
Social Networks Implode Quickly  - dmuino
http://diegobasch.com/social-networks-implode-quickly
======
dm8
Network effects are not indefensible. I don't understand why so many people in
the bay area think that network effects are impossible to break in. Here is an
example. Orkut. All my friends including myself were on Orkut in 2004/2005. By
2008 everyone moved to FB. Why? Orkut had horrible UX and buggy system. FB was
breath of fresh air compared to that. Even though Orkut has superior privacy
features (I still say they had best privacy features for any social app). FB
is moving in that direction. It's quite buggy system and if FB must address
the overall quality of application. It looks like Orkut in 2007.

------
_suoiruc
I think MS will acquire FB.

The FB social network will die, in time, but it's still the world's largest
email address list, plus all sorts of personal information that can be used to
insidiously coax consumers.

Every FB user should gather up all the email addys of their friends and keep
them in a safe place offline. This way you never lose contact.

FB allowed people to submit their email addresses to a central website and
thereby connect/reconnect with friends, colleagues and so forth. This sharing
of email addresses is not a new thing, but with FB it occurred on an
unprecendented scale. Billions of email addresses (that work!). That is FB's
contribution. Gather those email addresses and keep them offline. Soon you may
be able to form your own social networks that are private, secure and more
functional than FB. But you will need the email addresses of your friends to
get it started. Don't believe that FB should be the safe keeper of your email
address book. They will do what they have to in order to survive as their
business winds down. Those email addresses are its most valuable asset.

~~~
smokinjoe
I'm not making the MS connection - are you saying that Facebook will be
eventually required solely for its email addresses?

~~~
smokinjoe
While it's too late to edit, the typo is driving me insane:

required => acquired.

------
lrem
One lesson from reading this text is: if your site has googleable content, it
will not decay as fast as if you rely on (semi-)active following. Seems quite
obvious when stated this way.

~~~
agilord
yes, although I'd include an AND condition, like "If your site has googleable
content AND you engage your users in a meaningful way..."

------
Avalaxy
I don't think Facebook will die, for two good reasons:

1) there are many more people on facebook than networks like myspace ever had.
This makes a transition much, much harder.

2) facebook is not only used for facebook, but for many third-party apps as
well. People will keep their facebook accounts so that they can log in to
external services.

~~~
upinsmoke
Facebook is similar to people who still use hotmail. There are much better
ones now, but they still keep the old hotmail account.

~~~
Livven
Only that Hotmail has been much improved recently and even got a completely
new design with Outlook.com. Also, care to elaborate on what "much better
ones" there are? I barely use Facebook while Twitter is essential for me, but
I don't see a better social network for most people than Facebook.

------
autotravis
"TL;DR: Big social networks need to take advantage of the spotlight, and
solidify their position to rely less on network effects. Otherwise, they are
extremely risky investments."

Very good point.

~~~
agilord
"Social networks are extremely risky investments, no matter what." ?

------
andrewflnr
Interesting. I can see Quora having that long tail of useful traffic, even if
the community collapses.

~~~
diego
In fact Quora ranks pretty high in Alexa for what I believe is a relatively
small user base. They must have a significant number of lurkers and decent
SEO.

<http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/quora.com>

------
drp4929
Growing a company is one aspect while sustaining a company is another. Social
Networks naturally take advantage of network effect while growing. It is not
easy to sustain the company if perceived value provided by the company erodes
quickly from its core customers' point of view. Whenever a company collapses
usually it is because customers do not want its products for whatever reason.

------
tokenadult
There are various historical examples of various online networks. The one I
began with in 1992 was the Prodigy commercial online network (which I had
actually tried out as early as 1989). My paradigmatic example of an online
network that faded away is AOL, which is still in business. My prediction
about Facebook, posted previously here on HN, is "Facebook will go the way of
AOL, still being a factor in the industry years from now, but also serving as
an example of a company that could never monetize up to the level of the hype
surrounding it." I could be wrong, but that's my sense of where Facebook is in
the market.

