Facebook's problem is all these announcements. Zuckerberg never appeared at a huge conference when he first made Facebook, it spread completely on merit. Now everything's more formal, and every time they make anything new they have to introduce it to the world like it's some boring cocktail party.
They have become too confident because of their numbers - size doesn't really matter. Despite having the largest user-base online, they have been unable to convert users from any of these smaller services they've attempted to copy. That's because people still go on Facebook for the same reason they always have, to check up on their friends. That's what they did best, and what they need to continue doing. Most of these extra services like "deals" and "seamless messaging" have generally been flops because people aren't unanimously going to switch over to Facebook for them when the originals (Groupon, cell phones) began as providers of said service and therefore have a committed user-base. Every tech service introduced into the world either succeeds and generates a user-base, or fails and disappears. The services Facebook is trying to copy and replace have stood the test of time.
However I don't agree that Google's hangouts "upstaged" Facebook-Skype because usually when I, like most people, use video chat it's with one person anyway. It's hard to catch multiple people who I want to talk to who are online with nowhere to go or nothing to do at the same time for more than a minute or two. Perhaps Hangouts is more impressive to hackers and tech pundits because of its maximum capacity, but to me Skype is all I will ever want because it follows the always-valuable advice, "Keep It Simple Stupid."
This is advice that Facebook needs to learn to start following again. It did so in the beginning, but all the money and engineering power have somewhat blurred their vision. As an example, Twitter is the most excellent company I can think of that follows K.I.S.S. An x-y graph of simplicity and success would have time-tested services like Twitter, Foursquare, and cell phones looming over everyone else.
They have become too confident because of their numbers - size doesn't really matter. Despite having the largest user-base online, they have been unable to convert users from any of these smaller services they've attempted to copy. That's because people still go on Facebook for the same reason they always have, to check up on their friends. That's what they did best, and what they need to continue doing. Most of these extra services like "deals" and "seamless messaging" have generally been flops because people aren't unanimously going to switch over to Facebook for them when the originals (Groupon, cell phones) began as providers of said service and therefore have a committed user-base. Every tech service introduced into the world either succeeds and generates a user-base, or fails and disappears. The services Facebook is trying to copy and replace have stood the test of time.
However I don't agree that Google's hangouts "upstaged" Facebook-Skype because usually when I, like most people, use video chat it's with one person anyway. It's hard to catch multiple people who I want to talk to who are online with nowhere to go or nothing to do at the same time for more than a minute or two. Perhaps Hangouts is more impressive to hackers and tech pundits because of its maximum capacity, but to me Skype is all I will ever want because it follows the always-valuable advice, "Keep It Simple Stupid."
This is advice that Facebook needs to learn to start following again. It did so in the beginning, but all the money and engineering power have somewhat blurred their vision. As an example, Twitter is the most excellent company I can think of that follows K.I.S.S. An x-y graph of simplicity and success would have time-tested services like Twitter, Foursquare, and cell phones looming over everyone else.