Facebook may just be the single greatest waste of time ever invented. I don't see any real value to using the site aside from juvenile social games and clique status updates. Its a trend and like all trends it will peak and die.
Yes Facebook will be yesterday's trend sometime soon. It's not really a valuable resource and certainly isnt worth a premium. In fact I predict that Facebook is nothing but a distant memory in 3 years and that in 10 years people will study Zuckerberg's folly (not selling for a quick billion) in biz school.
Remember GeoCities? Please tell me the difference between GeoCities and Facebook?
Zuckerborg
· 1 year ago
The new alternative will NOT be OpenSocial...
Users are uniquely identified by a combination of the environment domain and user id (only unique to domain).
Basically, this means that 99.9% of OpenSocial apps will consider you to be a different user for each domain you install the app.
If I install an app on MySpace and spend the time to personalize it, I should not have to repeat the process when I install the same app on Hi5.
OpenSocial = Weak platform w/ too much hype!
Chris
· 1 year ago
I don't mean to be rude with this comment, but the study does not show declining facebook application usage. It shows declining participation in the *forums* for the *developers* of facebook. The only metrics it analyzed were statistics taken from the developers' message board!
That doesn't even mean that the *development* of facebook apps has slowed down, much less application usage. Over time, it makes sense that as more questions are asked and answered, less people need to post new questions.
Also, once someone has finished developing and deploying their app, there's less of a need to visit the forums. The study could very well indicate that facebook's app platform is simply maturing.
Jeremy
· 1 year ago
I stopped regularly using Facebook when it stopped being a college student-only application. I think general social networks like MS/FB will ultimately be hated as much as spam, and that niche social networks will flourish. People don't want to be connected to EVERYONE, that's what email and phones are for...they want to interact through social networks with people they have something in common with (i.e. attend the same school or share a hobby).
Facebook would have been better served by creating more group options rather than opening the network to useless applications that spam users and clutter profile pages.
I think facebook went to crazy with the apps. The profiles are really lacking any personal style. i'm not suggesting myspace hacking ability but a background or color change would be nice.
The iphone interface is all I really use for facebook. Its simple and just shows messages and friend updates without vampires and poking.
Ben Parr
· 1 year ago
Someone always builds an alternative, it just is able how long it takes or if the company behind it can innovate. There's alternatives to Windows, they are just now gaining traction. I imagine a new social network having dual business and personal tracks and uses, stronger emailing abilities, and better tracking of your history with an individual.
Oh, and integration with mobile like we've never seen before. It'd be nice to know which of my friends was in New York when I arrived with a few presses on my phone.
Detect
· 1 year ago
Can't wait to get my information outta FB.
marla
· 1 year ago
I agree with Jeremy... people like being a part of an exclusive network. FB still isn't as bad as MySpace... fewer random creepers. Tracking the decline of Facebook is interesting an a little sad, after there have been countless articles and ebooks proclaiming FB the king of all social networks. I've spent so many hours on it... and yes, in some way it is a waste of time, but no more so than any other form of social networking.
Krishnan
· 1 year ago
Facebook has become increasingly irrelevant as it has indundated itself with useless applications. A CNET article showed that less than a 100 of Facebook's applications profitable and the remaining 23,000 are "just for fun." The first error was beacon, then the applications. Facebook improvements became less about user behavior and more about Zuckerberg's hubris. Sure he's just a kid, but he should know that you can't FORCE people to react, it has to happen organically (I should fear using that word after Kara Swisher's ill-fated attempt at metaphor using it yesterday). Facebook can no longer be a portal for E-commerce b/c it is a junkyard of poorly excuted side project programs... that's what people are frustrated with. Once you lower the bar of your brand it's hard to come back as a serious player. They are highly overvalued for the paltry $100 million in ad revenues. On a final note, I deleted my account 3 months ago and it took 6 emails for them to finally let me go. I'd like to see how much future revenue Facebook plans to make off of each user. That'd be an interesting study b/c right now they are just wasting away resources.
Peder
· 1 year ago
Jeremy does make a good point about promoting group membership over app usage. Will Ning challenge in the specific-interest space? (That is, creating interest-specific social groups.)
Zuckerborg made interesting points about OpenSocial not providing the dream alternative to FB. Frustration over this need to enter and reenter data on a variety of sites is legit. Scoble talked about it in the May print issue of Fast Company. Perhaps OpenID will help in facilitating one online profile that can be used in many places. I look forward to promoting it on my blog.
Adrian Nadeau
· 1 year ago
Maybe Facebook made an error when it opened up to the rest of the world? It seemed like the right move at the time but maybe it made the whole network to generic and lost it's "niche" of being a college network where everyone had the same similarities and common interests? It will be interesting to see what happens.
csven
· 1 year ago
Just gonna cut 'n paste what I wrote on my blog last August: "I think Facebook made a mistake in opening up registration to everyone and their mother. They’ve even lost Danah Boyd in the avalanche. If Facebook had retained its niche market and let that feed into a larger niche network aggregator of their making (Lifebook?), then they’d have the option of allowing not just plug-ins for the one application, but marketing-specific plug-ins for a network of modular applications serving targeted communities."
Next.
Ryan Merket
· 1 year ago
The Myspace staff can go back to Myspace now...
Jim (3.0)
· 1 year ago
I think facebook and myspace will always be around as social networking sites. A good place to log on, spy on your friends, and meet people.
But as people try to use these sites for productive interaction, which everyone is trying to do, things begin to break down. There are fundamental issues with single context interaction, and the "because joe is my friend, feed me what joe is doing" metaphor.
Check us out...we're doing things differently. www.zloop.com
michael
· 1 year ago
all of this is very valid and true. as i keep saying, "remember when there were no cell phones? remember when you were NOT always reachable?" all of these apps make it impossible to disappear. FB/MS and Twitter will all fade away. for what it is woth, in my humble opinion Twitter is the worst of the worst.
Kelly
· 1 year ago
You asked what a good site alternative might be. My answer for that is Flugpo.com. They have done everything to ensure that the privacy of their members remains intact. There are no goofy applications or tedious "friendings" by people you don't know. I love it and a lot of other people do too. This comes from someone who delted her Facebook and MySpace accounts because I just couldn't take it anymore. Been at Flugpo for awhile now and am loving it!
Ro
· 1 year ago
Hmm. Usually I really like Mashable for its well founded opinions. Yall are ridiculous. This is exactly the same thing folks said about MySpace and the use of widgets, only to see the ability to provide an outlet for self expression drive MySpace to one of the top 10 most visited sites on the web globally. Opening Facebook beyond colleges drove its growth period, and made it a global force versus a niche site used by few. Opening Facebook as a platform also drove its growth materially, for the exact same reason widgets drove MySpace's growth. If all you could do on Facebook was read people's wall posts and check out photos, its usage WOULD be suspect to different alternatives. People want choices folks - that's what a platform brings to Facebook at the cost of maintaining the platform itself. I'm guessing the demographic mix between Mashable readers and Facebook users correlates to near -1.
neurokinetikz
· 1 year ago
The myopia hear is astounding. A couple of points to keep in mind.
1.) if you don't like it, don't use it. save your brain space for something thats important to you. whining about websites doesnt count.
2.) a lifetime of your personal and social data will be fascinating to search, browse, and otherwise navigate 20, 30, 50, and even hundreds of years from now.
though facebook may or may not 'win', aggregating and filtering one's social data over a lifetime will.
if you dont like it, unplug now.
kthxbai :)
Crashproof Solutions
· 1 year ago
I find Facebook quite useful.
As the early apps quietly fade into the background, professionals will take the platform to the next level.
Javascript once upon a time was thought of as a waste of time and javascript programmers were not in high demand. Ask Google if that is still true. :)
I am writing a couple of very useful Facebook apps that will fully take advantage of the platform without being spammy. :)
Remember that you can remove even built-in applications from your profile if they become too much.
bob
· 1 year ago
the best bargain on the internet was BEA's acquisition of WebLogic in 1998 for $240MM.
WebLogic license revenue ramped up to 750MM annualized in the next 18 months, and kept BEA from going out of business.
King_George_W_Bush
· 1 year ago
Facebook is lame.
Kyle James
· 1 year ago
Ok Mashable usually has great stuff and I admit that maybe you are ultimately spelling the beginning of the end, but the 170K subscribes to this site represent such a small percentage of the 70M (170K is much smaller than 70M) users of Facebook. Now I will agree I don't spend much time at all on Facebook, but that doesn't mean that it's not relavent and won't remain that way for the forseeable future. If you want Facebook to be screwed just let Microsoft buy them out and see what happens. For the majority of people it's still a great service.
Sometimes we have to step back and realize that use 15th level social media gurus are the exception not the rule. It was just this week that I read a post on ReadWriteWeb that said 3/4 of US Social Network Traffic is still on MySpace. We aren't the norm we are the elite so let's not get too far ahead of ourselves here.
I think Google's Orkut takes their user privacy very seriously.. and its user profile pages are way cleaner than myspace or facebook pages
overklokan
· 1 year ago
too much content yes ... and i'm beging to feel sick when i read on google "add more content"! i know they are trying to make us all write irrelevant garbage and that way kill REALLY useful content out there on internet ... just check youtube promoted videos and news on ANY major news company web site! if you are bombarded with garbage every day you WILL become stupid, unthinking and brainwashed ... exactly what big guys want, that's good for business you know ;o)
Adriana
· 1 year ago
You know what happened? Facebook came out and it was great, then they released all those applications and it was too much too fast. All of a sudden there were pages amomg pages of applications and duplicates of applications that basically did the same thing.
Then you get a ton of requests every single day so that's a piss off factor. Facebook became less about actually socializing with people and more about sending apps to people, free gifts, poking and it created this almost anti-social environment to where instead of talking to someone you were poking them.
People have a ton of friends on the friends list which some of whom they don't talk to and that is where it can be similar to Myspace.
Facebook was supposed to be for people you already knew or used to know and maybe people you'd like to be introduced to. Facebook has taken their product, twisted and warped it then making it this complex being where all people wanna do once in awhile is write on someone's wall and you have to scroll 5 times just to get there.
There are apps that don't even work properly yet they are still allowed to remain on Facebook therefore watering down the quality of the site in general.
SIMPLIFICATION! If people have to search and sort through stuff just to find what they are looking for chances are they'll just give up and go somewhere else.
Ryan Merket
· 1 year ago
Look...
If you don't like the applications -- CHANGE YOUR PRIVACY SETTINGS.
It's not that hard. Facebook has spent A LOT of time and energy to make sure that nearly every action that can be done on Facebook can be either ignored indefinitely or banned, by editing privacy controls.
Can Myspace say that?
NO.
Myspace can say that they have put CAPTCHAs on nearly every action in effort to combat spam bots -- I think I would rather edit privacy settings than enter a CAPTCHA everytime I want to post on a friends wall.
If you hate the applications... goto your privacy controls and "ignore all". It's really that easy.
I challenge ALL OF YOU to find a social network with more privacy customization.
Bart
· 1 year ago
I totally don't agree. This poll has been answered by people working the web sector or following the web very closely. This group is not representative for the bigger group that has joined Facebook!
Ben
· 1 year ago
I know there's a huge difference in number of users, but even so I would think LinkedIn's valuation would be higher than Facebook at least on a per member basis. Aside from the fact that it's actually a useful service, LinkedIn has tons of valuable data and an actual revenue model. I use both, but if I had to choose one I'd drop Facebook in a heartbeat. I won't rule out that being a Mashable reader may factor into that choice though...
Tim
· 1 year ago
We use Ning to host our professional social network for the cardiovascular ultrasound industry, EchoChief.net
I must say that aside from the "protection money" pricing scheme, e.g you pay to have really annoying features turned off,it works great.
Hey I say start your own and then you can see who really gives a hoot about your life/cause/business/aspirations.
That said, we also have an EchoChief.com group on Facebook. Social groups on the net are always going to be fractured, its a land grab and the providers are trying to heard you and me.
That is what we like about Ning, build your own and those who may not like other sites will come.
Asking questions like this is a sure way to get biased results. Wonder what the results would have been if he question would be "How do you feel about Facebook".
rtd928
· 1 year ago
You guys are right. Its just a matter of time until someone new steps up to the plate.
John
· 1 year ago
Yes I am totally fed up with Facebook's moronic attitude and the way it disables people's account's, who use nicknames.
I had both of my accounts disabled. Facebook should wake up and listen to the masses, otherwise the abortion of a company that run it, will soon go bust - hopefully.
It is bloody stupid and naive for Facebook to think that everyone is a good guy on the planet and that everybody will be totally honest.
It is even stupidier of Facebook to think that they are safe from Spammers. I had an alarming increase in people offering me millions of dollars (419'ers), shortly after I joined Facebook. This was all logged and carefully sifted.
Is Facebook not aware that spammers use "Dictionary Attacks" to find names and email addresses.
I wonder how keen Facebook would be to xcompensate me if somebody ran up a huge debt using my name. Somehow I do not think they would care less.
Facebook will just stick to their bloody stupid rule of "No Nicknames". It almost feels like they are working with the authorities to somehow catch people out.
In practice this means that the authorities do not like hard work, so they just get Facebook to do it for them, who then just imply enforce a stupid rule, for the sake of having a stupid rule.
Myspace I believe does allow nicknames, so of course this one will win the battle in the end I reckon.
Plus why the hell should I put my real name all over the net for anyone to see - No thanks.
All Comments
Yes Facebook will be yesterday's trend sometime soon. It's not really a valuable resource and certainly isnt worth a premium. In fact I predict that Facebook is nothing but a distant memory in 3 years and that in 10 years people will study Zuckerberg's folly (not selling for a quick billion) in biz school.
Remember GeoCities? Please tell me the difference between GeoCities and Facebook?
Users are uniquely identified by a combination of the environment domain and user id (only unique to domain).
Basically, this means that 99.9% of OpenSocial apps will consider you to be a different user for each domain you install the app.
If I install an app on MySpace and spend the time to personalize it, I should not have to repeat the process when I install the same app on Hi5.
OpenSocial = Weak platform w/ too much hype!
That doesn't even mean that the *development* of facebook apps has slowed down, much less application usage. Over time, it makes sense that as more questions are asked and answered, less people need to post new questions.
Also, once someone has finished developing and deploying their app, there's less of a need to visit the forums. The study could very well indicate that facebook's app platform is simply maturing.
Facebook would have been better served by creating more group options rather than opening the network to useless applications that spam users and clutter profile pages.
checkout tribe.net
I think facebook went to crazy with the apps. The profiles are really lacking any personal style. i'm not suggesting myspace hacking ability but a background or color change would be nice.
The iphone interface is all I really use for facebook. Its simple and just shows messages and friend updates without vampires and poking.
Oh, and integration with mobile like we've never seen before. It'd be nice to know which of my friends was in New York when I arrived with a few presses on my phone.
Facebook can no longer be a portal for E-commerce b/c it is a junkyard of poorly excuted side project programs... that's what people are frustrated with. Once you lower the bar of your brand it's hard to come back as a serious player. They are highly overvalued for the paltry $100 million in ad revenues.
On a final note, I deleted my account 3 months ago and it took 6 emails for them to finally let me go. I'd like to see how much future revenue Facebook plans to make off of each user. That'd be an interesting study b/c right now they are just wasting away resources.
Zuckerborg made interesting points about OpenSocial not providing the dream alternative to FB. Frustration over this need to enter and reenter data on a variety of sites is legit. Scoble talked about it in the May print issue of Fast Company. Perhaps OpenID will help in facilitating one online profile that can be used in many places. I look forward to promoting it on my blog.
Next.
But as people try to use these sites for productive interaction, which everyone is trying to do, things begin to break down. There are fundamental issues with single context interaction, and the "because joe is my friend, feed me what joe is doing" metaphor.
Check us out...we're doing things differently. www.zloop.com
1.) if you don't like it, don't use it. save your brain space for something thats important to you. whining about websites doesnt count.
2.) a lifetime of your personal and social data will be fascinating to search, browse, and otherwise navigate 20, 30, 50, and even hundreds of years from now.
though facebook may or may not 'win', aggregating and filtering one's social data over a lifetime will.
if you dont like it, unplug now.
kthxbai :)
As the early apps quietly fade into the background, professionals will take the platform to the next level.
Javascript once upon a time was thought of as a waste of time and javascript programmers were not in high demand. Ask Google if that is still true. :)
I am writing a couple of very useful Facebook apps that will fully take advantage of the platform without being spammy. :)
Remember that you can remove even built-in applications from your profile if they become too much.
WebLogic license revenue ramped up to 750MM annualized in the next 18 months, and kept BEA from going out of business.
Sometimes we have to step back and realize that use 15th level social media gurus are the exception not the rule. It was just this week that I read a post on ReadWriteWeb that said 3/4 of US Social Network Traffic is still on MySpace. We aren't the norm we are the elite so let's not get too far ahead of ourselves here.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/hitwise_so...
Then you get a ton of requests every single day so that's a piss off factor. Facebook became less about actually socializing with people and more about sending apps to people, free gifts, poking and it created this almost anti-social environment to where instead of talking to someone you were poking them.
People have a ton of friends on the friends list which some of whom they don't talk to and that is where it can be similar to Myspace.
Facebook was supposed to be for people you already knew or used to know and maybe people you'd like to be introduced to. Facebook has taken their product, twisted and warped it then making it this complex being where all people wanna do once in awhile is write on someone's wall and you have to scroll 5 times just to get there.
There are apps that don't even work properly yet they are still allowed to remain on Facebook therefore watering down the quality of the site in general.
SIMPLIFICATION! If people have to search and sort through stuff just to find what they are looking for chances are they'll just give up and go somewhere else.
If you don't like the applications -- CHANGE YOUR PRIVACY SETTINGS.
It's not that hard. Facebook has spent A LOT of time and energy to make sure that nearly every action that can be done on Facebook can be either ignored indefinitely or banned, by editing privacy controls.
Can Myspace say that?
NO.
Myspace can say that they have put CAPTCHAs on nearly every action in effort to combat spam bots -- I think I would rather edit privacy settings than enter a CAPTCHA everytime I want to post on a friends wall.
If you hate the applications... goto your privacy controls and "ignore all". It's really that easy.
I challenge ALL OF YOU to find a social network with more privacy customization.
I must say that aside from the "protection money" pricing scheme, e.g you pay to have really annoying features turned off,it works great.
Hey I say start your own and then you can see who really gives a hoot about your life/cause/business/aspirations.
That said, we also have an EchoChief.com group on Facebook. Social groups on the net are always going to be fractured, its a land grab and the providers are trying to heard you and me.
That is what we like about Ning, build your own and those who may not like other sites will come.
Tim Thigpen
Editor
EchoChief.com
I had both of my accounts disabled. Facebook should wake up and listen to the masses, otherwise the abortion of a company that run it, will soon go bust - hopefully.
It is bloody stupid and naive for Facebook to think that everyone is a good guy on the planet and that everybody will be totally honest.
It is even stupidier of Facebook to think that they are safe from Spammers. I had an alarming increase in people offering me millions of dollars (419'ers),
shortly after I joined Facebook. This was all logged and carefully sifted.
Is Facebook not aware that spammers use "Dictionary Attacks" to find names and email addresses.
I wonder how keen Facebook would be to xcompensate me if somebody ran up a huge debt using my name.
Somehow I do not think they would care less.
Facebook will just stick to their bloody stupid rule of "No Nicknames". It almost feels like they are working with the authorities to somehow catch people out.
In practice this means that the authorities do not like hard work, so they just get Facebook to do it for them, who then just imply enforce a stupid rule, for the sake of having a stupid rule.
Myspace I believe does allow nicknames, so of course this one will win the battle in the end I reckon.
Plus why the hell should I put my real name all over the net for anyone to see - No thanks.
Get lost - Facebook, you are not liked or wanted.
John W.