Extinction
Wired has a grim though not terribly serious article up today entitled “Facebook: Too Creepy, Childish for the Workplace.” It’s worth reading if only for the giggle you’ll get out of hearing about Bill Gates quitting the network in part because of a bumper crop of “weird fan sites about him.” Gorgeous.
And just a few days ago I was saying the same thing. Sort of. I feel like I’m ahead of the curve.
It does raise the question, in a roundabout sort of way, that I like to apply to pretty well all things, eventually: how long will this thing last? Facebook won’t be around forever, neither will Yahoo, Google, the Internet, the Earth, and the Sun. Likely for unrelated reasons, or at least I’d like to hope so. More interesting is the thought of when and why these phenomena will expire, explode, extinguish, or otherwise make their exit.
In the case of web platforms like Facebook, the most likely end-game scenario, to my mind, involves mass user exodus, for any number of reasons. It becomes uncool, alienating its primarily youthful demographic. Its youthful demographic grows up, and the upcoming generation chooses newer and hipper platforms over its outdated service. It is the subject of a deal-breaking scandal. It’s hacked, driving users out because of security fears. We’ve already seen negative media coverage roughly to the effect of each of these things, but Facebook is still on the way up.
Of course this involves Facebook being replaced rather than simply annihilated; the technology will remain relevant at least as the progenitor of bigger and brighter things so long as people are networking. There’s also a distinctive split in terms of its exit being a slow dissolve or a sudden death, but you get the idea.
I’ve seen smart people making predictions like this fairly often, but I’m more interested in speculating about potential causes and scenarios. I like futurology. So does Adrien Veidt.
So what do you think? What’s on the way out in the foreseeable future? What’s going to happen to make it so?
I fear the day that Google dies.
BIT PART 
I remember a time after ICQ died when people were trying to figure out what would kill MSN messenger. We’re still waiting. The reason, as I see it, is that MSN has continued to work well enough that people don’t want to spend their time on a new messenger, starting from no contacts (which would be hard as some of us have been compiling our MSN lists for upwards of 7 years now).
I think the same will hold true for Facebook. It would, everyone uses it and the publishers seem to have a handle on it’s scope. I have 250 friends on Facebook, most of whom I would hardly remember if not for the site. I doubt I’d look them up on a new social networking site or whatever the next evolution of social networking is.
The interesting thing to me about the article is the future of technology in the workplace. As our generation become more present within the business world, I wonder which of our “bad” habits will come with us. I know that some corporations already use Office Messenger and Blackberries. From what I’ve seen they are still used in a business manner with memos using full sentences, headings and everything. How long is it until internet shorthand becomes commonplace among executives? That future is coming and along with it the complete acceptance of the malleability of the English language.
July 18, 2008 at 8:33 pm
Your point that people will stay with facebook because of its convenience is well taken. But it does bring to mind something that’s becoming more and more important in the tech world called data portability.
Facebook is struggling with this movement, because in essence it makes use of new, light-weight and easy to use sites and technology to free users from the boundaries of any single network. Their data, such as contacts, profile information, pictures, and so on, can be exported and moved around the web using tools which already exist within the network.
The developers recently made the plunge to open their platform up considerably, but they’re still fighting it by blocking movement of information between itself and its greatest competitors, namely Myspace and FriendConnect. Great article here. You’ve already had your data freed up and mobilized by the facebook team, along with everyone else, you’re just not taking advantage of it, yet. One day users will catch on to another platform you just have to have, and that will be Facebook’s eventual replacement.
So it might be more compelling to theorize that facebook will be phased out in favour of a new generation of networking, and evolve into something else in the way that Netscape and even SEGA have changed over the years from industry forerunners to small, if storied, developers. Let’s not forget that IRC and BBS once represented the cutting edge of networking technology. They may still be used nowadays, but the medium has continued to transform.
July 18, 2008 at 8:51 pm
IRC, BBS, Netscape and Sega represented a different time in their industries (for lack of a better term). There were no casual IRC users. The internet is today is about is of use, not just access. People can use Facebook as a jumping off point into other social networking sites, but most won’t for a long time. Of course there will be a time when Facebook is done, as you say, all things come to an end. I just don’t think Facebook’s end is looming quite yet.
Even when it is done, it will still be seen as important for the social networking world. I guess your IRC, Sega comment is true, but I think with those things, the storied history is what’s important rather than what they have become.
July 18, 2008 at 9:03 pm
Oh, I never meant to suggest that Facebook would end soon!
And I firmly believe that the platform, along with Myspace and other such sites, will be long heralded as innovators and milestones in the development of communications networks, as you suggest.
July 18, 2008 at 9:08 pm