

Facebook is doomed - DSK007
http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130917125221-8451-facebook-is-doomed?trk=tod-home-art-large_0&utm_source=buffer&utm_campaign=Buffer&utm_content=buffer07c5f&utm_medium=twitter

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jawngee
If I had a dollar for every doom and gloom X is Y post, I could finally buy
that beach side villa in Danang and sip ca phe sua da's until I get diabetes.

What I find particularly curious about this post is how much this particular
author wants to climb back into his mother's womb. I'm not being flippant or
glib, re-read the post if you didn't catch it the first time around. He wants
technology to think for him, he wants technology to coddle and embrace him so
he doesn't have to think for himself. Google will drive him places, google
will read his emails and predict his wants and cater his technology
consumption to his whims, google will blast his retinas with all the
contextual information he'll ever need without having to retain it or know it
for himself. He's hoping for the technical equivalent of an antimitotic sac
with Google branding all over it, washing him with vital information
nutrients.

He also doesn't seem to get Facebook from a socioeconomic standpoint. Facebook
doesn't need to do all of these things that Google _might_ do. Facebook just
needs to let you feel not lonely when you are feeling lonely. Facebook just
needs to connect you with those you aren't necessarily really connected with.
Facebook, like it or not, is a new form of communication the same as the phone
was, email is, SMS is, etc. The market will decide the value of that.

~~~
chrischen
You're conflating facebook with social networking.

We've had social networking since before the internet was created, and one of
the first things to have been done on the internet was social networking
(message boards, email, instant messaging, etc).

Facebook is simply one implementation of social networking. There were others,
and are still others. For example, email, instant messaging, forums, still
exist, as well as new stuff like Pinterest, tumblr, twitter.

Facebook's size is due to network effects, not necessarily because a company
like Google is incapable of technically matching facebook's product, or
because facebook is dominating with its product. For example, Google was able
to grab over 50% of the smartphone market share when it focused its efforts on
Android. But, it basically has an insignificant share of the social networking
market with Google Plus. Why? It's probably because social networking is more
winner-take-all. But this doesn't mean Facebook has won, as the barriers to
entry for creating the technical product of a social network is simple. This
means facebook has limited control of its users. We grant facebook the
monopoly, and it really has limited opportunity to screw us or extract money
from us, for once they go over the line, we'll all spill over like water to
something else like Google Plus.

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iamshs
Good old jingoism ... and nepotism towards his friends, Kurzweil. People like
Gruber and Wadhwa should not hold so much sway with normal masses. Just read
these two sentences.

"Google already reads my emails before I do, and, by analyzing what I search
for on the Internet and which Web sites I visit, knows what I am thinking. It
“knows” what other people think about me. If my friend and noted futurist Ray
Kurzweil succeeds in his mission at Google, it will understand my wants and
needs too. It will predict what I want to search for, where I want to go to,
and what I want to eat. It will understand how my brain thinks and become my
personal assistant."

"Contrast this with what we can expect from Facebook: more ads, more annoying
sponsored posts, more intrusions of privacy. "

~~~
clicks
Those two sentences make perfect sense. People go to Facebook to socialize, to
Google to search. This naturally leads to the conclusion of Facebook going
with very constricted models of monetization like having intrusive ads,
selling your private information, showing sponsored posts. Google is in a more
natural position to advertise, it doesn't have as much to gain by showing you
annoying ads as Facebook. In addition to all of this, Google does not seem
afraid to venture out into completely new areas. I'm not saying Google is an
innocent saint that'll never do any wrong, but it's pretty clear Google's
future is markedly brighter than Facebook's. It'll be interesting to see how
Google+ shapes in the coming years. One interesting possibility is Google+
having no ads at all (it currently does not have any) for all of its life,
_because Google can afford to do that_ and everyone will like that.

~~~
threeseed
Google's future is markedly better than Facebook's ? No way.

Facebook has stickiness and the network effects to keep people on it. Google
has none of that. If a better search engine appeared overnight everyone would
switch to it and that would be the end of Google. If a better social network
appeared very few people would switch. In fact I would postulate that if
Microsoft managed to convince Mozilla and Apple to change the default search
engines to Bing that it could be almost enough to send Google into a death
spiral.

~~~
rednukleus
How many people do you know who use gmail? Every time they go on the webmail
client they are pretty much back on Google's homepage.

Between all the people who use Android, Chrome, gmail etc, Google would be
just fine if Apple and Mozilla changed default search engines.

At the moment, Facebook are a one trick pony that many people can easily live
without.

~~~
busterarm
Literally one-hundred percent of the people I know who are really serious
about email are moving away from Gmail. It was only in mid-2012 that they
passed Hotmail for being the biggest email service in the world. Gmail is very
popular among certain types of (mostly technical) people.

In fact, it's probably Android that has put them over the edge. Gmail still
has a fragile position. At least as far as my browsing habits are concerned,
using Gmail didn't lead me back to google search or any of their other
services.

Could you imagine what the world would look like if somehow in 4 or 5 years
Firefox OS ended up eating Android's lunch?

Search is a major component of their advertising business, which these days is
their core business. If people switched they'd definitely be in a major pinch.

~~~
rednukleus
Most people I know use gmail, and not a single one of them is thinking of
changing due to privacy concerns (as far as I know). What better option is
there for a non-technical person anyway?

80%+ of people who own smartphones use android, and they have phones for most
niches - big, small, cheap, stylus, unlockable, replaceable battery etc. They
have several manufacturers making phones with it. Their position there is not
fragile either.

I'd love to see Firefox take off, but there is no way it is going to be bigger
than Android.

Sure, there is a very small chance that everyone will stop using Google's
products, but the chances of people moving off Facebook is much greater.

~~~
busterarm
People said the same things about iPhones, Blackberries before that and Palm
before them.

There is always some company that's going to eat the dominant company's lunch.

To think otherwise is to ignore history.

~~~
rednukleus
You are missing my point. It is not that it is impossible for people to move
away from Google, just that it is far more likely that they will move away
from Facebook.

And I don't remember anyone saying that people wouldn't eventually move away
from iPhones, blackberries and Palm pilots. People might move away from
Android, but it would take many years, and it probably won't be en masse to
FFOS.

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jmduke
In the past three days, I've read that the following companies are doomed:
Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, LinkedIn, and Samsung.

Good thing I have so many blog posts to tell me about it! Otherwise, I don't
think I would have noticed. After all, it's pretty hard to tell that Facebook
is doomed, what with all the numbers.

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millstone
This was a bizarre read. Here's my favorite line:

 _" I expect that a successor to Google Glass will replace my laptop, iPad,
and TV; incorporate voice recognition and gestures; and provide me with an
immersive 3D-viewing experience."_

If you aren't convinced that Google is doing amazing things, then just look at
this feature list I made up in my head for the next version of a product that
hasn't even shipped!

Stand clear when those expectations collide with reality.

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nemothekid
Last time facebook was doomed they managed to set an all time stock price high
by getting their shit together.

Google has been public for 9 years now, facebook is just over a year. To call
them doomed because they seem intently focused on controlling their
rollercoaster stock price seems a little short sighted. At least give them the
chance to get their house in order before lambasting them for not spending
enough money on trying to make people live forever.

~~~
iamshs
Every tech company is doomed, except Google.

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Asterick6
Not a very good article. The author implies that there will be a mass
migration of users to another service if Facebook remains stagnant in terms of
carrying out acquisitions. But Facebook continues to improve and update the
user experience, so there is little incentive for users to move to a would-be
competitor. Not when they already have connections with family members, close
friends, and many others. Facebook has very much become a part of many users
daily lives like using the Internet, and users have already invested a lot
into Facebook; it's like a sunk cost. FB may remain static (in the same niche
market) if they don't carry out more acquisitions, but that's (may be) fine.
They can't be "doomed" just because other companies are carrying out more
acquisitions.

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rxl
This article is quite sensationalist and doesn't seem to consider the fact
that every company today is in a different stage of its life cycle.

FB was founded in 2004, while Google was founded in 1998, so it's appropriate
to compare today's Facebook with 2007's Google, pre-android and all.

Box was founded in 2005, salesforce: 1999, linkedin: 2001, jawbone: 1999,
workday: 2005, amazon: 1994.

Note that the two oldest companies in this list are Amazon and Google, so it's
no wonder that they are the ones who have expanded the most beyond their
initial markets.

It's always taken a while to build a great company that competes in 2+
markets, and that hasn't changed.

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busterarm
This guy seriously thinks that people don't hate Google?

Has he not been paying attention to all of the hate been directed at them at
this year alone? After Reader? After the NSA leaks?

~~~
DanBC
The number of people who've actually stopped using Google is probably _tiny_.

People have been complaining about FB for years, and yet they're still huge.

~~~
busterarm
The number of people who've stopped using Facebook is pretty tiny when you
consider their usercount as well.

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michaelwww
_Google’s Wi-Fi balloons, called Google Loon, could provide me with
connectivity when I go hiking in the mountains_

Don't people want to disconnect anymore or is just me?

~~~
cheald
And possibly miss reading about what one of my friends ate for breakfast? Are
you _mad_?

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Aqueous
I mean, points on Google being a broader, more innovative company with a
larger vision are well taken. And Facebook is still the college dorm room
social network. But it's hard to see how a site with 1.1 billion global users
will shrink to irrelevance any time soon. Even if it loses 600 million of
those users, 500 million people are still using it. Facebook is not doomed by
any stretch of the imagination, unless I'm not seeing your definition of
'doom.'

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ChuckMcM
They may be doomed but they are giving their stock holders a nice return.
(disclaimer I hold FB stock, not a lot but whatever).

The weird thing here is that Google wouldn't be so damned focused on ruining
their primary product (search) if Facebook wasn't doing as well as it is. So I
measure Facebook's success by that, how much Google is willing to damage their
bread and butter properties to compete. By that measure they are doing just
fine.

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lmg643
if facebook is able to continue on their mission of "connecting" people and
using the registered folks to figure out ways to make it useful, i am sure
they will be around for a while.

maybe if it became less "buzz worthy" (ie, teen-focused) and more
boring/pragmatic, it could find even more uses for the network and ways to be
ubiquitous for a long time. seems like they could displace a lot of firms out
there - linkedin being an obvious example. (i know everyone has linked in in a
different mental box than facebook, but that could change.)

of course - no company lasts forever. very few companies sustain for 30-40+
years. it's not necessarily a reflection on "the company" that this happens,
virtually every company is flawed in some way and time exposes the cracks and
can break it apart.

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nikolakirev
Why stop with Facebook? Any company, that does not have self driving cars and
Internet balloons is doomed.

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onedev
This is actually just straight up stupid. In so many ways, that I don't care
to do a useful deconstruction of the post.

I think we should expect a "Facebook is doomed" article at least once a month
and just ignore them because they're usually baseless.

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capkutay
Can the writer of this article read what he's saying? "Fb is lame because
they're just using my data to sell me annoying ads...Google on the other hand
is learning about me with my data!" (Which they will use to sell you ads)

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prostoalex
#1 [http://pandawhale.com/post/6939/reading-hacker-news-as-a-
non...](http://pandawhale.com/post/6939/reading-hacker-news-as-a-non-cs-
liberal-arts-major-bay-area-quarter-life)

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annasaru
This author likes to make wordy predictions and kick up a buzz. That allows
him to maintain his 'opinion leader' status. He doesn't have much of real
substance to say..

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callmeed
_> It will, for sure, buy or copy more hot products such as Instagram,
Pinterest, and Foursquare._

I'm pretty sure one of those happened already ...

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yeukhon
Well, before Facebook or MS or Google is doommed, I am sure BlackBerry is
doomed first.

~~~
iamshs
hahahahahaha. Its true, but the Waterloo giant going down still saddens me.
Well, it had its glory days.

~~~
yeukhon
The thing is no single company can survive forever. Soon or later big
companies have to be broken up to survive. I'd imagine in the future Google
and Apple will face the same problem that MS and Blackberry are facing. Their
products are now commonly seen and used don't really mean their business can
go well forever. Without attractions (from both users and news reporters), new
competitors can sell similar products in more compelling ways and then steal
the market.

~~~
onedev
Now explain IBM.

