More and more users are reporting that they are switching off from Facebook.
Why?
There are many reasons (I hope that plenty of people will let me know if there any that I have missed), but I think that one of the main reasons is that Facebook has lost sight of where it came from.
I count myself quite lucky that I was able to experience Facebook while at university, before it opened up to anyone and allowed applications to be made and distributed.
As universities often opetrate in a 'bubble' - where there are very few of those outside a university community who are aware of the community tastes and trends -which made Facebook the perfect social media site for these bubbles. Only those from your network (or in this case university) where able to see your profile and what you were up to. Only photos, groups, the wall and events where active, meaning it was simple, easy to manage and very useful - without the daily bombardment of junk mail and applications. Facebook was a clean and simple alternative to Myspace - and that is how it should have kept itself.
As Heather Yaxley pointed out, in September 2006, founder Mark Zuckerberg saidFacebook’s mission statement was “to help people understand their world.” (Source: Green Banana)
Once Facebook was opened up to the public, the issue of random friends added you, and the subsequent spam they sent you, became apparent. How many friends" can you possibly know or keep in contact with?
Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point” makes this point:
“The figure of 150 seems to represent the maximum number of individuals with whom we can have a genuinely social relationship, the kind of relationship that goes with knowing who they are and how they relate to us. Putting it another way, it’s the number of people you would not feel embarrassed about joining uninvited for a drink if you happened to bump into them in a bar.”
A person's cirlce of friends that once meant something on Facebook has now become so dilute as to become meaningless.
I think that the new social network sites that will undoubtedly appear in the next year or so will only be successful if they are simple and true to their target audience.
Privacy has also recently become an issue surrounding Facebook.
Indeed, some users have discovered that it is nearly impossible to remove themselves entirely from Facebook, setting off a fresh round of concern over the popular social network’s use of personal data. (Source: The New York Times)
As if there isn't enough to worry about, it turns out attorneys are using social networking sites as evidence and, in some cases, compelling disclosure of what a person has placed on Facebook or MySpace. (Source: Online Public Relations Thoughts)
If you needed any more convincing that Facebook is at its peak, it will comes as some surprise that Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has stopped using Facebook. After Microsoft invested $240 million in Facebook last year, Gates spent 30 minutes a day on the social networking site, but he signed off after getting more than 8,000 friend requests a day, and spotted weird fan sites about him. (Source: The Wall Street Journal)
You may not have weird fan sites being set up about you, but I imagine that nearly everyone has (or at some point has had) some information placed on Facebook that they would rather not and it now appears impossible to remove it.
And that's not even mentioning the problems surrounding Facebook's Beacon programme. (Sources: Techcrunch, Marketing Shift, and Boing Boing)
Financially, Facebook is failing because it has yet to make money, as these figures show:
- 2007 Revenues: $150 million
- 2008 Revenues: $300 to $350 million (projected)
- 2007 Headcount: 450
- 2008 Headcount: 1,000 (projected)
- 2008 Capital Expenditures: $200 million (i.e., servers)
- 2008 EBITDA: $50 million
- 2008 Cash Flow (EBITDA - CapEx): negative 150 million.
This may well be the reason that Facebook as taken the 'innovative' approach of translating its site into various laguages by getting the users to do all the work. While it may be of benefit to users of different languages of the site other than English, fianically speaking it is only of benefit to Facebook and its various stakeholders. (Source: Techcrunch)
As Juan Pablo Sueiro notes, "Obviously, this will help and probably a new wave of members will join, but to get the “mass network effect” they will need to work hard and not only relay to “user workforce” to adapt their strategy for this new market. Also, some other core releases and a long term commitment is needed in order to adapt the site to the idiosyncrasy of latin and spanish speaking users."
Other bloggers have also noted of their fatigue of Facebook. Tom Hodgkinson took up his issues against Facebook in The Guardian and Neil McIntosh documented his Facebook weariness earlier this year.
Because of these issues, users will start to turn away to other social networks that are simpler and cater more for their niche interests.
While I'm not writing Facebook's obituary just yet, I think it needs to change for the better if it is to continue to grow, to become profitable, and ultimately, to keep on connecting its users.
And if you do know of any niche sites that are tipped to be the next big thing, or of any more issues as to why users are growing tired of Facebook, please let me know.
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