This is one more step toward the inevitable "major event" occuring in the mid 2010's regarding online privacy.
Sooner or later, we're going to trend backwards away from all this. Just like it's hip to be environmentally conscious now, it will be hip to be privacy conscious when the generation growing up giving away all their personal information grows to realize this ultimately can lead to an unhealthy world. This sense of enlightenment, that our natural impulses in the short term can have undesired consequences in the long, is the foundation of movements that define generations. Usually the thing that kicks it all off, though, is a major event that brings these long term consequences to the surface. I certainly hope for this one, it doesn't cost any lives.
I dangers of online privacy have been in the news for the past 5 to 6 years since myspace et al. initially became popular. Since then more people have put more information about themselves online because they believe there is an advantage in doing so. Unless some 'major event' leading to the deaths of thousands of people occurs, which is very unlikely, I do not see the trend diminishing. In fact, I predict that within a decade if your job history and some social information about you is not readily available on the web your professional opportunities will be constrained and people will view you with suspicion.
I just don't get quotes like (I see in the sidebar) "we are making a web where the default is social".
No shit Sherlock. The web has always been social and about sharing information. There's the <a> tag, one might say linking to your friends page is encouraged, and the "default" is no authentication. Meanwhile I, apparently, can't even read the facebook developer docs without signing up. Yeah, real social.
Your prediction is worded in a way that makes it hard to argue with, because "relevant" is so subjective. I know a lot of artists find MySpace VERY relevant.
However, to attempt a rebuttal, taking the Facebook case:
If Facebook is to become less relevant than it is now I would argue it's growth would have to stop, or at least slow down. According to the linked article it is currently accelerating, and usage of Facebook APIs OUTSIDE of Facebook is increasing enormously.
Growth like that doesn't just stop, unless there is some external factor.
So far, Facebook have proven themselves to be reasonable technically skilled, so I'll rule out technical problems.
It's possible some kind of legal issue could slow them (privacy lawsuits or something?). However, lawsuits take such a long time to play out that it would probably be at least 2-3 years before any negative verdict against Facebook would make them change what they are doing, and even then it won't shut down the site. If Facebook have 2-3 years more sustained growth it would be unprecedented for them to shrink from half-a-billion users to something less relevant than MySpace in another 2 years.
Another good counter-argument is the likely-hood of an IPO in the next 5 years. Apparently, Facebook had $700 million in revenue last year, and should do $1.1 billion this year (http://www.insidefacebook.com/2010/03/02/facebook-made-up-to...). If they IPO'ed now, with a P/E ratio of 20 (Google & Apple = ~24, Microsoft = ~ 17), then they'd be a $20 billion company. That buys a lot of relevance.
EDIT: Note that is a revenue figure, not an earning (as pointed out below), so the numbers are wrong. I'll leave it here, though, because the point is more important than the numbers - if (when) Facebook IPO's they will raise a LOT of money.
I don't really get Facebook. What is it? I left it alone for a few years, when it was basically a profile and a list of friends. Now when I log in, I don't know what to do. I don't know any of the people who are trying to friend me, and I don't see any way to do anything.
Contrast this with Google, where I can find information, get maps, check my calendar, listen to my voicemail, and chat with my friends.
I am not sure which one will "win", but I know which one is actually useful for me right now.
You should start a new account - the hand-holding in their registration process is very well done, helping you find all your friends and start talking to them.
I can live without facebook (in fact, I have never used it.) I could never live without the Google, and I can never envision a time when this will not be true.
I am the sort of person you are talking about (distrusts FB) and I do what I can to make others realize how evil they are. Case in point, somehow many people either missed the whole Beacon debacle entirely or have put it out of their minds until reminded. I will never understand how anyone can give ANY personal data (who friends are and so forth) to a company who has proven so... ruthless in using that data for personal gain without consideration of their user base.
Everybody is a friend, no colleagues, much less family, or people you admire. eliminating privacy and reducing relationships to simplistic formulas to be sold to marketers.
Fact is, all my relationships are complicated, not just one. including my relationship with facebook, one i'm not particularly attached to either.
This is all very neat. But I'm not going to make my site's functionality dependent on Facebook any more than I'll make it dependent on Yahoo, Microsoft, or Google. There needs to be a way to abstract all this stuff so that if Facebook goes belly up tomorrow, I can still have the social features on my site. I'm pretty sure facebook doesn't want developers thinking about that, though.
In my opinion, Facebook still has a ways to go towards improving its actual site if it’s really going to be the long-term center of the web. (As in, the place you go to rather than Google.com.)
So they are saying that Facebook wants to become like Digg and Reddit? I just don't see that happening. Maybe if you're a power user who collects friends and has hundreds of people posting stuff you can do that, but it takes a large community to find all those interesting links. And the larger your community becomes the less personal it is and the more it becomes saturated with irrelevant stuff. So it seems that Facebook can be either a great place to find interesting stuff online or a personal place for you and your friends, but not both.
Well, Facebook just released a feature it thought will make life better for it's users, and it probably will. Nowhere did Facebook mention that one can't create something similar with their own social network.
Facebook is trying to do something really innovative here. That's solid entrepreneurship, which is why it's receiving such violent opposition, as usual. They are trying to jump to the next curve, and that's great. If other networks jump in, this could change the very basics of how we experience web, with or without Facebook. I think Facebook is just first company to start this, just like some company started 'e-mail'; that company didn't own the world's communication.
What I really want to see here is, how much are people willing to use their 'real' identities outside of facebook window. Because most of legit users on Facebook use their real names (I think), and there must be a reason that whenever somebody uses an id to comment on websites, it looks like 'pinkgur92twilight_meow'.
This is just creepy. Facebook is a profit motivated company and I don't understand why people keep feeding it data and not just any data but relevant, extremely profitable data for free! Google knows a bunch of stuff too but for some reason this seems way more creepy.
This is creepy because Facebook is making "private" information available to other private companies, who can do nearly whatever they want with it. Also, anybody can write a crawler to find the private information of thousands of people with little to no hassle. Google, on the other hand, keeps your data locked up for use in its advertising programs. Google doesn't hand your data over to other companies.
1. I reached a critical mass of friends where every time I was on I could click on "Chat" and see a few friends on.
2. I started chatting with a Facebook "poweruser"[1] who said she was going to "teach me how to be cool" by using Facebook better.
3. Partly thanks to (2), I started updating my status a few times a week, whenever I had something interesting[3] to share.
4. People started commenting on and "Like"ing my status updates.
5. I realized that it was pretty cool to be able to connect meaningfully[4] with people in a way that I couldn't before.
I love creating and building things, but social interaction with people I enjoy is just as important to me. Facebook is an invaluable tool in that interaction, just as a great IDE is an invaluable tool in programming. Just like an IDE, Facebook is most valuable when you are using it to its full potential. If you don't have a large number of Facebook friends and you don't use Chat and status updates, it's easy to miss the point. Perhaps you've experienced the difficulty in explaining the benefits of emacs or vi to an Eclipse or VisualStudio user?
---
[1] I was at a Taco Bell one night after my friends and I left the bar, and somehow we started talking to a girl and her friends. I walked them home, she got my name, she added me as a Facebook friend, and now we chat on Facebook a few times a month. If not for Facebook, I probably would have never seen her again. That is what makes Facebook relevant, the ability to create new (and keep old[2]) connections that weren't even possible before Facebook got huge.
[2] Just tonight I was talking to a friend on Facebook when another girl said hello to me, a girl that I was good friends with a couple summers ago but haven't seen or talked to much since. Now we're probably going to meet up tomorrow night to catch up over drinks.
[3] For certain values of "interesting"
[4] With Facebook-as-it-is-now, it is possible to tell people that you are barely friends with, "I appreciate you and I'm glad to be friends with you," simply by Liking or commenting on a photo, status update, or shared link. It was hard to do that in the past without being drunk or creepy.
Yeah, I don't either and really don't like to login to facebook at all. I definitely have an account, but I only reply to private messages and rsvp to events since that's how I get invited to a lot of things. I don't really mind facebook for that purpose, but I don't spend any free time there.
The once-in-a-while that I do use it, I can't figure it out. Are there two or three home pages? It's impossible to find anything. Maybe I just don't spend enough time there. <insert #geezertag here>
I would love to see more data behind their users, as in how many of their nearly 500 million users have even used the service? Added to their profiles? Created a friends list? Verified their e-mail address?
I have friends who have, combined, created hundreds of dummy facebook accounts that they do not use because while they do not have dedicated facebook accounts, they often want to see someone's profile or friend's list. So they hit "Sign Up", put in a fake e-mail address, fake first name, fake last name and register. Facebook makes this quite easy because they don't even require, last I checked, that you verify your e-mail address before you start using the site features.
Facebook goes off of monthly active users. If you had logged in and done and action once this month. Same for monthly active users within games, if the user logs in, accesses the game that counts.
It is pretty clear how deep the social links are that Facebook is truly that big. All your friends from elementary to college, all your relatives, nearly everyone is on there. Your mom is probably on there. That tells that the numbers are real.
Your own personal experience with Facebook just isn't relevant when comparing it to 400-500 million people.
I've seen comments on here that people doubt Facebook is as strong as it is. For young adults Facebook is synonymous with the Internet.
I'd be interested in the numbers as well, but the whole idea that because most of us on here don't use it, it can't possibly be doing as well as everyone else says is pretty silly. It's like Avatar, yes it did gross almost three billion dollars world-wide, and yes it's not the greatest movie in the world but the money and in FB's case the userbase speak for themselves.
[+] [-] gfodor|16 years ago|reply
Sooner or later, we're going to trend backwards away from all this. Just like it's hip to be environmentally conscious now, it will be hip to be privacy conscious when the generation growing up giving away all their personal information grows to realize this ultimately can lead to an unhealthy world. This sense of enlightenment, that our natural impulses in the short term can have undesired consequences in the long, is the foundation of movements that define generations. Usually the thing that kicks it all off, though, is a major event that brings these long term consequences to the surface. I certainly hope for this one, it doesn't cost any lives.
[+] [-] troystribling|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jessor|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tjpick|16 years ago|reply
No shit Sherlock. The web has always been social and about sharing information. There's the <a> tag, one might say linking to your friends page is encouraged, and the "default" is no authentication. Meanwhile I, apparently, can't even read the facebook developer docs without signing up. Yeah, real social.
[+] [-] sunchild|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nl|16 years ago|reply
At least Techcrunch provided some reasoning.
Your prediction is worded in a way that makes it hard to argue with, because "relevant" is so subjective. I know a lot of artists find MySpace VERY relevant.
However, to attempt a rebuttal, taking the Facebook case:
If Facebook is to become less relevant than it is now I would argue it's growth would have to stop, or at least slow down. According to the linked article it is currently accelerating, and usage of Facebook APIs OUTSIDE of Facebook is increasing enormously.
Growth like that doesn't just stop, unless there is some external factor.
So far, Facebook have proven themselves to be reasonable technically skilled, so I'll rule out technical problems.
It's possible some kind of legal issue could slow them (privacy lawsuits or something?). However, lawsuits take such a long time to play out that it would probably be at least 2-3 years before any negative verdict against Facebook would make them change what they are doing, and even then it won't shut down the site. If Facebook have 2-3 years more sustained growth it would be unprecedented for them to shrink from half-a-billion users to something less relevant than MySpace in another 2 years.
Another good counter-argument is the likely-hood of an IPO in the next 5 years. Apparently, Facebook had $700 million in revenue last year, and should do $1.1 billion this year (http://www.insidefacebook.com/2010/03/02/facebook-made-up-to...). If they IPO'ed now, with a P/E ratio of 20 (Google & Apple = ~24, Microsoft = ~ 17), then they'd be a $20 billion company. That buys a lot of relevance.
EDIT: Note that is a revenue figure, not an earning (as pointed out below), so the numbers are wrong. I'll leave it here, though, because the point is more important than the numbers - if (when) Facebook IPO's they will raise a LOT of money.
[+] [-] philjackson|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jrockway|16 years ago|reply
Contrast this with Google, where I can find information, get maps, check my calendar, listen to my voicemail, and chat with my friends.
I am not sure which one will "win", but I know which one is actually useful for me right now.
[+] [-] j_baker|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fuzzmeister|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] apsurd|16 years ago|reply
"In my opinion, Facebook still has a ways to go towards improving its actual site if it’s really going to be the long-term center of the web."
Sign me up for some techcrunch bannagee please.
[+] [-] hyperbovine|16 years ago|reply
What am I missing here?
[+] [-] whatusername|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iseff|16 years ago|reply
Perhaps if all your contacts, relationships, events, etc were already on Facebook, you might think you couldn't live without it.
[+] [-] unignorant|16 years ago|reply
More seriously, I know enough people who disdain/distrust Facebook that this seems ridiculous to me. Then again, maybe I know the wrong people.
[+] [-] runevault|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] doron|16 years ago|reply
Everybody is a friend, no colleagues, much less family, or people you admire. eliminating privacy and reducing relationships to simplistic formulas to be sold to marketers.
Fact is, all my relationships are complicated, not just one. including my relationship with facebook, one i'm not particularly attached to either.
[+] [-] gnaritas|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] derwiki|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justinph|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] samd|16 years ago|reply
So they are saying that Facebook wants to become like Digg and Reddit? I just don't see that happening. Maybe if you're a power user who collects friends and has hundreds of people posting stuff you can do that, but it takes a large community to find all those interesting links. And the larger your community becomes the less personal it is and the more it becomes saturated with irrelevant stuff. So it seems that Facebook can be either a great place to find interesting stuff online or a personal place for you and your friends, but not both.
[+] [-] arihant|16 years ago|reply
Facebook is trying to do something really innovative here. That's solid entrepreneurship, which is why it's receiving such violent opposition, as usual. They are trying to jump to the next curve, and that's great. If other networks jump in, this could change the very basics of how we experience web, with or without Facebook. I think Facebook is just first company to start this, just like some company started 'e-mail'; that company didn't own the world's communication.
What I really want to see here is, how much are people willing to use their 'real' identities outside of facebook window. Because most of legit users on Facebook use their real names (I think), and there must be a reason that whenever somebody uses an id to comment on websites, it looks like 'pinkgur92twilight_meow'.
[+] [-] greenlblue|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trobertson|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mercury|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BrandonM|16 years ago|reply
1. I reached a critical mass of friends where every time I was on I could click on "Chat" and see a few friends on.
2. I started chatting with a Facebook "poweruser"[1] who said she was going to "teach me how to be cool" by using Facebook better.
3. Partly thanks to (2), I started updating my status a few times a week, whenever I had something interesting[3] to share.
4. People started commenting on and "Like"ing my status updates.
5. I realized that it was pretty cool to be able to connect meaningfully[4] with people in a way that I couldn't before.
I love creating and building things, but social interaction with people I enjoy is just as important to me. Facebook is an invaluable tool in that interaction, just as a great IDE is an invaluable tool in programming. Just like an IDE, Facebook is most valuable when you are using it to its full potential. If you don't have a large number of Facebook friends and you don't use Chat and status updates, it's easy to miss the point. Perhaps you've experienced the difficulty in explaining the benefits of emacs or vi to an Eclipse or VisualStudio user?
---
[1] I was at a Taco Bell one night after my friends and I left the bar, and somehow we started talking to a girl and her friends. I walked them home, she got my name, she added me as a Facebook friend, and now we chat on Facebook a few times a month. If not for Facebook, I probably would have never seen her again. That is what makes Facebook relevant, the ability to create new (and keep old[2]) connections that weren't even possible before Facebook got huge.
[2] Just tonight I was talking to a friend on Facebook when another girl said hello to me, a girl that I was good friends with a couple summers ago but haven't seen or talked to much since. Now we're probably going to meet up tomorrow night to catch up over drinks.
[3] For certain values of "interesting"
[4] With Facebook-as-it-is-now, it is possible to tell people that you are barely friends with, "I appreciate you and I'm glad to be friends with you," simply by Liking or commenting on a photo, status update, or shared link. It was hard to do that in the past without being drunk or creepy.
[+] [-] brettnak|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jamesjyu|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joezydeco|16 years ago|reply
The once-in-a-while that I do use it, I can't figure it out. Are there two or three home pages? It's impossible to find anything. Maybe I just don't spend enough time there. <insert #geezertag here>
[+] [-] brandon272|16 years ago|reply
I have friends who have, combined, created hundreds of dummy facebook accounts that they do not use because while they do not have dedicated facebook accounts, they often want to see someone's profile or friend's list. So they hit "Sign Up", put in a fake e-mail address, fake first name, fake last name and register. Facebook makes this quite easy because they don't even require, last I checked, that you verify your e-mail address before you start using the site features.
[+] [-] drawkbox|16 years ago|reply
It is pretty clear how deep the social links are that Facebook is truly that big. All your friends from elementary to college, all your relatives, nearly everyone is on there. Your mom is probably on there. That tells that the numbers are real.
[+] [-] TheBranca18|16 years ago|reply
I've seen comments on here that people doubt Facebook is as strong as it is. For young adults Facebook is synonymous with the Internet.
I'd be interested in the numbers as well, but the whole idea that because most of us on here don't use it, it can't possibly be doing as well as everyone else says is pretty silly. It's like Avatar, yes it did gross almost three billion dollars world-wide, and yes it's not the greatest movie in the world but the money and in FB's case the userbase speak for themselves.
[+] [-] modsearch|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tokenadult|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aresant|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alexro|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gojomo|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vtail|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] izak30|16 years ago|reply