How Long Can Facebook Stay Cool?
OnlineSpin has some nice insight into the Facebook phenomena, and how it’s been able to grow so fast, so quickly recently. Not that I’m willing to stand in the way of the Facebook locomotive as it comes rumbling down the track but I wonder whether there’s any risk of Facebook losing its cool cache?
I mean, it’s one thing for university students to embrace social network, and quite another for bleeding and leading-edge Web users to enthusiastically jump on the bandwagon but what happens when your mother decides to join the party. It’s like when you were in high school and you were having a rockin’ party in your basement until your parents came back from watching a movie and decided to turn some of the lights back on. End of party, right? Another analogy is the cool club that, for whatever reason, manages to capture the imagination of people to the point where they’re willing to stand in line for an hour to get in. Suddenly, the club down the street becomes hot and the cool club becomes a ghost town. (This is a phenomena explored by Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point)
Of course, I’m not suggesting Facebook will become the next Friendster given Facebook is attracting 100,000 new users a day and 40 billion page views a month. But I think a lot of people are asking why Facebook has become so darn popular and when/if its growth will start to subside. (Mind you, a lot of people are also asking why Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg hasn’t accepted a mind-boggling takeover offer yet.)
In Canada, one of the big questions is why Canadians have been so enthusiastic about Facebook. Apparently, there are more than three million Canadians are Facebook users, including nearly 700,000 in Toronto, which makes it the most Facebook-friendly city in North America on a per capita basis.
More: Paul Kedrosky wonders when Facebook will file for an IPO given it’s apparently now generating more than $100-million a year in revenue. He suggests the company will file for an IPO by August. Now, that’s a feeding frenzy I’d like to see.
June 16th, 2007 at 9:25 am
Hmmm…an argument (and prediction) could be made that the essence of what makes something popular in an adolescent culture is the inevitable unpopularity that must follow as the dawn follows the night. The cutting edge ‘cool kids’ will turn up their noses, laying claim to social superiority with a, ‘Oh, you’re still doing that?’
This too shall pass.
June 17th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
In a way it has already started happening. My gf is a huge facebook fan but has recently started noticing people she doesn’t want to be “friends” with asking for friend invites into her network. How can she share the latest gossip about work when her boss is sitting right in her network and can possibly catch wind of what is said? Sure there are blocking features, but how can you explain to your boss why you blocked her? Got something to hide?
This type of thing is going to make Facebook “uncool” eventually and it will lose its steam.
June 20th, 2007 at 11:30 pm
Nice take on this, Mark.
Two things: Many people in the Toronto network on Facebook live two hours away. I have “Toronto” friends in Peterborough. So, I think the number is inflated.
Second, I had received a Facebook invitation directly from Facebook, but ignored it. Then I decided to join when my daughter, who’s in university, encouraged me. Of course, my younger child, who is in high school, is aghast that I am in her space, and promises to rebuff any effort on my part to be her “friend.”
July 9th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
[...] How Long Can Facebook Stay Cool? [...]
July 28th, 2007 at 12:28 am
[...] 106 users/day while generating 4.0×1010 page views/month, leading Mark Evans to wonder when it stops being cool. Not yet: It’s also luring roughly 1,000 developers/day, blogs Mashable!, and that may be [...]