Facebook’s biggest weakness is that its core value proposition to users is that everybody you know is on it. Any business whose core value proposition is that “everyone is doing it” is essentially a fad. Its success and usage is driven primarily by peer pressure.
Sure Facebook is a decently designed site that makes sharing your photos, videos, comments, links, etc. easy. But that’s not hard to replicate (the backend scaling parts are hard, but invisible to the end user). When people find the new social network that all the cool kids are using, they’ll flock to it and abandon Facebook in an instant, leaving shareholders dazed and confused. I doubt Facebook will die as quick & horrible a death as MySpace (in addition to being more fad-driven, MySpace was also centered around a fad-ish industry and had horrible usability), but it will die a similar death.
Google on the other hand has developed revolutionary technologies that other companies find nearly impossible to find the talent & resources necessary to replicate and improve upon. They provide a real, unique, non-fad value proposition to the end user. Same with Amazon, Apple and many other established tech companies.
Facebook investors' problem is, will they be able to get a return on their money before a new social network becomes the trendier place to be.
Well no reason to worry, cause Facebook isn't that stupid. They'll always make their money through indirect means, either through processing payments, displaying ads, giving companies access to data, etc.
Sure Facebook is a decently designed site that makes sharing your photos, videos, comments, links, etc. easy. But that’s not hard to replicate (the backend scaling parts are hard, but invisible to the end user). When people find the new social network that all the cool kids are using, they’ll flock to it and abandon Facebook in an instant, leaving shareholders dazed and confused. I doubt Facebook will die as quick & horrible a death as MySpace (in addition to being more fad-driven, MySpace was also centered around a fad-ish industry and had horrible usability), but it will die a similar death.
Google on the other hand has developed revolutionary technologies that other companies find nearly impossible to find the talent & resources necessary to replicate and improve upon. They provide a real, unique, non-fad value proposition to the end user. Same with Amazon, Apple and many other established tech companies.
Facebook investors' problem is, will they be able to get a return on their money before a new social network becomes the trendier place to be.