JENerally Informed: Man- day Post: The Last Days of Facebook

Man- day Post: The Last Days of Facebook

It's time for this week's edition of Man- day from Jensguy.

Artist Andy Warhol once stated "Everybody is famous for 15 minutes." The same is doubly true of technology. Every piece of important technology will get superseded eventually. Companies that have once ruled the world will fall away like the Ottoman Empire.

Which brings us to Facebook.

It is hard to fathom the success that Facebook has had. They currently have about 1.2 BILLION users with a healthy 61% of monthly users logging on almost daily. That isn't going away overnight, but it is very clear that Facebook has reached its peak. Here are a few of the warning signs:

1. They are developing Plan B. One of the valuable lessons learned from the failures of IBM and Xerox in the early 80's is that remaining static in your product offerings is almost certain death. You must diversify your product base. Think ipod and iphone with Apple and Xbox with Microsoft. It is important to separate your eggs into multiple baskets.

Facebook is currently shifting their eggs. Instead of rolling more functionality into their flagship product, they are breaking it into pieces. Chat functionality will be discontinued on mobile Facebook and will be funneled into a separate, detachable application (Much like AOL instant messenger which far outlived mainstream AOL.) The future of picture sharing appears to be moving to Instagram, which Facebook purchased and is developing outside of their main product. Those are some industrial strength escape hatches.

2. The highest value user base is declining. Ultimately people read Facebook for the content and to be entertained, and the ratio of great content is not growing. Almost all of the new subscriber growth is coming in developing countries. Lets face it, not a lot of people are clamoring for new content from Outer Mongolia. Meanwhile Facebook is bleeding subscribers, especially younger people, in its established markets.

That is a drop of almost 50% in the space of a year. Another year of that and Facebook will start looking like Shady Acres.

3. The ads. Seriously. . .

I don't recall "friending" Microsoft Store or OnlineDegrees.com and these fake posts don't scream "customers really wanted this!" to me. What it really looks like is:

Think 90's era AOL or MySpace right before it died.

4. It's just not that useful for marketing. When Facebook was newer, it was actually quite easy to build a brand with it. Much of that functionality has been "nerfed" (made less powerful) in favor of moving the focus to paying customers (remember when you could actively push content to subscribers?) However, it is pretty common knowledge that paid marketing on Facebook is rather weak. A recent Forrester survey showed that Facebook creates less business value than any other digital marketing opportunity.

5. Facebook was just never built for what many people are trying to do with it. If you go back and watch "The Social Network" (not that I am recommending the movie) it becomes clear that Facebook was meant to be a tool to keep up with a limited amount of friends and family, not to be a large platform to launch a following of several thousand people. In its original capacity it works very well, but there are now several other social networking options that fit the "one to many" need much better than Facebook does such as Twitter and Instagram. If you are trying to keep tabs on your cousin in Kentucky, a local PTA group, or for the more disturbed, your old boyfriend from high school, Facebook will always be useful. If you are launching a book or website, Twitter allows you much more freedom (and without the glaring ads.) The large use functionality was what was promised to investors, and Facebook just hasn't delivered.

Comments (12)

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Susan@ofeverymoment · 584 weeks ago

Interesting article. My children are in their teens, and I know their use of Facebook has significantly declined. I still find it useful though!

1 reply · active 584 weeks ago

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Jensguy · 584 weeks ago

Unfortunately, however technology chases the people in their teens, so whatever they use, we will probably have to adapt to, which in turn will drive them somewhere else. . .

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Comedy Plus · 584 weeks ago

I'm on Facebook, but I'm not impressed. Much of the content is not interesting and the ads make me cringe. I hate the game invites and please don't poke me. Juvenile. But I'm 62 so I'm guessing that's why I feel the way I do.

Have a fabulous day. :)

1 reply · active 584 weeks ago

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Jensguy · 584 weeks ago

Yep, AOL used to have near universal marketshare as well, and they lost it all in just a few years because the content was bad. If Jennifer will let me, I will write an article about how Twitter is going to make a stab at retro style Facebook with their latest update. They intend to make Twitter more user-friendly by adopting many Facebook user elements without the things that now annoy us.

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rfdietz 66p · 584 weeks ago

Plus, after using facebook for 5+ years, it gets boring.

1 reply · active 584 weeks ago

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queenmomjen 75p · 584 weeks ago

What they need is the ability to hit a button to see the content from the friends that you haven't looked at for a while. But I guess we need that spot for the fake post ads. . .

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heresthebest 24p · 584 weeks ago

I get tired of having recommended ads thrown at me on facebook. It just seems kind of cheap.

1 reply · active 584 weeks ago

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queenmomjen 75p · 584 weeks ago

Agreed. I think the thing I dislike the most about it is that they are trying to be cute about it and throw ads into the newsfeed rather than the sidebar.

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a20s 37p · 584 weeks ago

Great post! I think they started going downhill when they changed their algorithm for how users see their newsfeed... they focused so much on serving the companies and the products they sell that they are really starting to lose interest in their users.

1 reply · active 584 weeks ago

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queenmomjen 75p · 584 weeks ago

Yes, you pretty well nailed the beginning of the end. Spot on!

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Bonnie Way · 584 weeks ago

Great information - thanks for sharing!!! I've been waffling about whether to put more effort into my FB page or not... this is rather dismal news but good to know. I like the point that advertising and mass marketing isn't what FB was created to do. I wish it were just a simple connect with close friends and family - I liked it when it was like that.

1 reply · active 584 weeks ago

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queenmomjen 75p · 584 weeks ago

The good news is that Instagram and Twitter are up and coming and definitely the way to go for bloggers and businesses. I will still use Facebook to see my family and follow friends and plan to do it until it fb dies out completely.