
The end of the Facebook era - chrysb
http://takeaswig.com/the-end-of-the-facebook-era
======
melling
Here are some titles for the next story.

"The end of the Apple era"

"The end of the Microsoft era"

"The end of the Netflix era"

"The end of the Yahoo era"

Seriously, why do people waste time writing these types of stories? My guess
is that it's because it's so much easier than actually trying to build
something of value. The real problem is there is no penalty for being wrong.
Everyone simply forgets. Write a thousand stories and if just one of them is
right then you get to claim your genius.

Where are those guys who predicated that Apple Stores were such a stupid idea?
We need to start keeping score.

[http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2001-05-20/commentary-
so...](http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2001-05-20/commentary-sorry-steve-
heres-why-apple-stores-wont-work)

~~~
selmnoo
Why. Why must you do this. Why must you dismiss articles on hackneyed grounds
and kill the chance for an interesting discussion about the nature and
direction of social technologies.

I thought this article was very interesting, it brought to light several
factual points, and several not-heard-before insights -- e.g., I thought this
in particular was very true and interesting:

    
    
        This is why social networks, like Google+ (where I 
        worked for one year), are struggling even more than 
        Facebook to get a foothold in the future of social 
        networking. They are betting on last year’s fashion
    

I'm surprised it wasn't Google that made an offer on Snapchat, since it's
normally quite forward-looking. But then again, social has never been Google's
forte has it.

~~~
Kequc
> social has never been Google's forte has it.

It hasn't been anybody's forte except for facebook by that standard. On the
contrary g+ is far better than facebook by any measurement you choose to use,
it isn't missing anything. A supportive user base mostly absent only in the
minds of people vehemently dying for it to be absent. These people who repeat
the idea that using google for social networking is the worst thing they've
ever heard or thought about. The technology is still sound, meanwhile.

~~~
Turing_Machine
"On the contrary g+ is far better than facebook by any measurement you choose
to use, it isn't missing anything."

The G+ API sucks. Bad. It might as well not even be there for all the use you
can get out of it.

Do a serious comparison of the Facebook Graph API to what passes for an API on
G+, then tell us again that it isn't missing anything.

------
crazygringo
> _Teens likely see Facebook the same way the Facebook generation sees
> LinkedIn – like a utilitarian place to manage connections._

I've heard it a billion times that teens aren't using Facebook. But _who
cares_? I just don't see any evidence that this heralds the end of Facebook.

It's not necessarily any more meaningful than "people ages 65-70 don't use
Facebook". It's a small percentage of the population. And there's no
indication that teens are using something else that will _replace_ Facebook
when they're in their 20's and 30's -- you can't organize parties on Instagram
or Snapchat. Every indication is that teens get onto Facebook once they stop
being teens, correct me if I'm wrong.

Can we stop talking about this ineffable "cool" factor, until there's any kind
of evidence that it is actually necessary for Facebook's continued success? I
mean, I don't remember Facebook _ever_ being cool. It's always been pretty
drab, a pretty bland boring blue, with an interface much like an OS. But it
just works better than the alternatives, and keeps working better. Why people
are suddenly constantly talking about this "lack of cool" is beyond me.

~~~
cylinder
I don't care about teenagers, but I do find it very interesting that the
"founding members" of Facebook, people who were college students in 2004-2005
who excitedly joined and engaged with Facebook in its early years, are just
not very engaged with FB anymore (I'm one of them), unless they maybe just had
a baby.

It's almost disturbing that these days a company can be founded, become an
overnight success, grow immensely, have a huge IPO, then get disrupted and on
the decline in a span of only nine years.

~~~
RandallBrown
I joined facebook in 2005 and I think I'm just as engaged as ever.

I use it for sharing pictures with my friends and family. Hiking, skiing,
camping, vacations, whatever. My family loves seeing that crap. My friends do
too. The group album feature released a few months ago is AWESOME for that
stuff.

Organizing events without facebook is tough. Facebook handles RSVPs. Has polls
for things at the event (where should it be, what should we eat, etc.). Lets
you post pictures. Lets you discuss everything.

Groups are fantastic also. I have a group where people post if they're going
skiing this weekend. I used a group to coordinate 10 people training and
participating in a Tough Mudder event. I have another group to coordinate a
small semi-startup I'm a part of.

I can't imagine my life without facebook anymore.

~~~
visakanv
I highly recommend deactivating for a month, just to experience the
difference. It's phenomenal. If you choose to reconnect, you'll look at
everything differently. It's just amazing, you have to try it.

------
chaz
An alternate opinion: Facebook is heading toward the Trough of Disillusionment
of the Hype Cycle:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle)

Facebook was so ridiculously hot a few years ago that it couldn't possibly
have met all of its expectations for changing how we all communicate,
replacing all other messaging mediums, dominating how we shop and buy, the
portal for all things entertainment, etc.

> Teens likely see Facebook the same way the Facebook generation sees LinkedIn
> – like a utilitarian place to manage connections.

This sounds a lot like the Plateau of Productivity to me.

~~~
Theodores
Weirdly the Google 'trends' graph correlates _if_ you click on the 'forecast'
button:

[http://www.google.co.uk/trends/explore#q=%2Fm%2F02y1vz%2C%20...](http://www.google.co.uk/trends/explore#q=%2Fm%2F02y1vz%2C%20%2Fm%2F04ny5g&geo=GB&cmpt=q)

However, a forecast is just a forecast, not happened yet. The 'trend' graph
spikes with the IPO which had no relevance for 99% of Facebook users. Take
that spike out, ignore the 'forecast' and Facebook is doing the 'myspace
curve' and in a similar time frame.

Anyway, where is the Facebook login for Hacker News?

~~~
Gustomaximus
I got GB region only from your link. The worldwide view shows ongoing growth:
[http://bit.ly/1dIbkpF](http://bit.ly/1dIbkpF)

------
the_watcher
>> Teens likely see Facebook the same way the Facebook generation sees
LinkedIn – like a utilitarian place to manage connections.

This is why the "millennials are leaving Facebook" worry isn't actually real.
Yes, middle schoolers and high schoolers aren't using Facebook. They are at a
stage in their life where the idea of their parents being able to see into
their life is scary. Their social circle is also disproportionately made up of
people they can easily see every day. Facebook's utility for contact
management, event planning, and keeping in touch doesn't really begin until
people turn 18 and go out on their own. This doesn't even begin to touch the
ease of using it to sign up for other products that are built on top of it.

~~~
Jhsto
I'am 18 and I agree with you. The way the discussion one day happened in
status updates have now moved to usually hidden groups. The groups are usually
built around some specific event, say prams, or alternatively around some
common interest such as LAN gaming or binge drinking. It works as a new and
more appealing way to create what you may consider mailing lists. Engaging in
those groups is easier as you post something relevant to the topic and know
that your or your friends aunt will not see what you said.

~~~
boomzilla
Great, welcome to the age of bulletin board.

~~~
the_watcher
>> welcome to the age of bulletin board.

Facebook was created as an online replacement for something that had been
around in physical form for a long time. Welcome to Facebook.

~~~
nkohari
I think boomzilla was talking about electronic bulletin boards, i.e. BBSes and
the web-based forum replacements that grew from them. (And it's an apt
comparison -- forums remain an important social aspect of the web.)

------
wpietri
Very interesting. A few years back, I was fascinated to see how much Facebook
had become the native medium for the whippersnappers. Some of our interns
thought of email like I thought of fax machines.

But even if Facebook is prone to stumble, I'd encourage entrepreneurs not to
try to be the "next Facebook". As I wrote elsewhere [1]: "Honestly, there
probably won't be a 'next Facebook', for the same reason there hasn't been a
next Amazon, next Oracle, next Google, or next Apple. There hasn't even been a
next Yahoo, because the secret to success for many startups wasn't being
another Yahoo, it was being different. Something you should think hard on:
Zuckerberg didn't set out to make the next Facebook, or the next anything. He
was just making something fun for himself and his fellow Harvard students. It
was only when he saw how powerful his creation was that his ambitions
increased."

This seems especially relevant to me now that I'm seeing ads around San
Francisco for two new social networks that are lamely trying to be the next
Facebook.

[1] [https://www.quora.com/Entrepreneurship/Is-it-foolish-to-
go-t...](https://www.quora.com/Entrepreneurship/Is-it-foolish-to-go-to-
Startup-Weekend-like-events-and-widely-pitch-my-next-Facebook-idea-in-search-
of-co-founders/answer/William-Pietri?share=1)

~~~
chasing
Wasn't Facebook the "next Friendster?" I feel like it was actually a relative
latecomer to the social networking party of the early '00s. Not to diss FB or
their achievement, but it certainly felt like an evolution rather than a
revolution upon launch. Only once they built up steam did it really begin to
become an entirely new sort of beast.

Same with Google, no? I feel like they entered a crowded market of search
engines and came out on top, but certainly weren't the first of their kind.

~~~
dragontamer
Some of us have longer memories than others.

* Facebook was the "Next MySpace"

* MySpace was the "Next Xanga"

* Xanga was the "Next Homestead"

* Homestead was the "Next Geocities"

------
Swizec
>As your Facebook network becomes saturated, it can feel very public. It puts
the focus on managing your image, rather than truly bonding with people. Young
startups like Snapchat are providing shelter from the institution of Facebook
by serving as a place where you can express yourself comfortably. A place
where you don’t feel like your every move is being watched.

This is something I will likely never understand. _Why_ do people have so much
trouble with being themselves? This isn't a Facebook problem, this is a
society problem. Facebook just exposed it.

Instead of talking about the end of the FB era and making new social networks,
we should talk about making people more comfortable with being themselves. The
first step is to stop spending so much time judging everyone.

~~~
cenhyperion
>Why do people have so much trouble with being themselves?

Because people's lives have different sections that often have parts you don't
want to overlap. You probably don't want your boss seeing a photo of you drunk
at a party, and you probably don't want your conservative uncle to see that
you are politically liberal.

In both those circumstances it's not that you'd necessarily _hide_ those parts
of your personality from the other parties involved; your boss probably gets
drunk too and your uncle isn't going to stop speaking to you because your
political views differ. It's more that it doesn't improve the relationship
with that person.

Yes, it would be great if people didn't judge each other but unfortunately
that's not how the psychology works.

So, unless you live a life in which you're comfortable revealing every opinion
you hold and every action you've taken (in which case _wow_ that's impressive)
you have to maintain a certain image that you broadcast on a service like
facebook.

~~~
waps
Well, for one thing, when working for an American company, having real flaws
kills your career. Alcohol abuse in the past. Getting arrested once for drug
abuse. Having participated in manifestations. All of those will turn a
ridiculous amount of Americans into your personal enemy at work, to extents
that I never saw in Europe.

If you ever want to be working for a large American firm : firstly, you deny
anything remotely like a character flaw, you almost violently pursue a
"perfect" online image. Second you hide and deny things like your real
political opinion (esp. the political one). The big public secret about
politics in America is that there is no real difference in tolerance on
average between republicans and democrats, and they're simply all very
intolerant of even minor differences of opinion, and will do everything in
their power to damage you or your reputation merely because of political
differences. Thirdly, realize that people around you will also act like this.
So pushing to hear someone's political opinion, finding out if they really
like this charity they're contributing to that just happens to be the exact
same one as their boss ... DO NOT GO THERE. Get an alias and make sure it
can't be tied to your real name.

I actually made a mistake against this once, and got myself terminated after
an infuriating 3 month period where my performance, which easily bested the
rest of the team, was constantly criticized. Not by coworkers, strictly by
management. A minor mistake was "revenue-impacting" according to my boss, 5
minutes after the sysadmin manager took me out to an expensive lunch on the
company's dime for catching his mistake before it became a disaster. I had
double the number of bugs closed of the next team member, and the whole team
constantly asked me to look at their work. My boss, who never even showed up
at the office, called me in at exactly the interval documented in the HR
procedures to complain about my performance, never citing a single source.
After 3 months I was "let go" for bad performance. I got 2 recommendation
letters from a team leader and an operational manager without even asking. I
am NOT making this mistake again. This all started after a political
discussion.

Of course these rules will not make facebooking with your coworkers a
particularly pleasant experience. You got to have priorities, and "being
yourself" is lower than having a good job and career. Not that I am a great
fan of social interaction online or offline. Especially the empty "look at my
shiny" that happens on facebook/google+/youtube/... And the shouting matches,
even less.

~~~
VLM
You don't have to live/work in Utah.

Its a peculiar graphical distribution such that anywhere within 300 miles of
Chicago (including rural wisconsin, etc) or on the coasts, no one cares about
stuff like that. But god help you in between the areas of freedom. Appalachia,
Dakotas, the remaining English speaking parts of the south, that U shaped area
of wanna be theocratic dictatorship is right out of one of Charlie Stross's
novels, not even a parody, really.

~~~
waps
Sorry to repeat myself, but San Francisco or New York is no better.

------
tannerc
While much of the debate here on HN is around why authors continue to write
pieces about "the end of X" or "the demise of Y", I couldn't help but ask the
question: "Why do we continue to read them/link to them?

Possible answers:

1\. Many of us (or our employers) rely on these audiences for revenue, so
knowing where they are and what they're interested in enables us to have
success

2\. We're interested in what drives success/failure, despite logic indicating
that -- in both scenarios -- random chance plays one of the largest parts

3\. It's like good old-fashioned gossip, where everyone who doesn't actually
have anything to say can still speak up

4\. We hope to learn from history as it happens to us; if we can accurately
predict why people are leaving Facebook and where they're going, we can be
part of -- or the driver of -- the next wave.

------
VLM
"What was cool in the 70s wasn’t cool in the 80s."

Its very important he phrased it that way, because bell bottoms had another
day in the sun. Happily young women wearing skin tight spandex/yoga pants from
the 90s had another day in the 10s. Its difficult to find a womens fashion fad
that doesn't repeat every 20-ish years.

The endless rotating wheel of fashion and fads doesn't rotate at a speed of 1
rotation per decade. Its more like 1 rotation per 2 decades aka generation.

I predict that 2030 will be an excellent year for 2010 style social networks.

~~~
scelerat
I'm unaware of communications and technological trends falling into cycles
like sartorial fashion.

You can use a 20-, 30-, or 50-year-old scarf or jacket you find in a thrift
store, but not a phone or a computer. And very few people would want to.

~~~
VLM
This is very much like the first century of clothing probably was. After
technological innovation in the field ceases, you'll be able to use old stuff.

You can use a 50 year old wired POTS phone no problem. The sound quality is
superior to modern wired phones, and those are superior to any cell or voip
tech.

------
leokun
A big counter point to the Facebook is a fad is Pepsi. Pepsi was considered a
fad in the 60's when it was already 40 years old. It's still around. It buys
coolness with a massive marketing budget. Pepsi is water + corn syrup + some
flavor. And it's been around for many, many decades. Pepsi, and Cola, show
that being old does not mean you can't still be cool.

~~~
coldtea
> _Pepsi was considered a fad in the 60 's when it was already 40 years old.
> It's still around._

Tons of things have been considered fads through the decades, some rightly
(hula-hoops) and some not (rock music). The question, when making an analogy,
is how they relate to Facebook.

Unless you connect Pepsi and Facebook with something more besides (both have
been considered a fad), we cannot draw any conclusions from Pepsi with regards
to Facebook's situation except this:

Sometimes, people can consider something as a fad when it isn't.

If you want to make this analogy work, you have to show why Facebook will be
more like Pepsi and less like the hula-hoop or piano neck-ties.

~~~
bentcorner
Maybe it'll be that the concept of social networks is here to stay
forevermore, but Facebook is just a brand. Social networks are becoming a dime
a dozen, so using Facebook is a brand choice.

There's a social cost to be seen doing the things that everyone else is doing
(the equivalent, say, of wearing a mainstream band t-shirt), so having a
presence on Facebook is just meeting the bar. To be "cool" you need to find
the social networks nobody else knows about, and hang out with your friends
there. Bonus points for alluding, on Facebook, to conversations you had on the
not-Facebook social network.

It may be amusing to find in 10 years that using Facebook becomes a new fad
again and is seen as "retro". Certainly a possibility if Facebook does not
innovate itself to non-recognizability.

------
marban
What about leaving the endless discussion about FB's destiny aside and just
focus on creating a __new pattern of behavior or activity__ that appeals to a
mass audience if you really want to build a large network on its own?

Examples of things that worked:

\- Follow updates of celebrities

\- Collect nice looking things on a website

\- Make even the worst picture look good

\- Be the best cat gif curator

Examples of things that didn't work:

\- Facebook but for ten friends

\- Facebook for Google Accounts

\- Facebook with open data portability

Let Zuck worry about the hype cycle and start building.

------
stevenj
Friendly wager offer: I'll bet anyone $100 that Facebook is still the largest
social network based on monthly active users in 5 years. (Facebook itself, not
any companies it acquires.)

We can either use public company stats, or a couple of respected publications'
reported usage stats, or a combination of both to decide the winner.

~~~
sirkneeland
Just as Microsoft Windows is still the largest desktop OS, but nobody seems to
care. It is entirely possible to have continued dominance of industry (X) only
to find that the value of dominating industry (X) isn't what it used to be...

------
mlyang
The downfall of Facebook is what was the crux of its initial success: the
comprehensive largeness of one's social network. On Facebook, most people
accept all acquaintances and friends they have in real life (should they get a
friend request)-- it would be rude not to-- and as a result, one's Friends
List is usually a pretty good indication of one's entire social network. This
allowed Facebook to gain its initial network effects, but this is also now
paralyzing the activity of its individual users. I feel uncomfortable posting
extensively online because there are many people in my friends list who I feel
uncomfortable seeing my things (and I don't care enough to create Private
lists).

As far as addressing the teen exodus, and related to the above impact,
Facebook's NewsFeed is just not interesting anymore. Back when Facebook
started, I was friends largely with 100-300 people whose lives I actually was
interested in. I am not interested in the minutiae of my current 1000+
friends' lives, and their endless and meaningless statuses bore me to no end.
Facebook wanted its NewsFeed to break out of the echo chamber effect, and
therefore made the NewsFeed algorithm more random, putting the onus of
creating relevant NewsFeeds on the individual user (through the creation of
individual lists of friends). But USERS WANT THE ECHO CHAMBER EFFECT! I don't
want to know what's happening in the "town square,"\-- I want to know what's
happening with my 20 closest friends. Because teens joined on when this new
paradigm was already in place, there's nothing to draw them in. It's just not
interesting-- and apps like Instagram and Snapchat are more engaging as a
result because they're more personal.

Lastly, Facebook is way too cluttered. It has an atrocious UI, so many buttons
all over the place. Mark Zuckerberg's utilitarian aesthetic lives to today,
only it's way worse because Facebook has so much more (useless) functionality.
Instagram and Snapchat are clean and elegant-- it's not jarring to open those
apps like it is to navigate Facebook.

------
aorshan
As a younger person that these types of articles are so fond of talking about
(I'm 21), I don't agree that members of my generation are leaving and that we
don't perceive Facebook as cool. I think what's changed with the new social
media companies is the timeliness of when we do things.

Perfect example- I was out for a Secret Santa dinner with a bunch of my
friends. While we were at the dinner, we took tons of pictures, some of which
ended up as Snapchat stories or on Instagram. But later that night, every
single one of those pictures went up on Facebook. Cover photos were updated
aplently. Why? Because all of us are on Facebook and Facebook is still the
best way to permanently store and share the experiences you've had with your
friends (while also tagging them in the photos).

------
ek
I found this article really interesting. I started using Facebook in high
school, back when high schoolers were to use hs.facebook.com to access
Facebook and networks were heavily emphasized. I left Facebook about one year
ago today.

One particular observation that the article makes that I want to flesh out a
bit is the following: Facebook has grown and grown in terms of the size of the
application itself, and it is clear that they have pushed very heavily for the
'platform' model. It seems like this is getting replaced by a series of more
specialized, more mobile-centric social applications, like Snapchat and
Tumblr. Of course FB owns Instagram so they have that going for them, but this
does seem to hint at a bit of a growing trend in social networking.

------
TrevorJ
Social networking needs to be a specification. Imagine if email worked the
same way social networks worked, it would be ridiculous. You could only
communicate with other gmail users, or whatever users were on the platform you
adopted. I understand from a business standpoint _why_ social networks have
evolved the way they have, but from a utility standpoint it is a lose/lose to
have these walled gardens.

What would be much better, is to let users use whatever platform they wish and
implement some common protocol for following, status updates and private
messaging.

~~~
VLM
RSS feeds on a blog and "click here to email me" links?

Personally I'm waiting for someone to "reinvent" NNTP.

~~~
quesera
Done. It's called reddit, and unfortunately not federated.

We're in a recentralization cycle of services, because it's easier to build
(and more monetizable) than similar distributed services.

When we have the technical building blocks and business creativity to break
the cycle, things will get interesting again.

------
neakor
I see the evolution of social networking evolving from connecting with
everyone in the world, aka public networking to only connect with the ones you
actually care about, aka private networking. When Facebook was cool, it was
cool to know that you can post a status update and have the "whole world" see
it. With the rise of messaging services (snapchat, whatsapp, line and so on),
we are moving to the stage where you only share with a very small group of
closely connected individuals. A more intimate network.

------
davidbyttow
I think FB is simply transitioning from product to utility, like electricity.

Just one example is its utility to sign up and log in to other services, which
is 95%+ of my FB activity.

~~~
dr_doom
Unlikely. I have never had a facebook and with the exception of spotify, which
now has email sign up, no service I use has required fb to log in.

------
at-fates-hands
>>> But it’s rich, so it can buy cool. Facebook’s $1 billion acquisition of
Instagram was their first big move to strengthen their position with the youth
of this country.

But with young people, if Facebook is uncool, then by proxy Instagram is
uncool as well. This is how teenagers think these days. They can sink as much
money into other social platforms, but you won't ever get rid of the Facebook
stigma.

~~~
elwell
I think you're overestimating how many teens know that Facebook owns
Instagram.

~~~
cdcarter
No, I bet quite a lot of teens are at least aware the sale happened. But they
don't think about it every day. They don't care. Because Instagram is cool. In
spite of facebook.

------
ExpendableGuy
"Social" isn't a fad, but channels dedicated to being "social" might be. This
is pure conjecture, but I think a major component of Twitter's success was
that participating did not require you to use an official Twitter client.
Ubiquity spurred growth. It's an example of "social media," not a "channel for
social."

Another major component of Facebook's decline was their lack of a mobile
strategy. Again, pure conjecture, but as mobile use in teens increases, the
mobile experience matters more -- the Facebook app was unusable for a long
time, and that probably had an effect on growth and reputation.

In my opinion, the biggest risk for Facebook is the paradigm shift in how we
share photos. A big component of their growth in 2009 - 2011 was their
dominance in the photo sharing space. They're the number one photo sharing
site in the world. Now photo sharing and picture taking are a mobile
experience (e.g., Snapchat, Instragram), being the number one photo sharing
site isn't as big of a deal. The purchase of Instagram was smart.

------
alphonse23
Very well written. Bravo! No doubt, facebook hasn't been cool to me for a
least 2-3 years now for me -- if it ever was from the very beginning.

------
wcummings
I agree 100% with the author. I log into Facebook once a day, maybe. I don't
have fb messenger on my phone. I use mailing lists (set one up for your
friends, great, simple way to share photos etc w/ a select group of
people)/WhatsApp/Snapchat/IRC (IRCCloud on my phone, because SSH eats up
battery).

I used to be a much heavier Facebook user. Now I get hassled by family for
saying uncouth things, and generally see it as a chore. Everything you do on
Facebook is chronicled on your timeline, and has a certain amount of
permanency, and while I'm sure you can delete a lot of it its clearly not the
intention, so it does require more "curation", as compared to transient chat
apps. The privacy controls are opaque and its hard to be sure exactly who
you're sharing with, which makes it hard to be comfortable really sharing a
lot on Facebook.

~~~
qq66
You "log into Facebook once a day, maybe."

How few companies can you say that about? That you use their product every
day? Your mattress. Your refrigerator. Your toothpaste. Your car. Not only
have all of their manufacturers have been around for nearly a century, but
they all have perfect substitutes: Crest and Colgate. By your own anecdote,
Facebook is in a very enviable position.

~~~
wcummings
They're not going to disappear, that's for sure, my point was my level of
engagement on Facebook is not what it used to be, the way I use it has
changed.

------
edgrimley
Mobile has radically changed the social adoption cycle more than we've
realized. Facebook is clearly the product of desktop world, where much of the
information that made it valuable, particularly the social graph, needed to be
contributed to the product to be effective.

The move to quickly-adopted "apps" has accelerated in mobile because the
plumbing is already in place:

1\. Contact list / address book Implicit network already exists, does not need
to be built in the new product.

2\. Location GPS takes apps beyond check-ins - adding context and information
to posts. Even enabling new sorts of dating networks.

3\. Media Photos and video, combined with location, contacts and persistent
connections on one device make it easier than ever to include photos and
video.

This combination (not to mention building on the Facebook platform) will
continue to enable faster developing and more narrow focused "networks".

------
DanielBMarkham
The author here makes a convincing argument that there is a "cool factor" in
internet apps but then overstates his case dramatically when he sees the end
of FB on the horizon. Simply because a tool loses it's cachet doesn't mean
that the network effects go away.

Or put more directly: sure, hip 20-somethings don't give Facebook the love
they once did. Who cares? FB doesn't have to play the "I'm the coolest kid in
town" game any more. As the author says, they can _buy_ cool. All they have to
do now is remain the only tool to wish Grandma a happy birthday.

Or, as some FB'er put it years ago, they're the phonebook, dammit. Their goal
is to be a utility. They want to be the radio station, not the rock band.

------
PaulHoule
I can say I use Facebook Connect to log into web sites everyday, and sometimes
I post to Facebook using other sites (if I pin something on Pinterest) but I
actually check my facebook page one a month or so.

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vezzy-fnord
All social networks have remarkably short golden eras. That said, even though
Facebook is declining, I still think all the articles about the "end of the
Facebook era" and "death of Facebook" are sensational and exaggerated. They're
still, what?... The second or the third highest traffic website
internationally? Over a billion registered accounts (regardless of whether
only half are legitimate and being used, it's a lot).

As the author noted though, Facebook can still thrive in the "cool factor"
with their acquisitions.

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jokoon
Even if you don't care or agree about what revolves around Snowden and the
NSA, I'm sure it got many people wondering about how facebook operated and how
information works.

Even if nothing is done about the NSA, it will have the merit of making
facebook less and less popular, and make people not trust websites who might
be information hungry.

I wonder if people thwarting the way they post their info can really make
those info gathering useless. That'd fun to watch.

------
neals
I see it so much around me. Small Whatsapp groups, going back to sharing with
just the ones we want to share it with. No content police. No long on-line
history.

------
chm
Facebook is a fad. There is no Facebook "era".

~~~
untog
If it's a fad then it has a time period where it is popular, which is entirely
reasonable to call an "era".

~~~
chm
I had similar comments from other people, so I will reply here:

In my native tongue, 10 years wouldn't be called an "era", hence the
disagreement.

------
shanev
I believe another reason teenagers are leaving Facebook is the insistence of
using your real identity. Teens don't want their mom finding them online.
That's why they're flocking to services where they can be anonymous, like
Tumblr, where you can also meet new people outside of your circle of friends.

------
Touche
> What teenager wants to hang out in the same place as their parents?

Parents have been on Facebook for a long time. Why are teenagers today leaving
but not teenagers from 3 years ago?

Also, why is it assumed that teenagers who stopped using Facebook today aren't
going to come back when they get older and have adult-things they want to
share?

~~~
chippy
ahh, it's not that the teenagers are seeing adults share things and not liking
what is being posted, it's that people are uncomfortable posting things
because other people may see them.

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asmman1
Who cares about Facebook "era".

------
michaelwww
Teenagers become soccer Moms and sports watching Dads wondering what happened
to their high school friends. There is no better place than Facebook to
casually stay in touch. It's part of our life now, like it or not, even though
it's not new or fresh anymore.

------
userulluipeste
"We filter too much, and with that, we lose real human connection."

The one (most outstanding) treat that turned me off from the very first moment
I saw that site is that the most "facebook people" tend to filter too little!

------
tn13
Do Teens spend a lot of money online ? If they dont then Facebook need not
worry about "teens" as such. What happens to todays teens once they are in
their 20s ? That is more important question here.

------
mikeg8
I really enjoyed this post and found it oddly inspiring. Similar to the Steve
Jobs quote about knowing you will die someday and how it helps make decisions.
Thanks to the author.

------
speakme
"Facebook is a public company now, which means it has to operate like a
business."

Pretty sad indictment of the tech industry that operating like a business had
to be qualified.

------
chippy
"No one wants to play in your creepy tree house"

Facebook has turned into a creepy tree house - it's no longer a place for
people to play. Because it's creepy.

------
johnclass
In my experience, comments are moving from Facebook to apps such as whatsapp.

------
shmerl
Decentralized social networks is the new thing.

------
post_break
Facebook used to be fun. Now it's a chore.

------
michaelochurch
Snapchat is a frivolous, silly app mainly used for sexting. I agree that there
is something in combing asynchrony and ephemerality, but come on. Nothing run
by the likes of Evan Spiegel is going to threaten Facebook. He's not in the
same class as Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates. He's not even in the same class
as me. He's a rich kid and a lottery winner and should have sold at $3 billion
and let someone else run it.

Now, what's going to beat Facebook and LinkedIn and much else in the _long_
run-- and by "long" I mean 2020-25 is something I call "quality social".
Facebook provides "social" and there is no meaningful filter on quality.
That's not a knock on Facebook; that's not its job. People can fill your feed
with junk. Of your 400 "friends", 390 are really acquaintances. I have the
most respect for what Meetup is doing ("use the Internet to get off the
Internet") but the problem of providing a _quality_ social experience over the
Internet is an unsolved one. (Meetup just helps people plan offline
experiences.) I think that it will start with multiplayer games. Board games
are great at alleviating social awkwardness that forms when people are new to
each other or haven't kept in touch for a while. It goes beyond games, though;
really, the problem is how to allow people to have meaningful and social
experiences in such a way that they can be online, offline, or mixed (i.e. a
game where some people are physically in the same place and some are not, or a
game that persists as their locations change). Maybe we should try this out,
do an Ambition tournament some time in 2014. Anyway, there are a lot of
unknown variables-- especially around mobile devices-- but Quality Social is
where the future (of social/consumer web) is coming from.

~~~
freyr
> Snapchat is a frivolous, silly app

Sure.

> mainly used for sexting.

Is this actually true? It hasn't really been my experience, but maybe my
friends are prudes.

> I agree that there is something in combing asynchrony and ephemerality, but
> come on. Nothing run by the likes of Evan Spiegel is going to threaten
> Facebook. He's not in the same class as Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates. He's
> not even in the same class as me. He's a rich kid and a lottery winner and
> should have sold at $3 billion and let someone else run it.

The amount of butthurt in this comment is off the charts. You just took
butthurt to 11.

Mark Zuckerberg was also a snotty, privileged rich kid once (he's not a kid
anymore). In any case, who are you to put limits on what some 20-something kid
is capable of? Because you have a lot of imaginary points on a comment board?
Maybe his success is due to luck, or maybe it's because he didn't spend his
time tearing down other people on a comment board.

Anyway, go ahead and build out Quality Social. Take the $3B offer, or maybe
you should decline it because you're in another class.

------
amerika_blog
It can't end soon enough.

The open internet meant that anyone with TCP/IP could see all content.

Facebook put everything behind a wall that was both effective at blocking open
access and ineffective at protecting privacy.

The centralization of the internet into a handful of sites -- Twitter,
Wikipedia, Facebook, and Google -- is destructive to the original mission and
concept of the internet.

------
goggles99
Teen use on Facebook is declining? Well teens don't generally have much money
anyway. How does this translate to the end of Facebook? How many teens use
Linkedin?

------
a3voices
I think Facebook will change from a product to a technology conglomerate,
similar to Yahoo or Google.

~~~
ghostdiver
Low traffic on facebook.com domain = no money

