19 Comments »Today there is talk of doomsday for Facebook. Between the failure taking place with the CBS Sports March Madness application and Henry Blodget posting that Facebook may be the next AOL, today is not a good day in Facebook land. Henry Blodget points out a few reasons that Facebook could be doomed. The primary reasons are that the thrill is gone for many, geriatric users don’t like it, Facebook doesn’t have a business model and finally that Facebook is still a walled garden.
Ultimately, Facebook is still on a tear and the applications that used to spam users are slowly fading away. I don’t think geriatric users need to be huge fans of Facebook for the site to be successful. Then again without those users is Facebook the most efficient social tool? Henry Blodget also points to a recent Economist article that says Facebook needs to open up or face certain death.
I agree and I back in September I suggested that Facebook tear down their wall. I still feel the same way and Google’s new Contacts API makes it even more critical. Facebook is not an ignorant bunch of people though and you can pretty much guarantee that they know what’s coming. The real question is timing.
The longer that Facebook stays closed, the longer that they own the user. This is one reason I would argue that they haven’t torn down the wall just yet. So when will it happen? I’m guessing we’ll see it happen in the next 6 to 18 months. Until the average is educated about the problem with being walled in, it won’t happen. So for now Facebook isn’t doomed, they just need to make sure that they remain agile to keep up with the rapidly changing environment that was forever changed when they first opened up their platform less then one year ago.
First step would be to start supporting OpenID.
First step would be to start supporting OpenID.
Correct me if i’m wrong, but facebooks developer platform seemed to me to create a portal that makes many functions of a desktop OS redundant, ie. an alternative.
I believe they are trying to create an online one-stop shop for everything. By developing an online application suite, they are trying to create a system where everything you could need is available through logging into the site. In a way, this approach is just closing them in further.
Does that make sense? Sorry, terribly explained, a few too many beers on a friday night!
Correct me if i'm wrong, but facebooks developer platform seemed to me to create a portal that makes many functions of a desktop OS redundant, ie. an alternative.
I believe they are trying to create an online one-stop shop for everything. By developing an online application suite, they are trying to create a system where everything you could need is available through logging into the site. In a way, this approach is just closing them in further.
Does that make sense? Sorry, terribly explained, a few too many beers on a friday night!
I’m not interested in poking my grandparents. I’m not going to use a social network to connect with the geriatric crowd. I’ll call them with a telephone, rotary if they insist.
Also, I feel like older folks love AOL. It’s simple, all in one place, and makes exciting sounds effects.
I'm not interested in poking my grandparents. I'm not going to use a social network to connect with the geriatric crowd. I'll call them with a telephone, rotary if they insist.
Also, I feel like older folks love AOL. It's simple, all in one place, and makes exciting sounds effects.
There is room for an open source approach and a clsoed approach with Facebook and open APIs. E.g. Linux vs Microsoft products. Both can coe-exist and in fact complement each other. They are both stronger for their different approaches.
I would not like to see my personal details available to everyone whom I may have friended to do as they wish.
In the incident involving Robert Scoble, why does anyone think that scraping someone’s date of birth is acceptable? This is commonly used for bank security!
Further, when you sign up to Facebook, you are forced to agree in their terms of service to supply your date of birth, so there is no choice that can be made not to have this information on Facebook.
A walled approach is exactly what I want, unless the user can decide exactly what information he/she wants to share with data scraping tools or anyone else.
There is room for an open source approach and a clsoed approach with Facebook and open APIs. E.g. Linux vs Microsoft products. Both can coe-exist and in fact complement each other. They are both stronger for their different approaches.
I would not like to see my personal details available to everyone whom I may have friended to do as they wish.
In the incident involving Robert Scoble, why does anyone think that scraping someone's date of birth is acceptable? This is commonly used for bank security!
Further, when you sign up to Facebook, you are forced to agree in their terms of service to supply your date of birth, so there is no choice that can be made not to have this information on Facebook.
A walled approach is exactly what I want, unless the user can decide exactly what information he/she wants to share with data scraping tools or anyone else.
Facebook isn’t doomed. Maybe Blodget wants it to be doomed?
Facebook isn't doomed. Maybe Blodget wants it to be doomed?
I think that they’re gearing up to ‘relaunch’ their whole service. Rolling out the new profiles may seem like a small technical change to us, but from the perspective of the users (and combined with the right marketing), it will be an opportunity for Facebook to reinvent itself. Combine that with the great buzz they still have, and the 60,000,000 and growing user-base, and I would say calling them ‘doomed’ is just unfounded sensationalism.
I think that they're gearing up to 'relaunch' their whole service. Rolling out the new profiles may seem like a small technical change to us, but from the perspective of the users (and combined with the right marketing), it will be an opportunity for Facebook to reinvent itself. Combine that with the great buzz they still have, and the 60,000,000 and growing user-base, and I would say calling them 'doomed' is just unfounded sensationalism.
As long as they keep changing & reinventing, they’re not doomed. If they start relying on staying as they are, then they will be doomed. So it’s really up to Facebook & they seem to be keeping their eye on the ball more than most.
As long as they keep changing & reinventing, they're not doomed. If they start relying on staying as they are, then they will be doomed. So it's really up to Facebook & they seem to be keeping their eye on the ball more than most.
Nay, i won’t say they’re doomed either. Their MSFT investment will give them funds for a few good years of innovation. They have the time, money and talent to create a lasting business. This will go one of three ways:
1) They will get it right by ’selectively’ opening up their walled garden. There are things within that network that people don’t want to come out (indexed by google) and other things that they certainly do (Social activity RSS feeds etc.). This will have to be driven by users themselves or Beacon will look like a small blunder in hindsight.
2) They will get it wrong, and will end up like Friendster, with a growing international user base, and a dying US one.
3) They will, through no fault of their own, become entirely irrelevant. The future of social networking is one where services ‘login to us’ and we present a face to whomever/whatever is requesting OUR data…we’ll have many faces to choose from (professional, friend based, artist based, party animal based, etc.). The technology is being build now (openID, OAUTH, Open Social etc.) and once it’s ready, we may not need to visit ‘places’ online like facebook. Facebook will visit us if we let them. Weird though i know.
Nay, i won't say they're doomed either. Their MSFT investment will give them funds for a few good years of innovation. They have the time, money and talent to create a lasting business. This will go one of three ways:
1) They will get it right by 'selectively' opening up their walled garden. There are things within that network that people don't want to come out (indexed by google) and other things that they certainly do (Social activity RSS feeds etc.). This will have to be driven by users themselves or Beacon will look like a small blunder in hindsight.
2) They will get it wrong, and will end up like Friendster, with a growing international user base, and a dying US one.
3) They will, through no fault of their own, become entirely irrelevant. The future of social networking is one where services 'login to us' and we present a face to whomever/whatever is requesting OUR data…we'll have many faces to choose from (professional, friend based, artist based, party animal based, etc.). The technology is being build now (openID, OAUTH, Open Social etc.) and once it's ready, we may not need to visit 'places' online like facebook. Facebook will visit us if we let them. Weird though i know.
Back in the days social networks used to be called BBSes, and a lot of them shared the same features as the current social networks. We just have better technology now, and more people have embraced it.
However Facebook has a lot of flaws that are definitely turning people off. You will get your highschool kids and college kids, and then as time goes on, those people will start fading off..It’s cool cause it’s new, it’s the fad, the cool kids are on it..oh hold on…the not cool kids are on it too..ooohh..the cool kids are now finding something else to make cool…
I have seen my married friends leave facebook after poking around, my newly married friends leave facebook together, my friends that are now in a serious relationship, my 30+ friends, my business associates and business friends that popped on to see what everything was about..
The users themselves are going to doom Facebook. Facebook used to be a tool, and now it’s a platform for tools. Meaning the users.
It used to be basic, simple, and clean. You could log on and keep in touch with your friends and family, you’d check multiple times to see if you got any messages, you’d see what’s new with some friends and then you’d log off.
Now you’re being mass added by people in order for them to boost their friends list, or for the to spam you. There’s an abundance of event invite spam, application spam, funwall spam, ringtone spam (a’la myspace), and even spam from nigerians.
It’s almost impossible to navigate on some people pages with so many applications, and walls, and general garbage that it’s not really worth using, because you’ll never be able to find that actual wall to write on, and you can’t even figure out what’s going on with them or their page anyways..
Facebook suffers from what Myspace is suffering from, and that’s basically making the system a free for all. I have been deleting friends like crazy, filtering out those friends that have seperate id’s for their bands, their products, their facebook super aliases, etc..
Deep down i’m on the verge of just deleting facebook..
Back in the days social networks used to be called BBSes, and a lot of them shared the same features as the current social networks. We just have better technology now, and more people have embraced it.
However Facebook has a lot of flaws that are definitely turning people off. You will get your highschool kids and college kids, and then as time goes on, those people will start fading off..It's cool cause it's new, it's the fad, the cool kids are on it..oh hold on…the not cool kids are on it too..ooohh..the cool kids are now finding something else to make cool…
I have seen my married friends leave facebook after poking around, my newly married friends leave facebook together, my friends that are now in a serious relationship, my 30+ friends, my business associates and business friends that popped on to see what everything was about..
The users themselves are going to doom Facebook. Facebook used to be a tool, and now it's a platform for tools. Meaning the users.
It used to be basic, simple, and clean. You could log on and keep in touch with your friends and family, you'd check multiple times to see if you got any messages, you'd see what's new with some friends and then you'd log off.
Now you're being mass added by people in order for them to boost their friends list, or for the to spam you. There's an abundance of event invite spam, application spam, funwall spam, ringtone spam (a'la myspace), and even spam from nigerians.
It's almost impossible to navigate on some people pages with so many applications, and walls, and general garbage that it's not really worth using, because you'll never be able to find that actual wall to write on, and you can't even figure out what's going on with them or their page anyways..
Facebook suffers from what Myspace is suffering from, and that's basically making the system a free for all. I have been deleting friends like crazy, filtering out those friends that have seperate id's for their bands, their products, their facebook super aliases, etc..
Deep down i'm on the verge of just deleting facebook..
Thanks for sharing
Regards
Max
http://thenewsempire.com/Sport/