Will Facebook Ever Die?

[publyfe]

I'm curious on everyone's thoughts as to whether or not this social juggernaut will go the way of the dinosaur eventually, or will they continue to buy up competition and technologies outright to always remain relevant?

 

[mantra]

From all things that Facebook is doing, they seem to be doing everything right. As a company, they have expanded into other areas and creations that are a great extension of their company. Nobody knows for sure, but don't think any other big players will come and put Facebook down quite easily. Seems like Microsoft is headed in the Business Professional route with their acquisition of LinkedIn. Yahoo acquired by Verizon, but likely not a player. I think Facebook will always have an edge. Others may disagree.

 

[Ron Killian]

Facebook sure has a hold on the social market. Everyone in my family uses it.

I don't see them going away any time soon.

Yesterday I mentioned Periscope in a conversation, my wife had never heard of it. But she is on facebook many times a day.

 

[ivanab]

As Mantra said, they seem to be doing everything right! Compared to other social media networks, they are growing and listening to their audience. They are constantly adding new features for advertisers, even brought in some more tools to help with better targeting.

So no, at this point, I don't see them going down...

 

[mantra]

I think Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. Those are the major social networks in my opinion. There are more, which I'm not aware of and usually each country has their own. I know China does.

From those 4, Facebook is the most likely to stick around. Just because it does everything the other 3 already do.

 

[hynds]

I don't think Facebook will die soon. Currently it's the largest social media network on the internet. Their users are now over 1 billion and it's increasing day by day. Beside they're the free and largest community for people engagement, they're running an ads system that can support users in their business on advertising and branding. So that they will not die at least on the next 5 - 10 years. I think so.

 

[ulterios]

Eventually, Facebook WILL die off and disappear! Everything dies at one point or another even websites and social networks. Remember MySpace?

I am in no way saying that it is going to happen any time soon because it's not easy to tell. Many people think they only have a few years left before they are taking that long walk down the road of forgotten things.

We might not think it could ever happen but people also thought that the typewriter would be around forever long ago. Things change and so do times!

Besides MySpace, do you remember AOL, Lycos, Napster? All top sites that basically died! Sure they are still around, but who actually goes to them daily or even weekly or monthly?

 

[Ron Killian]

Ron Killian

Actually Myspace has been reinventing themselves, been for a while. Don't know it's it working. But more a music community. Last I saw.

Funny, I still see people using AOL email addresses. Must be REAL old folks

 

[selenagomez1]

Sure it is, I have never thought of once Facebook or Twitter will get itself dead. Just imagine every day there are tons of people come to visit these social networks, you and me, especially SEO guys like us.

Following my company's statistics of marketing researches, every day the number of people of every country becoming a member of Facebook is increasing much. They are rely much on facebook now!

Besides, Instagram, Snapchat, or more can not get themself to be dead soon, at least in a few decades later!

 

[SamanthaBrey82]

Facebook isn't going anywhere anytime soon, and as long as people are using the internet for social purposes, it will be around. They will continue to expand and purchase other web-based properties as well. My opinion, it's nowhere near it's peak yet.

 

[ulterios]

Actually Myspace has been reinventing themselves, been for a while. Don't know it's it working. But more a music community. Last I saw.

Yeah, I saw that a while back. No matter what they do it will probably never, ever be anywhere near what it was.

P.S. Justin Timberlake is supposed to be an investor or part owner. Read that quite a while back but can't remember where.

Funny, I still see people using AOL email addresses. Must be REAL old folks

Hey, I'm "REAL old folks" and I don't have an AOL email! Does that mean I am getting senile? :dontknow:

 

[Ron Killian]

Ron Killian

Sure the one person out of 11 in cyberspace that uses AOL email and it's you. Did not see that coming. Well, you did mention Lyco's, I should have known.

Hey, I remember getting traffic from Alta Vista, Excite, Infoseek, Lycos, HotBot, Dogpile and Netscape. Didn't need to do much SEO back then.

Back in the day when Yahoo had a real "directory". Remember when I got listed and got a ton of traffic.

 

[ulterios]

ulterios

I did actually like AOL for one thing, The free CD's which made great Frisbee's


Facebook will be one of these sites that goes downhill eventually like the others you mentioned, just like they all do at one point or another! Heck it might go down sooner than later if Marky Z gets caught up in a scandal!

 

[Ron Killian]

Ron Killian

Maybe you should take up skeet shooting? Probably 100's of ways to re-purpose CD's on Pinterest.

I remember being on AOL in the dial-up days and getting a big phone bill for it.

Only social site I can think of that has stood the test of time is Reddit. Only one. For what ever reason that site just keeps chugging along. Talk about some die-hard users. Some one figures out why, they could be rich.

 

[mantra]

I think there's a big comparison gap between reddit and facebook
reddit is sort of a no frills site that continues to gather information and showcase material.
Facebook on other hand is a social network. a full fledged social network with capacity to do anything.

if facebook were to go down, something else would need to replace it. What is coming up? anyone using a different social platform that is up and coming?

 

[EpicGlobalWeb]

I talked on another post in another time about economic bubbles and how major companies who make billions and billions in a short period of time are pretty much robbing other industries, dismantling job markets. For this sad reason, Facebook will remain king for a long time.

Why? Facebook is taking a look at what industries it can replace. One of the most recent is the news. Facebook would like to be your news provider. Old media news outlets aren't getting the viewership they used to.

The advent of mobile devices has also contributed to large user bases. Countries that don't have consistent electrical power still have access to Facebook through cell phones (one example is the Philippines, a beautiful country).

Contrary to popular belief, MySpace never had a real dominant presence on the internet. It was never one of the top-visited sites. One reason is because its viewership was mostly for younger people, whereas Facebook is standard even for 40+ people. It is unlikely to have seen many 40+ people on MySpace.

Why else?

Facebook is a platform business model. Other businesses and developers can use its API to make their own apps.

 

[ulterios]

ulterios

How do you come to this conclusion? MySpace was in the Alexa top 10 for a nice length of time. I know Alexa doesn't mean much for some things but they and many other metrics websites seemed to think they were a top-visited site.

 

[EpicGlobalWeb]

Consider the time period of which it was on Alexa at top 10 and also consider the amount of devices on the internet compared to today's numbers. Even in America during the early 2000's, 45% either had no internet connection or dial-up internet. Today there are ~3 Billion internet users, or, half the planet. During the "hay day" of MySpace, that number was much less.

So if you adjust for amount of devices to today's standards, MySpace viewership wasn't even close to Facebook's. Also, 10th place on Alexa vs 3rd place on Alexa is a massive difference - millions of users different.

 

[ulterios]

ulterios

Of course the number of visitors is going to be different as you yourself stated, the number of devices on the internet now is a lot more. However, you said "It was never one of the top-visited sites.", which in fact it was. You said nothing about number of visitors then versus the number of visitors now. Number of visitors is a different thing than being a top-visited website, top-visited is being compared to other websites and their visitors.

 

[EpicGlobalWeb]

Well now you're just splitting hairs.

 

[ulterios]

ulterios

No, I am stating that it was a top site at one time, which it was. You can't compare traffic numbers now to years ago. When you say something is not one of the top-visited sites when it was is going to draw attention. Go and post that statement on DP and see what happens.

 

[EpicGlobalWeb]

I can post it here, on DP, and anywhere on the internet especially when it's true. No it isn't now and it wasn't then. Take visitor numbers out of the equation if you want. It doesn't matter if you want to talk percentages or actual raw numbers because MySpace was not ever a top 10 site. MySpace launched in 2003, rose to its zenith in 2005, got bought out, then plummeted and dwindled 70% of its size over the next 5 years. Now it just deals with music. Your data is not correct. The top 10 sites in 2003 were:

Yahoo
MSN
Go
Ebay
Google
and a few others that were definitely not MySpace.

Source: http://www.top-ten-10.com/computers/internet/usa-websites-2003.htm

Then in 2005 it was:

FACEBOOK
YouTube
Google
Twitter
and a bunch of others that were not MySpace.

MySpace never even came close to the audience Facebook had in its entire history. At its peak, MySpace had 76 million users. Facebook has more than 10 times that. In 2008, when MySpace was entering its golden years, Facebook had over 600 million users in the same year. Let's look at some other sites for the year of 2008:

1. Yahoo Mail
2. Google Search
3. Gmail
4. Weather Channel
5. ESPM
6. MSN Hotmail
7. Google Maps
8. AOL Email
9. CNN News
10. Facebook

Source: http://www.atelier.net/en/trends/articles/google-yahoo-2008s-most-visited-sites-study-says

So even at its highest peak (2008) it was still not a top 10 site. It was still beaten by Facebook, who had >10 times more traffic than MySpace, and was yet dead last in the top 10 list. Which means it probably wasn't even top 20 during that time. So I don't know what "one point" of time you were talking about.

 

[EpicGlobalWeb]

Your own sources from Alexa (the only source that says it was top 10) shows that MySpace was #9 for maybe half a year sometime before 2010, and Facebook was #5 during the same time. That certainly isn't a "nice length of time."

 

[ulterios]

I can post it here, on DP, and anywhere on the internet especially when it's true. No it isn't now and it wasn't then.

Go over there and post a thread stating that "MySpace was never a top-visited website" and see what happens. It was a top site and trying to prove it wasn't is not possible when it was.

Then in 2005 it was:

FACEBOOK
YouTube
Google
Twitter
and a bunch of others that were not MySpace.

Do a little more research and you will find that Facebook didn't overtake MySpace until the second half of 2008.

MySpace never even came close to the audience Facebook had in its entire history. At its peak, MySpace had 76 million users. Facebook has more than 10 times that.

The number of users can not be compared as you yourself even stated that there are drastically more internet users now then then. I never once said it had the same numbers of visitors, a quick look at my posts and reading them will show that. I said that it was a top website, not that it had more users. A little researching will go a long way, plus MySpace was around 7 years before 2010 as seen in the image you posted. Facebook over took MySpace in the second half of 2008 if memory serves me correctly.



Let's please get back on-topic of the thread or start a new one for this discussion.

 

[EpicGlobalWeb]

K.

The data is there. I see one little blip of time where MySpace was top 10 from your source, which isn't a numbers issue, that's a percentage issue without respect of total user numbers.

How does this apply to will facebook ever die? Trends. MySpace died because it spent more time on developing efficient advertising platforms and not enough time building a better user experience. It didn't have the same "seriousness" of Facebook either, then lost shortly after it got bought out. Why did the trend decline? Was it ease of use? Was it better developer APIs? Was it more real engagement? What factors can topple these innovations?

Facebook can die but it hasn't in 10+ years. It just keeps swallowing up more market share.

Anyways, ult, don't know if there's a miscommunication here or just a simple disagreement but I'm putting it to bed. You're right. I'm wrong.

 

[Rob Whisonant]

It would be very difficult to dethrone Facebook simply because of one of their business models. That being...

They seem to buy out their competitors, including companion and related sites.

 

[EpicGlobalWeb]

Yes, they buy out everything. They're just like Microsoft all over again.