It came from nowhere and spread like a virus. Suddenly everybody we knew was on it - telling us what they'd been up to, uploading photos, sending flirtatious messages and logging on as if the site were crack and they were addicts.
In no time at all it had millions of users of all ages, and it was regularly name-checked in scandalous newspaper articles. People were using it to arrange affairs, or to waste time at work, or to post things they'd later regret.
And then we all dumped Friends Reunited for Facebook.
Facebook's success has been staggering. 150 million active users, 13 million people updating their statuses daily, 800 million monthly photo uploads and 52,000 installable applications. In just five years (today is Facebook's fifth birthday) Facebook has gone from zero to a genuine cultural phenomenon.
It won't last.
Don't get us wrong. Facebook is an extraordinary achievement, but its incredible growth is largely down to what's called the network effect. You join a site and invite your friends. They in turn invite their friends, who invite their friends, who invite their friends. Hundreds of users becomes thousands, then millions.
Eventually, though, the growth stops. It has to. You know those pyramid scams where you pay to join the scheme, and people you recruit pay you, and you're told you'll end up a millionaire? They all run out of steam, leaving almost everybody out of pocket, because to sustain the level of growth you soon need to recruit 10 times the population of the planet.
It's the same with social networks. Once you've added everybody you can think of, including people you'll later regret adding, you tend to stop sending invites. The fun wears off, you update your status less frequently, you get fed up fending off stupid requests to use stupid applications, and you start looking for a new playground.
Right now, that playground appears to be Twitter. Just look at Stephen Fry, who had around 30,000 followers a few weeks back. As we write this, the number has rocketed to over 100,000. (Incidentally, here's a fun game to play. Go to www.twitter.com/stephenfry and look at the number of followers. Wait a minute, hit refresh and look again. We tried it at 8am yesterday, and the numbers increased from 103,424 to 103,428 in sixty seconds. There's your network effect right there, because everybody who joins Twitter must follow Fry. It's the law.)
Facebook says that its key demographic is the over-30s; according to Hitwise, the fastest growing group of UK Twitter users is the 35-44 age group, which already accounts for 17 per cent of users. This is important, because Facebook wants to make money from advertising - and the over-30, early adopter, MacBook-toting super-connectors are where the big ad money is. If they're heading off to Twitter, which they appear to be, that's a clear sign that Facebook's days as the cool social network are coming to a close.
Facebook isn't finished any more than Friends Reunited or Friendster are - but in much the same way that Facebook eclipsed those sites, Twitter - and whatever the cool crowd moves onto after that - will eclipse it.
iPhone apps, Facebook Connect and new markets mean Facebook will continue to attract users, but the days of explosive growth are over. When was the last time you logged into Friends Reunited?
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Your comments (6) Click to add a new comment
saulbejarano
May 30th 2010
6. Facebook Don't Ask, Don't Tell Policies:
This sounds like the right title for the procedure used by Facebook to disable accounts; I am a quite active user of Facebook since 2002 and keep a very updated and active profile with a social network of more than 2100 virtual friends, despite the hundreds of pictures, notes, comments and participation achieved with this social networking site.
THE PROBLEM: Today Saturday morning I was chatting with a friend and suddenly got a disconnect message requesting to login again, when I did so the famous YOUR ACCOUNT IS DISABLED message was there, the funny thing is that there was no message, no warning no nothing , they just took it away and that was it, no communication no nothing.
Then I think to myself, what good makes me to participate on a social network and put so much effort on bringing friends and fellows to this network when they treat users not even politely enough to report then the motive why their accounts are been disabled?
I think I am not the only one questioning this proceedings and also not the only one feeling this helpless and disappointed, the true is that there is nowhere to report, despite several emails sent since this morning 8 hours later I still have nothing back from them and I worry that I will never be able to retrieve all those nice pictures that I uploaded directly from my IPhone.
My warning to potential new Facebook users is to make sure you understand this Social Network is not the fantasy that they claim, if you are lucky enough to not get disabled you may get hacked or similar without the opportunity to receive help from anybody.
Be careful I have no plans on returning to Facebook thanks to the offensive way they treat you as a user with ABSOLUTELY NO RIGHTS!
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netinfluence
June 19th 2009
5. @dwderr Facebook value comes from apps which are not made by facebook and free and therefore generate nothing but addiction for people to stay. The main problem in this is the "lock in syndrom" facebook has created, by only allowing you to add things and retrieve nothing outside facebook. So unlike you, I do not beleive facebook sets people free.
Facebook generates revenues based on CPC ads, The problem with it is that the more and goes and the more people get sick of it. The 30's are leaving for twitter while the generation "Y" hates ads.
I like facebook too but to be honnest, the news feed tends to be the only most interesting part and in fact often is...my friends twitter feeds.
There will be a delcine because when you went that high, you only can fall or, in the best case, stabilize.
Unless they give more freedom to users for retrieving data, sending mails if they like to all their friends if they wish and really start to think over the value of this platform, yes, I believe too they are heading to a close.
what are you doing on facebook that you could not do somewhere else ?
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kasino72
February 6th 2009
4. @dwderr:
"You say that people will stop using facebook once everyone has joined without providing any evidence from real life or the internet to support your claim."
That's not what I said (I'm the writer of the piece): I said that its days as the cool social network are numbered, and that its days of explosive growth are coming to a close. I didn't say everyone was going to leave, but what I have seen again and again is the same old social network pattern: people join, spend loads of time connecting with others and playing around, then they start logging in less and less frequently. The signal to noise ratio deteriorates.
I though the friends reunited stuff was a pretty good example, though. It was the facebook of its era, it too tried to expand, and it's been eclipsed. It's still very popular, but it's not the Big Thing any more.
Like Friends Reunited, Facebook is ultimately based on the walled garden approach, and internet history tells us again and again that walled gardens don't last. Just ask CompuServe and AOL. That's why Connect is important - but Connect is one of several competing ideas doing essentially the same thing. Factor in the rise of location-based services such as Google Latitude and Loopt, and things are about to get very interesting.
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dwderr
February 5th 2009
3. This article is dumb to say the least. Of course once everyone is on facebook, growth will stop. Then EVERYONE will be on facebook, making it one of the most powerful tools for not only networking, but advertising, market research, etc.
You say that people will stop using facebook once everyone has joined without providing any evidence from real life or the internet to support your claim. In fact, I will argue that facebook will only become more popular and regular use will increase. Look at what has happened with the internet. We have gotten to the point now where anyone with the means to have a computer or use a computer uses the internet. We have come a long way over the past decade, but has this saturation of users stopped people from using the internet? No. It has only made the internet more popular because it has become a place where ideas flow freely and work is done more efficiently, and it only gets better as time goes on. The same will happen with Facebook. Because of the introduction of applications, Facebook has opened the door to allow continued improvement of their site, even if Facebook employees aren't the ones with the next big idea. As more people join and monthly hits continue to rise (which they have been doing as quite a rate recently), Facebook will only become a more powerful tool for those looking to network, shop, date, etc. and the companies looking to profit from these people.
Facebook isn't going anywhere, and any article trying to prove otherwise should provide sound evidence to support such a theory. Twitter is on the rise, but isn't a replacement for facebook. In fact, many use facebook as their platform for Twitter and have each Tweet broadcast to their friend network... just one more way Facebook increases user traffic. Also, saying that people will get fed up fending off stupid requests to use stupid applications is awfully shortsighted. Who is to say that there won't be applications offered to block certain applications or a filter made to find applications that are truly useful for you? Wherever there is a problem, there is an enterprising individual with a solution and Facebook is making the best of this by allowing people to publish their applications on their platform. We won't get bored with Facebook because there are many entrepreneurial people out there ready to release the next application that will keep us glued to our facebook screen.
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worldtvpc
February 5th 2009
2. i think it'll still pick and up zoom off. they'll find some countries that weren't using it before and get them to start.
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bitchain
February 4th 2009
1. facebook is more than twitter, it's a platform. yes growth will stop but that doesn't make it any less relevant. people want an all-encompassing place to connect with their friends and facebook provides that. even if i do not actively faff around with status updates every 5 seconds like i did, i still check facebook every week to check in with photos and stories from friends and accept event invitations. the quality of facebook i argue will hold a captive audience for a long long time. twitter has no relevance of comparison to facebook, it's a micro status service. and facebook can even integrate with it to make your twits change your facebook status if you are so inclined. i am not sure what the point of this article was other than to say people move on from fad to fad. actually, the reason people moved from myspace, friendster and friends reunited was the sheer quality and functionality of the facebook platform. i don't see that being undone anytime soon.
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