
Is Facebook becoming the next MySpace? - grobmeier
http://www.grobmeier.de/is-facebook-becoming-the-next-myspace-31102012.html
======
joonix
Well, people's engagement with facebook has certainly declined from its peak
years ago.

However, all your "friends" are on it. Nobody wants to go back through that
process on an upstart network. Nobody has the energy or motivation.

There's plenty of room for new entrants that take slices of your friends and
optimize that experience. For example, another network for just your family...
offering a close, intimate experience, one you feel comfortable sharing all
your baby pics on, etc. Another network for professional (sorry, LinkedIn
already there). Another for your classmates. All sitting under the facebook
umbrella that has your entire social graph.

But one thing that's clear about facebook is they are not at all focused on
improving the user experience any longer. They are not unveiling new features
that improve _user_ experience. They are fully engaged with improving the
_advertiser_ experience. Maximizing the value of the data they have on you.
Maximizing ad revenue. These aren't bad things and are obviously necessary,
but when a company seems 100% focused on the revenue rather than the _user_ ,
I think that signals the start of a decline.

~~~
wickedbass
> Nobody wants to go back through that process on an upstart network. Nobody
> has the energy or motivation.

I disagree. Firstly, you make it sound as if filling out some information
about yourself (don't we do that all the time anyways?), posting some
pictures, and updating your status is some overwhelming endeavor. For those of
us old enough to have started on myspace and switched to facebook, it really
was pretty seamless.

I'm not saying anyone should rush to develop the "next facebook", but I do
think that the new entrants you speak of could easily become significant later
on.

I agree that facebook seems pretty much stagnant when it comes to the user
experience. I'm actually eager to see the new myspace once it debuts for that
reason...

~~~
hackinthebochs
> Firstly, you make it sound as if filling out some information about yourself
> (don't we do that all the time anyways?), posting some pictures, and
> updating your status is some overwhelming endeavor.

But that's not what makes a social network. User profiles have existed since
the beginning of the internet. A social network is a place to see and be seen.
But this requires people--the more the better (usually). Facebook for better
or worse, has already won this game.

I don't really get this idea of facebook being "stagnant". Perhaps they've
already refined the concept of general social networking to its peak. It's an
odd idea in SV that a site has to constantly roll out new "user experiences"
to remain relevant. Facebook is a platform for attention-whoring. They do that
just fine. The users themselves create the experiences.

~~~
joonix
Actually, they don't do that [attention whoring] just fine. They've actually
severely diminished that experience with the new system that limits the
exposure your updates get unless you buy a $7 promotion. This scheme is a
disaster ... yes, charge Pages for it, but not regular individual users.

~~~
hackinthebochs
Why is it a disaster? As long as there is no feedback on how little exposure
one's posts get, I don't see a downside to facebook with this. Being flooded
with bad/uninteresting content was a real problem. Filtering one's stream was
an important usability addition.

~~~
wickedbass
when you have to fall back to charging for relevant content, I think it's fair
to say that your model is broken.

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cs702
This comment caught my eye: "...I have learned that most content inside of
Facebook is real crap. 'Ouch, I broke my toe' is one of the more interesting
posts." This and other anecdotal evidence suggests Facebook is slowly turning
into an online _public square_ \-- a place where it's in one's best interest
never to do, say, or share anything private of real significance, because
sooner or later the whole town will find out about it.

~~~
markkat
That stuck out to me as well. It's true. I think most are very aware of the
non-privacy of Facebook, and act accordingly. There is a value in more
personal communication, however, I don't think an ad-based social network can
deliver it.

~~~
tsahyt
But we've had personal communication for ages now. That's email, IMs, Skype,
etc. I wonder how many users just use Facebook for the sake of private
messaging by now because the topics that fuel conversations between friends
are often of private nature. Things not everyone has to know. I think that
kind of defeats the purpose of a social network though.

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scottmagdalein
Facebook is going to forge a new path to irrelevance, not take the same path
as MySpace. People will stop using Facebook because (1) they outgrow it, (2)
they get tired of it, or (3) it lost its usefulness.

I don't believe another app will take its place. Rather, I think an existing
app/platform is already Facebook's biggest competitor. And it's one you've
been using for 30 years. Email.

~~~
fl3tch
It may be different for different cohorts, but for my social circle, SMS is
the de facto communication medium. I deleted my Facebook account over a year
ago and still keep up with friends, plan events, etc., all via text message.

Thus, there really was no downside in terms of being "out of the loop", while
I get the benefit of not feeling like shit because I'm continually inundated
with self-promotion posts that make others (most of whom I barely know) look
like they are doing more important things than me.

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D9u
I've simply stopped logging in to Facebook - since around last Christmas. I
don't miss it at all. It was neat to catch up with childhood friends and old
Army buddies however, there are other ways to keep in touch without feeding
the data-dredge.

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simon
No. That said, they do seem to be either making mistakes or getting their eye
off the target.

The publicly admitted target is to provide social networking for people. The
obvious business target is to make money. But they have to make money while
not annoying their users. We know their users are not their customers, because
the users do not pay to use the service. The customers are the advertisers.
Thus the balance between making sure the advertisers get their wares in front
of as many eyeballs as possible while annoying the minimum number of users.
And it seems to me that they have this balance wrong at this point. This will
happen and if they are monitoring carefully, they'll tune the balance and
people will be happy.

The longer-term challenge is that nothing lasts for ever (thanks 2nd law of
thermodynamics). Facebook do not need to turn into MySpace to no longer be the
top dog. Google wants the top position in the social networking space and they
have lots of money to spend their way into it. Or Facebook can drop the ball
and get their balance of advertising to their users wrong (see above). Or a
new service could come along that finds a way to survive without being
beholden to advertisers. (Open-source projects to the rescue?) Or, people
could just get fed-up of all the mindless banter on Facebook and decide that
they have more important things to do. Or, new networks will arise that
actually interoperate, so you can connect to someone on another network. My
prediction is that some of all of these will take place.

I have no preference. I am a pastor, so I go where the people are (people
business after all) and right now, the people are on Facebook. If MySpace
successfully restarts, I'll go there as well.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
You provide pastoral care over Facebook?

Nice one.

~~~
simon
It's one of the ways that I am available to my congregation. And they love the
chat feature as they can catch me without having to call.

Haven't taken on anyone outside of the congregation yet. I suppose that could
happen.

------
mistermcgruff
For those who scale down how they use it (make profile private, engage only w/
real-world friends, post some pictures) Facebook can be rewarding and useful.
It's when you follow Facebook's own druthers to have a public profile and
connect with everyone under the sun (and like every product under the sun)
that Facebook suddenly becomes shit.

~~~
nicholassmith
I've been using Facebook that way since I started with it and I've been happy,
but began using it less and less. I'll probably cut a load of the 'friends'
I've got on there (people I've met a few times etc) and try and clean it up a
bit.

Mostly it's that old quote "Hell is other people", and other people tend to
post crap, invite you to every group under the Sun and invite you to play
every game they see.

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shocks
I stopped abusing Facebook about a year ago, and really haven't missed it at
all.

The reason I stopped using is because I realised that quantity of posts was
increasing while the quality was decreasing. My news feed just to be app
activity, ads, and other chaff I am not interested in - not just my friends,
but also friends of friends.

~~~
shocks
Oh fuck; I forgot the infernal nuisance that is "LIKE IF YOU ENJOY ICE CREAM
IN THE SUN! :D".

------
bruceb
"Facebook is the next MySpace" How many comments have said that? But it is
not. While certainly more bloated than it used to be it is still relatively
fast to load and find stuff unlike Friendster and then MySpace (how did they
make the same mistake?)

Why it will not go they way of MySpace is because no matter if you don't use
facebook...you use facebook whenever you go to a ton of other sites. Its hard
NOT to use fb.

So I say this...

Facebook is the new Ticketmaster.

If you want to go to a big concert or other big event, well you have to use
Ticketmaster...at least almost have to just like facebook.

------
JonnieCache
It's clearly the new AOL.

~~~
brudgers
AKA, "the next Compuserve."

~~~
tomrod
AKA, the new horse-and-buggy

------
nathanstaines
Who knows maybe the _new_ MySpace will be the death of Facebook.

------
RandallBrown
Until Facebook starts letting people make their profiles have white text on a
yellow background with autoplaying music, I'm not too worried about it going
anywhere.

If I deleted my Facebook, I would be cut off socially from so many people. My
core group of friends would still be in contact with me, but the hundreds of
friends and acquaintances I've made throughout the years would get lost to
time.

Even with the people I see every day, the ease of collaboration with events
and groups on Facebook makes it more than worth it to have it.

If you hate the newsfeed, then don't look at it. If you're upset that not all
of the people that "like" your page don't see your band's post, you're part of
the problem.

~~~
psweber
> the hundreds of friends and acquaintances I've made throughout the years
> would get lost to time

As they should.

------
songgao
> _Finally I strongly believe at one day there will be a decentralized social
> network, based on Open Source tools._

How about tent.io ?

~~~
grobmeier
This looks cool. Another guy has showed me: <https://joindiaspora.com/> which
also looks pretty interesting. Thanks!

~~~
bduerst
My sarcasm detector is broken, I think... :-/

------
psycho
I do know about "mess" and problems with reaching fans of the page (wich
arouse from the fact that people "like" too many pages in fact) but still
Facebook remains more than a site - it's rather a social phenomena. And that's
why I don't see the way any competitor come on its place. Although competiton
is always for good, of course.

------
Mordor
Totally bored of it, nothing really interesting, just a marketing machine...

~~~
RandallBrown
Only if you decide that's what you want it to be by "liking" hundreds of
pages.

~~~
hahnfeld
Wrong. Regardless of your volume of "likes," it's a cluttered mess with dozens
of best guess advertisements and a river of promoted crap. AOL 2.0

------
zoom
Yes. If you say otherwise, you most likely still have an account.

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tomrod
Someone mentioned that any question asked in a headline has an answer: "no".

Thus, I propose the headline should read "Will Facebook Avoid MySpace's fate?"

------
nilsjuenemann
So it's not that MySpace lost and Facebook won. It's that MySpace won first,
and Facebook won next. They'll go down in the same order.

------
gunter69
Everyone gets what they want out of Facebook

------
hayksaakian
It's been so for at least 5 years.

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uxwtf
Christian, you say you hate FB UI and like Google+ one. What UI aspects do you
hate in FB?

------
rshlo
if facebook is myspace and google+ is dead on arrival, what tool a normal
person have to share photos and stories with his close friends and family?
there is still a need for this kind of tool.

~~~
ahi
email

------
kral
It's already the next MySpace...

------
gunter69
Hope so

------
simonetripodi
it just misses pr0n and few animated gifs, then is the clone

------
dylanhassinger
yes

------
bravoyankee
Facebook has been faking it for at least a year. By faking it I mean not
growing under their own power. Now "Fakebook" either has to buy users (like
the Instagram deal) or its growth is due to mostly fake users with fake likes
giving fake metrics.

People are leaving Fakebook now. Not in droves (yet), but the opinion leaders
within groups and families are. The ones that are informed are. And the rest
will follow once there is another massive invasion of their privacy.

To those reading this who still use their Facebook account, try going without
it for a month. See if you don't feel better. I know I did.

~~~
murtza
While a lot of people talk about privacy or content relevancy issues, which I
agree are important, there is a good thread on Reddit discussing why Facebook
can be bad for your mental health.

One user writes, "I started to compare my life to others, hating people based
off of their status...All it brought me was anger and a lower self-confidence.
Almost immediately after deleting it, I felt better. I'm mostly ok with how I
live my life and I don't need to compare my life to that of others."

[http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/11wm5w/to_those_w...](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/11wm5w/to_those_who_have_left_facebook_what_is_your/)

~~~
gawker
I think that's a very interesting thought. I deleted my Facebook account after
I felt that it sucked up too much of my time just browsing status updates.
Before, every so often, I would check Facebook to see if anything new had been
posted. It got to the point where I had enough and now I feel less anxious
about constantly going on the Internet. Information was overloaded for me.

------
taligent
Well this guy clearly has questionable sense.

Myspace absolutely had a use. It just wasn't generic/clean enough for a mass
audience. And as for his criticisms about Facebook. I personally have never
experienced any of them.

Meanwhile the only 'mess' I see around is the Google+ feed. It's nothing but a
geeky, low-brow clone of Reddit.

~~~
waqf
Maybe you should stop following geeky, low-brow people?

