What will be truly ironic is when Facebook falls out of fashion in the youth market. Yes, the very thing that it was designed for and that made it great.
It will be astonishing if that does not happen, at least in America. If there is one consistent factor in American culture, it is that your kids will find something to do that is superficially different from what you did. They don't dance to their grandmother's music - except as retro kitsch - and they won't use her social network either.
Alterna-Facebook may be almost exactly like Facebook, it might be compatible with Facebook and it might even be built and run by Zuckerberg, but it won't look like Facebook and it won't be branded as Facebook.
Facebook itself will not die, of course. But it might just settle into its niche. Consider a related - but more primitive - example of a niche genre: high school yearbooks. They are a steady, stable, hundred-year-old tradition but they never grew to threaten, say, newsmagazines, or scientific journals. They are what they are. They are just one genre. Everyone has one, and for a couple years in everyone's life it might even seem important.
I read somewhere that a few years ago, their staff were walking around wearing t-shirts emblazoned with "Your Mom has a Facebook Page". The article was about how they were trying to position themselves as a more youthful, 'alternative' social network.
Don't think it really worked, though there's certainly still a lot of bands on there. Besides, if some upstart did recast themselves as young and hip and Facebook as old and fuddy-duddy, Facebook could reframe themselves as classic and sophisticated (similar to the changing brands of Pepsi and Coca-Cola).
I could see that happening. There's a decent argument to be made that network effects would make a duopoly the efficient outcome for major social networks like FB and Myspace.
As people get better at, and better tools for, segmenting their lives on FB, I don't see why FB couldn't persist.
It will be astonishing if that does not happen, at least in America. If there is one consistent factor in American culture, it is that your kids will find something to do that is superficially different from what you did. They don't dance to their grandmother's music - except as retro kitsch - and they won't use her social network either.
Alterna-Facebook may be almost exactly like Facebook, it might be compatible with Facebook and it might even be built and run by Zuckerberg, but it won't look like Facebook and it won't be branded as Facebook.
Facebook itself will not die, of course. But it might just settle into its niche. Consider a related - but more primitive - example of a niche genre: high school yearbooks. They are a steady, stable, hundred-year-old tradition but they never grew to threaten, say, newsmagazines, or scientific journals. They are what they are. They are just one genre. Everyone has one, and for a couple years in everyone's life it might even seem important.