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Originally Posted by Schneed10
This is exactly why it doesn't make sense to say that the young set will set the direction for the next social media platform. My buddy SkinsGuy here seems to think that teens went from MySpace to Facebook because it was the next cool thing, allowed them to have their own network, and that they'll continue to do that. They didn't. They migrated from MySpace to Facebook because Facebook was way better. It gave more capabilities.
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You're absolutely wrong. You're looking at Facebook's present capabilities and assuming that functionality has always been there. It hasn't. I know this. I've been on Facebook shortly after it was expanded to all college networks, not just the one. The functionality was quite limited. There was a character limit on posts (much like character limits with text messages,) there was no integrated games, there was no posting videos, or pictures in wall posts; in terms of capabilities back then, MySpace had more functionality.
The attraction with Facebook came because it was mainly a college only social media application. That's why the teens (who became college students) migrated to Facebook over MySpace. When Facebook opened itself up to everybody a few years later, that is when Facebook started gaining steam, and especially when Facebook started adding more of the functionality that we see today.
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Originally Posted by Schneed10
The difference between then and now is back then the social network space wasn't filled, now it is. It is an established market. It's not enough now to be the newest thing, you now have to be the best thing. With the resources at Facebook's disposal there's no way they won't stay on top.
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You're only partly correct. It is true that, now, social media is an established market. That's in large part due to the invention of the smartphone. Nobody ever said it simply has to be the newest thing. That newest thing has to have legs, it has to be interesting enough for people to want to use it. But to continue being the best, you can't allow your social media application to grow stale. That, in my opinion, is what has happened with Facebook.
Zukerberg knows this, which is why his company's eventual moving away from the standard Facebook app is inevitable. This is why he's working on a suite of social media applications - applications that can function on their own as well as be integrated. Some of those applications and features have failed miserably, (such as the Facebook home app for smartphones) but this is what the Facebook company has to do in order to remain top dog in the social media game. Zuckerberg will eventually move away from Facebook altogether; he has to. With the way technology changes, if he isn't the one to come up with the next big social media application that takes the world by storm, someone else will. Right now, he has enough capital to buy out his closest competitors (such as Instagram,) but, eventually, that won't be enough.
If you think Facebook, itself, is enough to remain top dog for years to come, you're fooling yourself. There is plenty that the application could do better that its users have complained about.
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Originally Posted by Schneed10
This discussion reminds me of all the idiots who thought Apple was going to take down Microsoft in the personal computing business.
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This discussion is a creation of assumptions you made up to try and get a rise out of people. In my initial post, I said Facebook has aged out. It has. Aged out doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be dead and buried - that's why I never committed to saying I'm burying Facebook. You assumed that's what I meant and ran with it like some overly-excited fat kid with a fork in his hand. The problem is, you're going to trip over your fat little feet and poke yourself in the eye.
Long story short, I'm impressed that Facebook has lasted as long as it has. It's unheard of for applications like this to last more than five years. But by my own experiences with it, I see myself, and a lot of my Facebook friends (even the newest older users) using it sparingly. Most who do have posts on there have automatic posts that come from other applications that can be integrated. THAT is why Facebook is staying popular - it has its hands in every single cookie jar it can find. It's not that the application itself is THAT great. It's not that the application itself is such a different concept that others can't possibly improve on it or duplicate its success. It's just that the powers to be have to keep an innovation of ideas rolling in order to remain successful. Anytime anyone thinks an IT company is here to stay and there's nowhere to go but up, that's when those companies wind up falling.