An interesting thought occurred to me after, and regrettably not during, a conversation I had with IDC analyst Karsten Weide two days ago.
I was asking him about the probability that Microsoft could buy Facebook, AOL or Ask.com as an alternative online ad opportunity to the failed Yahoo deal.
He told me, which I used in this piece today, that Facebook users are leaving for services such as Twitter and other startups such as FriendFeed, etc. I assented without challenging this for a couple reasons.
One, I use Twitter a whole lot more than Facebook. I just don't have time to mess around on it. It takes too much time in my mind. Twitter lets me keep up with folks much faster.
Two, I've heard others say the same exact thing, or, if it wasn't Twitter, it was Pownce, Plurk, FriendFeed or something else.
There are stats to support this. Andrew Chen wrote that MySpace and Facebook are plateauing and provides stats to back that up.
This is such a salient issue to watch that Om Malik picked up on it. Read Write Web offers an alternative view courtesy of the Conference Board if you're sick of the naysaying.
Are fickle users leaving Facebook and MySpace for alternative services? Quite possibly.
This is a bad omen for social advertising. If you can't get users to play and click on your site, how can you make money? Not every site will be able to monetize with apps the way Facebook and MySpace are headed.
So when Weide tells me social networks won't be the portals they aim to be because of "user fatigue," I fear he may be right.
Can Google do something here, creating OpenSocial services that retain users? The company has a great track record for Web services and a greater track record for using search as its entry to new services.
iGoogle and Gmail are incredibly sticky apps. I live in them, but you can't have the same social experience of Facebook so they are limiting.
I believe Google can capitalize on its services track record, but the question is how? What Google services will emerge that are both social and stickier than Facebook, MySpace and the incredibly long tail of Twitter, FriendFeed, et al?
Or will we flat out just get tired of all of these new services and discard them like trash?
What do you think?
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Comments (4)
Facebook Fatigue is real. It's slowly morphing from a way to communicate with lost friends to a platform for low-rent ads ("1 of your top 8 friends has a crush on you") and a miasma of crappy little applications that make you want to scream.
Posted by Rob Cooper | June 18, 2008 6:18 PM
In my own subjective experience, while net-savvy types and early adopters are bouncing over to twitter etc, the masses are atill just getting around to flickr, myspace, and facebook. Myspace, ironically enough, functions better as an actual 'facebook'. facebook are putting a lot more thought into how people really interact and implementing threaded conversation and group forming methods. Having the most simple of conversations in twitter involves a ridiculous amount of to and fro, but to nothing beats it on staying current with the crowd.
Posted by joly | June 18, 2008 10:43 PM
Good article.
I am an avid user of many different social networks. Some I like and others that I take for a test ride and then forget about.
I also use twitter more than facebook because that is the nature of twitter. I don't think you can compare the two in the sense that people are leaving facebook for twitter. Thats comparing apples to oranges.
As far as social networks plateauing, there are only a few that will be able to support themselves. Most knew this when they started and eventually seek acquisition. Therefore companies like Google and Microsoft, who hold the buying power, will win out in the end when they can buy or destroy the web apps that bring in money or not.
Posted by Dylan B. | June 19, 2008 4:07 PM
And that' s my only point in all of this. I love the internet-- in fact, I want to go back to school to learn to use it better-- and I think it' s an important component of modern life. But, I think we also have to consider it in the context of it being a cultural phenomenon and not put all of our eggs in one basket, so to speak. Investing so much time, effort, and money in the internet is not the way to go. Using it in combination with real- life, one- on- one relationships, in a strategic and moderate way is...
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