ways. They own some of the most powerful blogs around now and have their hands in the technologies that we use daily. Sure Facebook the social network won't be as hot then as it is now, but if they branch out they should still be going strong. Google the search company isn't a strong brand, but they seem to be doing alright.

But what did AOL start off as? It's one of the first social networks. They provided a way to connect to the internet, make friends, send messages, chat, members had profiles, etc. Developers built software around AOL. When their ISP division fell through they grabbed on to the more social aspects to remain afloat - because they realized they needed to maintain off of advertising revenue. Sure, they have very successful blogs, AIM is very popular, but they are also losing money and laying off people is mass amounts.

Is a company that loses money successful? Is a company that loses users successful?

So they are trying to re-brand themselves and evolve as times change. Getting the advertising is only 1/2 of the puzzle - getting the user to use those products is the other half. AOL was brilliant with that back in the day and that is what Facebook is trying to do now. And they upset their users.

Unless Facebook gets it together soon the amount of people leaving (for various reasons) will be more than the people coming in. And that's not including the challenge from upcoming competitors who learned from Facebook's mistakes. And I'm really looking forward to see what competition will be launching next year.

The strength of Facebook is Zuckerberg's leadership and vision; as long as he's still with the company I think that they will continue to be as innovative as they've been and will become the dominant social network of the future. Who knows, maybe we'll even get Facebook <-> Xbox Live integration ;-).

"But what did AOL start off as? It's one of the first social networks..."

Beyond that, they were the effin gateway to the net! All that power and potential 15 years ago, and we get what amounts to an entertainment gossip blog and one of the several IM clients out there...excuse me while I yawn.

Yeh, they're still a powerful company with millions of dollars, but to look at where they were and where they're going, compared to where Google is sitting and where they're going, I see AOL taking major steps toward the grave.

Facebook too is moving in the wrong direction. What made them a powerhouse was the exclusivity to school-aged kids. Now they're open to everyone, and this once "safe" bastion of kids now has their parents and sales people and advertisers and marketers and potential employers and even celebrities posting as characters to promote in upcoming works, all playing in their room.

When I was a kid, having all that adult clutter and phoniness in my safe area was totally lame.

I would imagine that by 2010, someone will come up with a site that doesn't require you to sell your life over to a database and still allow you to connect with your friends on a more deep level than sharing music, photos and connections (real and imagined).

And once that happens, Facebook will be joining AOL in the cemetery of yesteryear.

You won't get anyone to beat facebook. They have their users, and I don't see them loosing any soon. Tyme: where are these people who are leaving?

Everyone and I mean everyone I know uses and maintains a facebook account. The only people who have talked about getting rid/reducing their account are two people in my itec class and that is it.

Michael, back in the day, everyone I knew had a website with a black background and at least one happy little animated gif rainbow and an email address like "yessirthatsmybaby24@aol.com".

None of them do that anymore.

I just came across this quote from Chris Rock in a recent edition of Rolling Stone,

Music kind of sucks. Nobody’s into being a musician. Everybody’s getting their mogul on. You’ve been so infiltrated by this corporate mentality that all the time you’d spend getting great songs together, you’re busy doing nine other things that have nothing to do with art. You know how shitty Stevie Wonder’s songs would have been if he had to run a fuckin’ clothing company and a cologne line?
("Rolling Stone", Issue 1039, November 15, 2007, page 157)

I think this draws an interesting analogy to what FaceBook is going through right now. As Rock is alluding to with rappers, FaceBook has forgotten the music which made them famous (school-aged kids) and is instead more interested in "getting their mogul on" with the advertising and the privacy issues and over-inflated market valuations...blah blah blah.

I don't think you'd find too many people argue against the music industry being dead too. Once you start losing interest in the one who brought you to the dance, it all starts going downhill quickly.

Yeah I see what you're saying but they'll probably get away with it. I mean Facebook is still relatively safe. Are people leaving because of the privacy issues? I thought it was because of the applications?

The funny thing is that people are joining facebook because it is a norm not necessarily because it is a private walled garden.

Hi,
I am 110% fan of facebook. Open, Simple, Secure, Eficient and Very Flexible. But i agree with Michael

The funny thing is that people are joining facebook because it is a norm not necessarily because it is a private walled garden.

There are thousands of social web sites. They all look like the same, but only few are a "norm to join". I guess, people want to be where everybody is. And Facebook is where everybody is...

and fuscom, maybe you're not completely crazy ;)

This is the only reason i can point to the fact of new (and i mean NEW) kinds of social interfaces like MingleWorld or Wallop dont have the popularity than perhaps they deserve.

Two years seems a little hasty for this prediction. I completely agree that facebook is slowly screwing themselves with all the tracking/ad scandals and zombie invitations.

A few months ago I attended one of facebook's developer garage events and they certainly seemed more interested in appeasing app developers than actual users. Why? Because app developers are free money to facebook; they create sometimes "viral" applications and then facebook picks up the idea/technology for free.

With that being said the population of facebook users that I am familiar with are quite varied: rich college students, low income high school graduates, and young professionals. In my experience upperclassmen in college HATE facebook apps and all the ads and tracking that facebook is doing. While others use all the apps possible and do not mind sending invitations to everyone possible.

A common theme I've heard is that Facebook is turning into Myspace and while Myspace is looked at with a negative connotation it is still massively popular which is what I predict will be Facebooks fate for at least another 5 years.

How it is

Scoopersmith: Perhaps you are correct. Facebook is turning into the new MySpace. But MySpace is successful despite the bugs, spam and design problems. So in effect we will probably see Facebook turn into a super MySpace because they won't have the same structural problems as MySpace.

Btw coopersmith, you're totally that girl in my social networking class. Welcome to 9rules. :)

I think Facebooks future is completely up in the air. Yes, it is the most popular social networking tool with college students (85% of college students have an account), but they made a major shift this past year by allowing anyone to join and dropping their Facebook application that allowed students to sign up for classes in their course schedule and network with other students in that class (remember how Facebook was referred to as "stalker book" -- it was because students would list their entire class schedule online including location, etc). Facebook said they dropped that feature because someone else could build a better application than their application, but it hasn't happened yet.

I think Facebook can grow into something bigger and better, but I do think they've left open the niche they started in, which was connecting college students with other students in their classes.

I'm 50/50 on this one.

Laurie

In reaction to the last response Michael posted, and I might be sliding off-topic a bit, but let's get this straight. People want to have protection from these pedophiles and perverts, right? Well, all you have to do is be smart about who you add to your friends list, unlike one of my friends whose friend space was almost 10,000 strong.

So really I don't know why parents make such a deal about myspace when their kids are the ones acting stupid and they haven't raised them properly. And, as an extrovert, I find facebook has absolutely nothing to offer for people like me. Of course, there's always the stereotype of over-achievers and under-achievers being drawn to Facebook and Myspace, respectively. In that race, I am an under-achiever who is actually quite smart but can never seem to get it right and that is what people never understand.

But, you are true Michael about the fact that if most people in a student body have a Facebook account, chances are a new kid will want to get an FB account (and vice versa). And, as for my opinion on the main topic, I say Facebook will go down in 2012 if not '10

To add to your prediction I see Myspace still going strong after Facebook falls.

Basic function of Facebook is networking, I believe it will last way longer, because 2010 is just 2 years away.

I'm not too sure if facebook will be end very soon, but looking at other networking sites, yes facebook might face the same thing. I'm sure there will be another site very soon to compete with facebook, no?

I think your prediction isn't necessarily bold, just misguided. I say that if that piece of crap Myspace can survive, so can Facebook, as long as there are enough consumer-trend-craving teens to use it. ;p

The other networking sites aren't nearly as well marketed as Facebook, so I don't think anything will compete with it for a long while...

To clarify, fuscom said:

My bold prediction for the year, Facebook is over as a brand by 2010.

Over as a brand and over as a business are two different things. AOL, as an example, makes millions of dollars a year but their brand to the consumer sucks.

Facebook in Real Life

hat tip [airbag]

That is a great video and shows that it can apply to any social network. What is Facebook's brand now anyways so we know if it has disappeared in 2010?

No!

Facebook is great!