Not sure about you but I’m getting a bad case of Facebook-itis. Everywhere you turn, it’s Facebook that and/or Facebook this.
For example, a U.S. judge is apparently going to decide this week whether to grant an injunction related to three ex-Harvard students who allege Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg stole their idea when he was hired to do some programming for their social networking service a few years ago. There was another item in yesterday’s paper about a “white knight” in Cambridge, Ont., who successfully worked to have a group removed from Facebook that was aimed at a troubled street woman. And yet another column about someone’s father found himself hooked on Facebook after trying to ignore it.
Then, there’s the constant friendship requests….and people recommending new applications…and Facebook buying start-ups….and venture capitalists thinking about investing in start-ups developing Facebook applications….and whether Facebook will be acquired for $10-billion or do an IPO.
Sure, Facebook (or FB as the cool kids apparently call it now) is a super-popular service and certainly enjoying more than its 15 minutes of fame. But how much Facebook is enough?
This may be an off-the-mark thesis but I think Facebook’s popularity has crested. I’m not suggesting it’s going to be Friendster-rized (hot and trendy today; popular only in Brazil and parts of Asia tomorrow) but Facebook has reached that point where it doesn’t seem that cool or in anymore.
We’ve arrived at a fork in the road where Facebook’s ongoing success/popularity will depend on how useful it continues to be. Maybe Facebook’s user-friendly interface will keep it at the top of the heap, and maybe all those Facebook Apps will make the platform more useful beyond collecting friends.
Then again, online users are notoriously fickle so maybe Facebook should go public or do an IPO before the cool kids discover another hot social networking service down the street – leaving Facebook and wunderkind CEO Mark Zuckerberg wondering what happened.
Of course, I could be completely, totally wrong but when it comes to me and Facebook, I’ve lost that loving feeling.
For more on Facebook Fatigue, check out Alx Klive’s WorldTV Blog. Like me, he argues the biggest threat to Facebook and social networking sites is “fashion”. “Social networking sites by their very nature are trend based. They can be fashionable for a bit, but after a while a new one comes along which is cooler. Switching between two social networking applications is becoming a right of passage….”
Update: Interesting to see that Jason Calcanis has declared Facebook Bankruptcy.
Technorati Tags: Facebook
9 Comments
You think? Personally I’m still trying to convince non-Facebook-enabled friends to join FB, because it really does save an order of magnitude of time when trying to keep in touch with friends, organize events, and other social activities. Even if the faddiness of it fades, it still remains an incredibly useful tool!
I wrote about Facebook fairly recently, and I’d post a link but I and I’ve become entirely bored with it. You can only stalk people so much! I find it useful for some things-like organizing small get-togethers with “events” and sharing pictures with friends and family- but there are so many things you can do with it that there’s no way one person can possibly use all of them.
I don’t spend much time on the site- and never really did until the site became so popular that you got a friend request every fifteen minutes, which kept bringing you back to the site- so after a sudden surge of popularity, what is going to keep bringing people back?
I use it like email now, and a place to dump photos, the let’s freak people out from 15 years ago phase is over.
Why all the hate though? I know society loves to shoot down pop culture phenoms. Like the Iphone, people could not wait to bash it, they started bashing it before it was released to the public.
I think when mainstream media covers a trend to death, the hate starts, the law suites start flying and the bandwagon grows like the my disdain for the word “Blogosphere”.
Hello, Web 2.0, anyone home?? anyone?
I totally agree, the Facebook fever has calmed down, after everyone has invited everyone
I dump group photos there, wrote here and there like email, group trip plan discussion, that’s about it.
I confess: I still do scout Marketplace whenever I can, after picking up some sweet deals including Wii~~ BEFORE all those “Free Laptop” spams show up
Hey, Mark. I’ll take an opposing view here and say you are a victim of being in the 99th percentile of web abilities. As a result, you dive into stuff quickly, absorb it, use it to its max – and then get bored with it.
My business partner is the exact same way, so anytime we speak about mass consumer stuff I always end up telling him “you are not the masses”.
Mark, you are not the masses.
The masses are still in the early stages of Facebookitis and, therefore, still in love with it. I can tell you that many business people outside of the tech world are completely unaware of FB….let alone “over it”.
Your web abilities are a curse
I played golf with a couple of guys that shot the lights out. Literally, they would drive, approach and putt for birdie almost every time. The problem is, they weren’t having any fun. The excitement of making a great shot was gone. Golf had become mechanical. I immediately decided that I would never allow myself to become that good of a golfer. I still love the excitement of making the odd birdie, loooong putt or a great approach close to the pin.
I feel sorry about the fact you will probably never get that same excitement from the web again. You’re too good and too fast. I can’t foresee how any new web tools/sites/apps could satisfy you for very long.
Best,
George
This isn’t a bandwagon that you need to jump off. If you get sick of logging into facebook every 15 minutes like you used to do, then.. don’t, and start logging in every week. Your friend requests will still keep going up.
And why “switch” between two social networking services? Why not have 2 or 5? Certainly don’t need to check it very often.
George: You make some good points about what I describe as being “too close to the fire”, which means you’re so close to the action you forget there are many other people who are just catching on to what’s “hot”
Alx: My apologies for the wrong URL to your blog. It’s been fixed now.
Hello ang good day,
I personaly have found a site that is 100% better than FB it lets you do sooo much more and is alot more fun and easy to use. The coolest thing (i think) is that you can see your friends and family live 24/7 for free! The site is http://www.friendtape.com Hope to see ya there. spread the word.
Have a great Day..
I agree, I really am tired of Facebook. My wife started in on it a few months ago and is hooked, but she is even getting tired of it and upset that they keep changing the look or where things are. Personally I think FB has too much crap on it, much like what MySpace did.
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