If you think about it, the fact that facebook has so many users makes it quite cool. Practically everyone I know is on facebook. Though I do see the appeal of a private university network it would eventually end because the people running it would want to make more money. Also adoption to a new more exclusive network wouldn't be as fast since we already have facebook.
> Also adoption to a new more exclusive network wouldn't be as fast since we already have facebook.
We also had "everyone" on MySpace. And before Friendfeed. And in times when most did not know what "internet" is, geocities.
Its not a rocket science to realize that to your users its all about cost of adoption versus reward they will get. Said that, if there is some new cool feature that Facebook does not have, and that feature is so awesome that is worth me spending my time on creating just another account, then I will do so. If that new website and new cool feature keep me away from Facebook, then Facebook will be in trouble. But so far, noone has come, just yet, with some universal cool feature that would be much cooler than socializing online with people I know offline via site that has mostly everyone signed in.
But rest assured internet will evolved because at the end of the day, its run by humans and their behavior offline/online evolves too. The "new Facebook", whatever it will be, will have nothing to do with whether current Facebook succeed or not (it did), as it made plenty of people millionaires, gave thousands jobs, and served it purpose of "connecting everyone in the world together".
> We also had "everyone" on MySpace. And before Friendfeed. And in times when most did not know what "internet" is, geocities.
This is an absurd generalization. I've always grown up with computers and was the only one in my circle of friends to ever use BBSes. Five years ago, it blew me away to see random strangers logged on to Facebook...it was bizarre to see an online network as something normal people used...before that, adoption was rare, even in college through the 00s. Facebook has a dominance of the consciousness that no other network prior to it came close to having...there is simply no parallel
MySpace had a very significant mindshare among a similar population segment. IIRC it wasn't obvious until ~2006-07 that they would be overtaken or that the relatively superior UX of Facebook would matter so much. Looking back now, having been on both, MySpace had an uneducated feel to it that was somewhere a little bit higher than Youtube comments but not by much -- chain letters, trolls, fake profiles, random friend requests and ultimately a lot of spam -- these were things that all made FB shine by comparison as a college-only network (it came to Berkeley ~2004-05)
But certainly by that time, "ordinary" people were already primed for online social networking. I agree that this doesn't quite extend to GeoCities though.
> We also had "everyone" on MySpace. And before Friendfeed. And in times when most did not know what "internet" is, geocities.
I understand where you're coming from, but people forget about scale when they make comparisons like this. Myspace at its peak had around 100 million users, mostly teens and young adults. Your parents and aunts and uncles and grandma were never on Myspace, but for many people, all of the above are on Facebook, which has a billion users. Far more people are on the internet in general, as well as a broader and more representative sample of the population, compared to the days of GeoCities. “Everyone” was not on GeoCities or Myspace to nearly the extent that “everyone” is on Facebook today. It's not at all impossible that Facebook will be replaced, but the task is a much harder one because compared to Myspace at its peak, Facebook's reach is an order of magnitude greater.
ok, I didnt make myself clear. By "everyone" I meant everyone that knew what Internet is.
In terms of penetration and reach-wise, there is no difference between MySpace and Facebook. While there may be 100MM on MySpace and 800MM on Faceook, the difference is that back then much fewer people were aware that internet exists.
If anything, I dont find "facebook killer" to be harder to achieve just because FB reach is so great. Things go viral nowadays; if something cooler comes along, then it will be spread across FB. I rather find it hard to find something that users would value more than hanging out with friends online.
> the difference is that back then much fewer people were aware that internet exists
That's pretty much the point. In the time that Facebook got big, hundreds of millions of people were beginning to use the internet to socialize for the first time. They didn't have to unlearn how Friendfeed worked, or abandon their contacts on Myspace, because they had never used these services. It was all new and Facebook snapped them up.
There aren't hundreds of millions more for the next social network to snap up. In the developed world, the internet is done growing. Every North American or European who is ever going to use the internet already does. Everyone who would be interested in using a social network is already on Facebook.
Not literally everyone (we all know a few people who aren't on Facebook), but close enough that the trick they pulled off can't be repeated.
Just think about this: every time you are on a bar, most of the people (if not all except yourself (maybe)) is on Facebook. Try to make that generalization about anything else.
