RIP Facebook?
By Josh Quittner
A lot of people say that Facebook has jumped the shark. That’s flat out wrong. In fact, Facebook is now being devoured by the shark. There’s so much blood in the water, it’s attracting other sharks. And if Facebook’s not careful, one of them is bound to come along and finish it off. I’ve never seen anything like it in the annals of fast-rising tech companies that fail.
The really weird part of this story is that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with Facebook. It works as well as it ever has, and many of the people who use it (my kids for instance) are unaware of the worsening situation about its privacy-invading Beacon social ads scheme that tracks people’s web-surfing habits even when they’re not on the site. That’s bound to change. The market is fickle, something better is in the wings, and as soon as it arrives, the alienated and angry mob will race to it. Delphi’s errors begat Prodigy and its errors begat AOL, which was crushed by the Web.
What’s surprising here is the speed with which this thing is coming undone — and the ease with which it could have been avoided. What’s harming Facebook - perhaps to a terminal degree - is enormously bad PR. For a social media company, these folks don’t understand the first thing about communication; they have alienated the press by being arrogant, aloof and dishonest. Their idea of press relations is sending a stupid message to a What’s New at Facebook Group that directs you to another website for a canned statement.
And it is killing them. That bad press extends from the blogosphere to mainstream media. No one who writes about Facebook likes it anymore. And while that might seem insidery — who cares what the press thinks? — it’s having dire repercussions. For one thing, advertisers care what the press thinks. Bad press is causing advertisers to jump ship. And that’s begetting even more bad press. It’s the opposite of a virtuous circle; it’s an economy being undone.
It could have all been avoided with a smart adult running things. Facebook has no old hands in its corner, no advisers to tell the kids how to behave. Netscape had its Jim Barksdale, Google (GOOG) its Eric Schmidt. This company has no one babysitting it. And watching it now is like watching an unattended child play with a pack of matches in a wooden house.
Facebook’s problems are well known. They started when young Zuckerberg stood up and made preposterous statements to Madison Avenue — who let him say that stuff? What genius wrote those immortal lines and had such a tin ear for how it would play? The situation worsened when the company compounded its hubris with lies. Its ongoing contempt for the press and disregard for the First Amendment doesn’t help. And now, it has no one in its corner that anyone in the media trusts.
Facebook has turned all the people who rooted for it into a lynch mob. In the space of a month, it’s gone from media darling to devil. The most interesting thing about Facebook right now is who will replace it.
Oh boy! Facebook..love it or hate it, its there, to stay, at least for now. 179 comments on this post 
The people who have used it/ are using it..can also turn it down and walk away from it..all this viciousness and criticism does not make too much of a difference. Checking facts before posting would help
I was skeptical about Facebook from the beginning, and the true intentions of a platform that exploded overnight. I am not surprised that they got caught in their own minefield. I love how just like Google, Facebook advertises how “they hire really smart people.” I think this decade reveals that “smart” has a lot of different meanings that we’re not familiar with. 
If i and a number of my friends are any indication of the future trend, and I hope so, Michael Doyle is wrong. Facebook DOES turn us away. I am really bored by it. The only value it has is in keeping me in contact with old friends. Everything else is an increasing annoyance.
I really dont think all you old people know just how addicted kids are to facebook. Its not just a fad, its not just another distraction, its controlling peoples lives. If your in high school or college facebook is your world. Its almost like a real place that everyone goes to everyday, and if you dont have a profile its almost as if you dont exist. Girls take cameras EVERYWHERE they go in order to take pictures and upload them to facebook. Why? So that when you look at her profile and click on her tagged pictures you see that she parties a lot and is a very busy person. In reality most of these girls are not doing anything important at all and take 30 pictures a night to make it seem like their important. Facebook has raised the bar of how superficial people are these days.
I’m pretty sure that since Facebook isn’t the Federal Government, it doesn’t have to worry about abiding by the First Amendment.
RE: Harper Stephens’ comment about sentences beginning with ‘and’, I can’t believe there are actually _any_ beginning with the word in this ‘article’ at all. Is Josh supposed to be a journalist with that grammar? Seriously?
Poppy cock!
Facebook is a great company which with the help of Microsoft will be around forever!
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
I joined Facebook so I could see the travel photos that a young relative was posting there. I find that Facebook has positive and negative aspects. The positive is that it is a common space where my friends and relatives can meet virtually, whereas few of them visit my own website. One of the negative things is that I discovered that some of my relatives aren’t too bright. They insist on posting some of the hoax spam of the kind that one finds listed on Snopes.com. There are too many frivolous applications that your “friends” insist that you install. (No I don’t want to be bitten by a vampire!). However, I think that the various social sites such as Facebook have value and, as they evolve, the overall usefulness may improve.
Facebook is about as cool and hip as a Members Only jacket. It’s yesterday’s news. It’s the new Friendster. Sure, everyone has an account, but I’m sure that their internal metrics dropping like a stone…
this is seriously one funny article. it is biased and have no backups whatsoever. at all. mr quittner dear, mayb u shud rethink bout writing an article like dis da nxt time u wnt to write smthng as controversial as dis. i am a regular user of facebook n i find no harms using it. like a previous commenter has said b4, as long as u dont let it overtake ur privacy n adding irrelevant applications and adding strangers, fb can b quite fun and useful. i use it everyday 2 cintact wit my sis whos in UK. so long live faCebook! or watever.
If you are going talk about Facebook in an educational fashion, then learn about it before talking. Facebook’s fastest growing demographic is 25 and older. It grows at 3% a week. If you think Facebook is dead then please prove me wrong, but when this beacon story first hit there were nearly 50 million users and now there are more than 57 million users. Roughly 15% increase. And yet, only .1% of those 57 million are in a group called, “Petition: Facebook, stop invading my privacy!”
Please prove me wrong. b30media@gmail.com
I don’t think that FB is dead but it is peaking. I’m sick of all the requests to add applications. Who needs a fun wall and a super poke? it’s fine the way it was. just don’t add the apps. As far as I’m concerned, they are cluttering the pages and turning it into another myspace.
Every single company including your very own Google had its ups and downs. Google was in a soup when they introduced their very own Gmail.
People cribbed about invasion of privacy and how can they scan through the contents of our emails was the hot question of the month. Today, Gmail stands strong as ever and is probably the worlds largest email provider worldwide.
Bad PR is part and parcel for every new company. I would say that these a devious strategies deployed by other companies which are just trying to get a piece of the PIE
Facebook is aliving and ticking!
Faceb ook and myspace are just a fad. We unforutnately had to block those sites at our work after numerous requests to our employees to spend their time on it not ours.It is just the latest distraction for people. It does serve a purpose and has value and merit. But it has been overhyped by a media that is crazed to make something out of nothing.
Reports of FB’s death are greatly exaggerated! With 60 million users, it’ll take time before they see the repercussion of this. Which doesn’t mean that they couldn’t face new competition from a better and stickier site in the future or even from MySpace, but this is a different subject. It’s more like the nature of an increasing volatility of young users jumping from a trendy spot to the next one.
wow, shockingly my earlier comment about the article has vanished. It was posted, and now it’s gone. There seem to be fewer sentences starting with “and” too.
Is this article being re-edited as comments are posted? It seems some spelling etc has changed since the article originally appeared.
I’m not a fan of myspace, and I know most of my peers (recent college grads) don’t like it either. Too sloppy, too much spam, too disjointed. As long as the options for privacy remain, I’ll still use it. It’s especially useful for planning events and procrastinating. Interestingly, I was one of the first to complain about the Newsfeed feature, but now I (and everyone else) like it. I did prefer when only college students could use it (nice and elitist), but you can just show everyone else a limited profile.
As far as the net income of facebook users go, who do you think pays their 40K-a-year tuition? There’s a reason why ours is the prised advertising demographic — our parent buy us stuff!
facebook isn’t dead — not to its core audience. if you’re not young, you’re not using facebook, generally.
facebook is making questionable decisions–heck, it was founded on bankrupt ethical grounds–so i wouldn’t be surprised if zuckerberg tried to go one bridge too far.
I think that facebook is decent. It’s not as good as myspace, but it’s still comparable.
Rick Marnon, Howell
http://www.oaklandlivingston.com
Microsoft investment: - they spend more on lawyer fees – and they still do not make money on hotmail that they paid $400 million for
Net is FB is popular with 19 year olds – wait till they get a job– By the way the average annual income of a FB user is about -$2,800 gee can you say daddy I need a loan?
Enormously bad PR??? I would say just the opposite. How do you think they got evaluted at 15B and got MS to invest hundreds of millions? This is one of the best smoke and mirror jobs I have ever seen. That enormous evaluation despite some of the worst data on the planet! Take a look at the back-end data and then tell me they did a bad PR job.
So the valuation goes down a couple of billion. Big Deal. You make a mistake and you move on. As for the demise of FB, I think it’s greatly overblown. I made reference to FB doing a face plant in my blog(http://www.emersondirect.wordpress.com) but that doesn’t mean you stay on the canvas. I like how everyone has ganged up on the social media darlings of the moment. It reminds of when we all used to bash Microsoft, because there was no one else to kick. And they were the hot property. FB ain’t going anywhere and I’m almost sure they can say buh bye to any advertisers they want, and they’ll be another kabillion advertisers right behind them ready to take their place. So although, it’s easy to say RIP, it’s nowhere close to being reality. But it at least fill the void for bloggers who have nothing else to write about sometimes.
R.I.P. facebook…. you were once god.. now we consider u the devil.. u invaded our privacy so many times without even asking.. the mini feeds, then the shopping list distributions to friends etc. I have reduced my own use of facebook good bye …may u rest in peace.
Totally wrong. Ridiculous. The young users of facebook (such as myself) don’t care what the press thinks of the website. We use it because it works. The younger generation that accounts for the majority of the users will be turned off when the adults run Facebook. A mistake was made, it’s being addressed, get over it.
I use NetToMe here. I found it at http://www.nettome.com
Very little to worry about. It’s building in members and groups.
Go to China and make some investments there, better environments there.
I was already reluctant to Facebook but I jumped the train as more and more friends encouraged med to join. I soon found it quite stale and boring. The only thing it was usable for was sharing links. But I before Facebook I used to share them with my friends over ICQ or IRC painlessly. Now I had to wait for slow web servers. Rest of the time on Facebook I spent trying to dodge vampire and similar game spam.
Facebook Beacon really hit the nail in the coffin, for me. After about 10-15 emails back and forth to privacy@facebook.com I got my account deleted!
A Swedish news site wrote an article about Facebook Beacon. I posted a link to a blog post of mine explaining how Beacon works and instructions how to delete a Facebook account. Traffic and comments hit all time high, still rising! I think Facebook is experiencing a serious setback! Maybe they’ll never recover.
Social networks have to understand this: Don’t tamper with our privacy. Yes, some people are prepared to give some of their privacy away for free. But only when they choose to.
By the way… It would be really interesting if the comments revealed the IP addresses of the comment poster(s)!
My friends and family use facebook as a way to share pictures, stay current with what each of us is up to. It’s social, it’s fun. When a person can’t travel hundreds of miles to visit a loved one, it’s the next best way to stay in touch. So what if the owners piss off the press, fact is, for some of us it’s uses work. Why can’t people leave well enough alone. Why do they always have to be picking.
There isn’t another place like Facebook on the net and if your response is MySpace then I pity you. MySpace is horrible and Facebook is the best thing that I have found in awhile. If advertisers are really as scared as you say then I think all they need is time because Facebook is a great thing. Ask almost any college student or recent grad which turns out… is a lot.
I have used Facebook for a few years now. I’m certainly not on the Facebook bandwagon - I think a lot of things they’re doing are headed in the wrong direction and diminishes the user experience. I have considerably less than favorable views of Beacon. There are many things wrong with it.
However, with all of these things in mind, I still thought that this article was awful at best. It’s supposedly about Beacon but lacks any substantive support for its caustic language and extreme rhetoric.
Josh, if you’re going to write an article predicting the doom of Facebook, at least back it up a bit. Just writing a mean article doesn’t really do much except detract from your own credibility as a journalist.
I loved facebook until all of the apps started popping up. There are certain ones that are useful or fun like graffiti, but things like another user said, the zombie app, is just ridiculous clutter that doesn’t need to be there.
I don’t think facebook is going anywhere this year at least because there is nothing to replace it as of yet. The reason it became more popular over myspace is because it started with the educated crowd that was sick of mass advertisements and pages that took 20 minutes to load filled with flashing backgrounds and songs that overload your itunes. Facebook is a socialist ground where everyones profile is the same, which is why people will continue to be drawn to it. The only thing that would take over would be if there was the same site with a more attractive interface. If I was promised to never see and advertisement, I would probably even pay up to $10 for a year. get a million users, and there is a 10 million dollar profit a year in which probably only 3 million would really be profit but among 30 employees… your looking at 100 k a piece. So who is taking this on?
“Bad press is causing advertisers to jump ship.” Where are you getting this? Via the “enormously bad PR” from some guys blog?
Facebook is slowing losing its coolness. I’m sorry but once your boss, your 40 year old neighbor and other older folk start using it…It’ just not the same. This is coming from a normal college user.
WOW most of these preceeding comments show that Facebook has some sand left in the timer. I for one agree with most of what the author of this article has to say. Millions of Facebook users now hate Myspace and soon will be onto the next social networking site. Maybe people will start to realize that these social networking sites are not such a great idea in an age where one’s privacy and personal information needs more protection than ever.
I left MySpace to join FB because MySpace was swarmed with ads. If FB becomes the same, there Google’s Orkut!
Facebook will live on.
Anyone talking about the death of facebook needs to check out the viewing statistics at Alexa.
put in facebook.com and myspace.com, youtube.com - look back at the last 3 years, the last 1 year. You’ll see a pretty amazing trend there - and the trend is up - very steeply in 2007.
Certainly no sign of jumping the shark there Mr. Quittner.
Are you kidding me? There is sometjing I don’t understand. How come the press (and this article) keep saying that facebook is bad, that they are doomed… when there is more people than ever registered on it, and it keeps growing. Please explain. My friend keeps registering on Facebook and everybody likes it. Yes I miss the time when only college student could register, but I still really like Facebook. Now where is that “privacy problem”? what is the problem there, as long as you don’t accept every single person who wants to add you as a friend (which usually is actually people you know already from before), there is no problem since only those added friend will see your profile. But wait, you can even change the properties of your profile and make it available to see to only the people who want to! Now let’s see, with Myspace for example, I can access EVERY profile without even registering. Why don;t we see that on the news?
I am a daily Facebook user. It’s the best way to keep in contact with friends, it’s a great way to raise awareness of social/political issues and it’s fun.
The way the company is handling/not handling its advertisers doesn’t reflect the users. I can speak for my friends when I say that we are bright, educated twenty-somethings all on our way to a successful future because of the networking abilities this social site provides. It would be a huge mistake to pull advertising. I know I’m not the only one that checks their Facebook whenever they have a free moment.
Love it or hate it, its users are not going to drop it any time soon!!
So what if Zuckerberg chooses to run his business like he wants to? Even if that may be with bad PR and terrible professionalism. My analogy may be completely off here… but don’t rappers get away with that all the time? They don’t care what certain people think, because its not those people who are making them the money.
Somehow I don’t see their site even beginning to show the slightest bit of decline… The amount of users is increasing at a very rapid rate with out any sign of slowing. And for Facebook to have such a huge net worth simply by having one banner ad along the side and a few other promotions that are not shoved down our throats…. I say way to go for them.
Is anyone really shocked that a guy like Zuckerberg would launch an insidious tracking system like ‘Beacon’? After all his resume includes stealing a concept from a group of people that disclosed to him in good faith, lying about the equity position he was offered in return(you can review his testimony and other interesting information at http://www.02138mag.com),and whose is also the founder of facemash, a site designed to rate the relative attractiveness of two people (by the way, he hacked into private databases of photos to get the photos…oh and has he looked in the mirror lately?). I doubt that the vast majority of people using facebook will care, however. Goes back to the cattle mentality. Such is life. I’ll be walking the other way though to find greener (and more private) pastures.
Good Lord who pissed off Josh?! It’s hard to find the facts in here from all the venom.
Is anyone genuinely surprised that the dishonest founder of a website would launch an insidious tracking system like ‘Beacon’? This from a guy whose resume includes: Stealing a concept for a website from a group of people disclosing it to him in good faith, lying regularly about the arrangement that he had with them (you can review his testimony and other interesting information at http://www.02138mag.com), and who started a website to rate the attractiveness of one person to another by hacking into private databases of photos (has he looked in the mirror lately?). And yet, like cattle to the slaughter people flock to the site. I guess people get what they deserve.
I use FB because I am a junior at a private university and it is a good way to post events and groups and to overall keep in touch with friends on campus and from home. However, if I were better with keeping touch with my friends via phone I would get rid of FB. I absolutely HATE all of the applications. When I first joined in June of 2005, I thought it was the perfect thing. I did not have myspace or friendster, but FB seemed safe enough. Just a networking source for college students only, but now it’s all about PROPAGANDA!!! I remember Mark saying that he created it in a simple format because he didn’t want it to get lost amongst advertisements, music, and too much going on……but he has done the EXACT SAME THING!!!! Perhaps Zuckenberg should send out facebook messages to everyone on FB asking them what they think about his ideas before he applies them…that is if we are looking for a democratic answer to this website madness.
Get a grip Author.
Facebook doesn’t have to answer to a media only concerned with sensationalism. Wow populoar media says some else isn’t trustworthy?? Isn’t that a laugh!
FACEBOOK will continue to grow and gain prominence.
Go have a cry somewhere else.
So much social interaction is based around facebook on college campuses, only college students really understand. Every event, every interest, every person you know is covered on facebook, which can all be tracked. Of course it’s up to the individual to decide if he or she wants to use facebook and reveal their information, but when everyone around you uses it, it becomes an almost necessary social tool. The sick part is that all of these social interactions are being recorded on this website that the government can access at anytime, as well as potential employers. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but there’s something fishy about facebook.
uhhh
these college kids who waist so much time on a model who copied another HAVE NO MONEY. This isn’t exactly the sweet spot demographic. I never could figure out why the media gave him so much press to begin with. Their are many that are far more inovative and interesting to showcase.
Anyone who still has hope for my generation, please read the comment below mine. A ‘grad student at a top university’ thinks “genuineity” is a word. We have no future.
Facebook, wether in demise or not, is still easily the most powerful tool my generation has to network/communicate. It will take a lot to shift its 15 million users to rely on another network, and until that happens…it is top dog in town hands straight down.
I think the key idea here is how the “big dogs” at Facebook are relating to the press. In my honest opinion, if they were able to better communicate with authority agencies, they wouldn’t be in this “bad PR” arena. At this point, though, I don’t see bad PR as bringing down the entire Facebook entity.
Boy, I wouldn’t want to be Steve Ballmer right now, holding that bag of S**T that used to be my return on investment.
I use facebook, not daily but i do check a few times a week, I have many olds friends and ALOT of family and my husband family who do not live close to us and we don’t have long distance so being able to send message and have an album for them to see is nice i’m not 18-25 i’m older and i have a job a life and a family to tend too and its a nice way to meet up. I know not to post numbers and address of my home and such i know what to add online and not. maybe more pople will watch, as for safety i feel safe using it. Better so then myspace with all the spam and viruses.
For those of you who do not believe the negative comments about this article are from legitimate, concerned Facebook users and merely Facebook employees, I am not employed by Facebook and I do not appreciate the sharp criticism of how Zuckerberg and his team of young entrepreneurs are handling business. Put yourself in their shoes trying to run a multi-million dollar business in your 20’s. I believe it would be more than enough to overwhelm anybody at their age. I am 100% for Facebook’s expansion; however, I do realize the trouble it would be to keep hackers out of the site. Yes, it would be in Facebook’s best interest to hire someone with more experience in public relations but I don’t think they are the sole entity to blame. The press is the main problem because the press “sharks” are forever looking for something to twist and create an unnecessary hype about. If the press would look for the positive aspects Facebook would more than likely be more “press friendly”. I do not know of many people, especially in the business world, that are fond of the press.
What I find most intriguing is that people actually have this much time (like doing nothing) that they can only sit at a computer and mock or critisize some one else for doing the same thing and actually being good at it…lol
Facebook = “been there done that”. Management are a bunch of sellouts. Too bad they won’t let me delete my account (note: delete vs. deactivate).
Please. Facebook has barely yet made a dent on a global scale so it has a lot of legs still.
That won’t stop the endless supply of other social sites that mimic facebook from trying.
23 year old university student here who does care about privacy. Facebook can take its population down one notch, because it just lost me.
Damn Josh you sound really bitter, what’s the matter? Did Zuckerburg turn down your advances or something? Lose the hostility bro!
Ah, Josh, we think alike. I just wrote a post called Facebook Needs a Mother.
http://blog.stealthmode.com/2007/12/facebook-needs.html
When something is free and other companies shell out hundreds of millions of dollars to be part of it’s network, all of the warm fuzzies associated with that company can be flushed down the toilet.
Facebook doesn’t have to answer to anyone because it doesn’t have any paying customers. The advertisers and investors control the show.
Finally the world is standing up for Privacy rights.
http://www.recruitu.com
Down with Facebook and their arrogant, childish, immature, cult leadership!!!!
Facebook = “The Matrix” Each profile is like a human battery pod in the Matrix. Each pod generating a little bit of power. Even when someone “wakes up” and says “I’m just a battery”, some will still wish to stay connected, others will flee.
Personal vendettas behind writer. More people in the MOST desired audience visit facebook everyday. With that hold, that will remain for a lifetime with the connectivity and collaboration of facebook, it will allow them to develop targeted marketing better than any other form of media ever has. They already know everything about their entire audience. It is right in my profile. All they have to do is develop the right tools to target those messages. A competitive advantage that no one can replicate has already been created.
Here we go with another Technology. Web 2.0. Give it a rest. Web 2.0 is just an evolution of the misgivings of things that have gone wrong in that past that are trying to be improved. Dont come on here and honestly try to sell Web 2.0 as a Silver Bullet and to think that everyone comes on here because of the GUI. Marketing techniques and the technology tools are mutually independent of each other. Maybe you want to tell everyone how AJAX is going to change the world now?
Hats off to you Jen from Urbana, IL. Sadly you sound like the exception, not the norm for your age group. But perhaps you can now understand why over 30s crowd is offended when 18-25 crowd repeatedly and rudely call them irrelevant and old.
The article has a good basis but maybe the projection is overrated. As a grad student at a top university, I see that many students around use FB to connect with friends. I have been suspicious of FB’s genuineity and I’ll continue to be so. I don’t care/use FB.
Facebook has jumped the shark, and the thousands of dollars Zuckerberg is spending for people to write the comments above is pathetic. They read like really bad P/R pieces. Good call, RIP Facebook! Facebook is evil, more evil than even Microsoft!
Do I think Facebook is dead and gone? Probably not. Do I think there ad thing is a bad thing. Yes. I’m a 25 year old Facebook user who has redone all of her ad blocking software. Firefox has some good ones. As to the people that have said people in my age bracket are lazy and stupid, well honestly, I’m offended. Yes, there are a lot of kids on the internet that can’t type or say anything in a way that makes any sense grammatically, but there are also a lot of us out there who work hard everyday to pay our bills just like our parents, that want to come home after a 10 hour day and catch up with some friends online to relax. Don’t spoil your kid to the point they never have to earn anything and maybe they will get up and start to care about the world around them.
RIP Facebook? Is that why you have a Facebook bookmark logo at the end of this article?
I love how you wrote this article just to be controversial. Haha, obviously Facebook is a massive media entity now with substantial influence. I think the real problem is that people overreacted and got too excited before there was really any evidence of something “revolutionary”. It is true, that another network could come and probably at some point will come and be the next big thing, but Facebook has an incredible network, and while they have been making some bad PR moves, and while Beacon was a mess, this isn’t enough to tank this ship.
Mr. Quittner, you have lost a bit of credibility by writing this ridiculous article. Let’s all look back at this article sometime in the future and see how true this all is.
What kind of subjective and biased article. I am so surprised by the criticism for Facebook, as I am a regular user and I can only say, that all my friends all over the world use it too. In fact I don’t know anybody who does not use it. It is easy and straight forward and I don’t have a bad thing to say about it. Nobody even so much as mentions myspace anymore and there is a reason for that.
And another thing, where do the under 30s crowd who LIVES WITH and OFF their parents get off being so high and mighty? Hey if the over 30s crowd are indeed irrelevant, then we should stop giving you handouts so you can go online and bitch about us.
I have a seriously hard time believing all these comments critical of Josh’s post are for real (and not from Facebook employees).
Argh, so what if 18-25 year olds love Facebook. Last I checked, it’s still the 30s over crowd that has disposable income and are supporting the under 30s crowd. For all the love Facebook get from the under 30s crowd, they aren’t getting a damn cent from them.
Facebook is good for now. Failure to diversify will cause their downfall. Just projecting themselves as a social networking site will not do them any favors because they will just end up like Geocities. Which college student gives a rat’s ass about privacy anyways? Just look at some of the pages that college students have.
I am a Head-Hunter for the webspace and I have to strongly disagree here. Facebook uses the most innovative web 2.0 technologies in the social networking arena. This is apparent by Myspace’s copy cat attitude regarding Photo Tags and Blog/News feeds. Facebook may have made some enemies in the wrong circles but the 18-25 market loves them. If they can stay ahead the game with innovation their clean GUI and innovative marketing techniques will perserve.
I find it pretty funny that an ivy league graduate would set her sights on a company like facebook…good choice by your daughter to really do something with her life.
Put down the mouse and step away from the keyboard. Get outside and actually DO SOMETHING!
LOL! those people who made those lwo life comments arent any better then the “bad PR” so colorfully written by josh
hey josh, quit visiting spin alley.
thkx
Ask the avg student or facebook user to name 3 Republican candidates and I could bet you the majority will be unable to do so. Ask the avg student or facebook user what they think about privacy settings, I could bet you their response will be “what’s that?” No current facebook user is going anywhere for a while josh, and just like any business facebook will go thru the business cycle just as any other business.
I am a regular user of Facebook and it is a great way to communicate with friends and coworkers. It doesn’t have to be creative to be effective and Facebook is honestly how I have maintained many relationships with friends who live in other countries. I stopped using Myspace because of all the spam I was getting and I hope that Facebook doesn’t turn out the same way.
$240M investment from Microsoft for a 1.6% stake and a $15 Billion valuation? Sounds like the kids running it are doing something right Josh.
I’m currently a Senior in college and have been using facebook since it came out. I have reconnected with many of my old friends, even some from first grade. And just to let you all know, college and high school students are not the only age groups using Facebook. Older people, especially those in their 40s and 50s, are using Facebook to reconnect with old friends as well. There are numerous ways you can control your privacy and I feel my information is as safe as it has ever been. I wouldn’t count on it shutting down anytime soon.
Also, just an aside to Mishagothe from Denver, I don’t really like being referred to as a “mediocre college puke” or an “idiot.” Your assumption that artistic and creative people don’t use Facebook doesn’t hold much water. I would suggest doing some research or just keep your mouth shut.
When Microsoft had invested in Facebook, I’d voiced my cynicism about the deal (see my posts - post #1 and post#2) . And it was not because Facebook is not a fascinating concept but moreso because of the valuation Microsoft was ascribing to it and the uncertain "synergies" that seemed to exist.
This was at the end of October. In less than a month, Facebook went media darling to media dog quicker than Britney Spears. I read RIP Facebook? today on a blog on Fortune Magazine’s website, and the author, Josh Quittner, explains the sudden shift (hubris, lies, poor strategy, etc) in sentiment. And their dog status makes sense to some degree given their numerous missteps. And this is one of several articles I’ve read saying similar things. This article’s line is probably a bit overdramatic so I chose to highlight it amongst the many out there. It reads "The most interesting thing about Facebook right now is who will replace it."
So I won’t or don’t pretend to be an expert on web2.0, social networking, web advertising, etc, and I don’t know if Facebook will be the next big thing (I hope they’re successful). I do, however, find the frenzy to predict Facebook’s demise quite interesting. First of all, building a two-sided network (which is what Facebook is) is not an easy proposition.
Second, hubris was the same characterization given to Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook’s founder) when he turned down $1 billion from Yahoo. He was an idiot then and all of a sudden a genius when he got a valuation of $15 billion from Microsoft. The larger point is that listening to the pundits (whether the media, consultants, stock analysts, etc) to manage your organization or to gauge the effectiveness of an organization’s strategy will lead to a bad case of whiplash if you make moves based on the flavors of the month perpetuated by the "experts". Time will tell.
Quoting one of the comments
“Please do me a favor, old people, if u dont like it, keep your comments to your self. no one cares”
Hey punk, the “old people” as you put it, are paying your bills and supporting your lazy punk Millenials asses. We “old people” are the ones that raised you, clothed you, educate you, and put a roof over your head. If and when we decided to stop supporting your sorry ass, you will be living out on the streets, so mind your childish comments and show some respect.
Facebook will probably enter the same kind of deal that occurred today, and that would be good indeed. Namely, Disney appears to be consolidating its hold over family-related websites. The NewsVisual article on Disney’s acquisition of iParenting Media http://www.newsvisual.com/newsvisual/2007/12/directors-at-di.html talks about how their Board of Directors can help the Management Team develop its new Internet properties.
Just the Facts. First rule of journalism!
So the press hates face book, fact or opinion.
Me I just don’t care about face book because it does not apply to me- fact!
Dude, facebook is awesome. Stop with the bad press and appreciate the awesomeness of looking up college buddies
Uh, I get it, I think. You DON’T like facebook, right?
Seriously, though, there are so may of these social (and professional) networking sites now, how can you pick one? And what is the point?
Microsoft just redesigned its Hotmail service to something called “Windows LIVE! Hotmail” which sounds like a Disney-on-Ice performance.
Prominent of its features are a dating and social networking features. I use Yahoo now. My e-mail is for business purposes, not for “MWM seeks…”
Young people seem very enamored of technology, but it is something one quickly outgrows. After a while, you want to UNPLUG from the computer.
Prediction: In 5 years there will be a movement “discovering” there is life without PDAs, cell phones, iPods, video games, internet access, computers, etc. You heard it here first.
This column is a good read but, in my opinion, lacks any real substance. I am currently an avid user of the social site and would consider myself to be an “Average User.” By average I mean that I am in the age bracket and mindset of the typical user. The column mentions that it’s comments may appear to be “insidery,” but ensures us that the affects of ill advised decisions by the companies commander and chief are having “dire repercussions.” What bad decisions are those? What ever happened to the good old days of persuasive writing when someone would make a claim and then support it with evidence? I don’t know what demographic this column was intended to reach but as a user of the site, I would assume that I’m intended to be part of that group. I concede to not being as well versed about the companies’ history of business or PR decisions. What I do have ample information on is my personal opinion of the site, and as a user my opinion and usage of the site today is no different than it was the day I signed up. Maybe my remarks are being sparked by the fact that I hate reading articles lacking data & evidence to support it’s claim. Or, even better for Facebook, maybe my comments are sparked by my overall satisfaction of the site.
My daughter interviewed with Facebook about 6 months ago. She is a graduate from an ivy league eastern college. She was very turned off by the lack of professionalism in the interviewing process and the unprofessional follow up after the interview. The dress code there was another story. She spend over $800.00 of her hard earned money to do the interview. It was, however, not a total loss in that it was a great benchmark for her to use in future interviews knowing she had to set her standards far higher then working for company like Facebook. She is now working for a top notch advertising agency in New York City.
Facebook is and always has been the social network choice of mediocre college pukes. I don’t know a single artistic or creative person who regularly uses Facebook. But if you want to keep up with your frat brothers it is the only choice. If these idiots are stupid enough to use a site that whores them out, good, they are getting no more than they deserve. And it is a stupid name anyway!
I have to agree with this article. Working for a major online agency, we have tons of dollars to spend and they continue to give us canned answers and avoid us as well. It’s almost as if they are trying to fail. How can you run a business like this?
This item is a joke. As if anyone other than a few rabble-rousers cares about this beacon thing. What the heck are people on a social web site for in the first place if they are so concerned about leaking of trivial information and their precious bodily fluids? “First Amendment” indeed–channel for Thomas Jefferson much? To the barricades!
Facebook? Never heard of it. Have no use for it either.
I wasn’t a huge user of Facebook, but when I heard about what they were doing with Beacon, I was just outraged, and I immediately cancelled my account. In my option, there aren’t enough benefits to social networking sites to counter the negative impact to such blatent privacy invasion.
Although this article looked interesting, I have no idea what to think. There are no facts in the article just comments/opinions. I didn’t even get to see the quote which was so egregious. The article author shouldn’t assume the reader has been following this as closely as he/she has. Trying to expand my knowledge here but this article didn’t help.
I don’t think that Josh is alone on this one.
http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13507_1-9827977-18.html?tag=cnetfd.mt
I believe Josh Quittner is way off base and did very little, if any, research for this article. I know multitudes of facebook users and not one has stopped using it. This article is just bizzare.
I should have known when I got my first Zombies invite it was all going down hill. The author is right that the real surprise is not Facebook’s decline, but the speed of that decline.
Going from golden child to advertising pariah in a few months is actually impressive. For those of you without even a basic sense of business: No ads -> no revenue -> no profits -> no facebook. A company in so rapid a death spiral makes a great business and PR case study.
I’ve been waiting months for the CEO to say something that does make him look like an arrogant fool. Looks like his hubris may outlast Facebook’s relevance. I am glad I am not an employee there hoping for an IPO.
One thing Facebook has going for it admist its regretable decision to place money above its users’ privacy is the fact that today’s youth have a much lower concern for privacy rights. Online ‘image’ is valuable to the materialistic/hedonistic youth that largely enjoy flaunting their latest shopping habits or party pics. Dont underestimate the soullessness of youthful innocence, Facebook surely hasnt.
One day people will wake up and see that the liberal media’s outlook on things is far from the truth. It is becoming more and more girlified with gossip and feelings and doesnt get to the meat of the matter.
Is there any evidence that kids are jumping ship? It doesn’t matter what the media are saying if the trend-setters are staying onboard. Do you really think the young people who determine what’s cool are basing their opinions on what shows up on CNN?
Josh,
Your article provides no statistical information on why the site is going down. Just your upset rambling.
It seems, you’re using this editorial to help your anti-facebook theory. Weak journalistic values.
this article is completely wrong. Facebook is used by every person I know. It is actually strange to find someone who does not have a profile on it. It is not going to fade and be replaced, it is too much of a hastle to do that and, it is the best web based community online. Myspace is significantly inferior to facebook in very way possible.
Good article by Josh Quittner. But wouldn’t a better prediction be that Zuckerberg gets benched in favor of a more seasoned management team? I’m sure the investors are nervous, and yes, all of facebook’s “assets” (the users) can type in another URL into their browser in about two seconds.
I am 54. I think Facebook is a great social connection medium! I communicate and keep more in touch with my 4 kids lives (living in different parts of Canada) and their friends, my friends and relatives, their kids,… very easily using Facebook. The fact that this social medium has been offered basically for free is wonderful. Hats off to the Facebook creators and maintainers. Anything that brings people together in a NON-COMMERCIAL focus is a very good thing in this world. I completely disagrer with this author.
Interesting though, that if this happened to say, Comcast, AT&T, Sony they would all walk away from it unharmed. It’s exactly because we the people have an actual choice when it comes to the web that Facebook loses. If this was Comcast, they’d just screw their customers, watch their stock go up, buy some congressmen and laugh off any reporters. Too bad we are punishing the wrong companies.
This is generational warfare and everyone over thirty should be taken to a camp and shot.
Not joking.
You forget how entrenched people are in these services. They spent a lot of time building up these profiles and they aren’t going to just abandon them.
You should consider the advantages of “not having an adult around.” It’s what has made facebook possible and successful so far. To look at the flipside of things, just look at myspace. Only time will tell who comes out on top, but myspace is rapidly becoming a useless, bloated advertisement. I would be surprised if facebook went under before myspace.
facebook is the best platform out of any social network. If you can not see that, then you are blind. Linked in sucks. all you can do is manage contacts. wow. there is a reason why facebook is thriving. BECAUSE IT WORKS. it doesnt matter what the press has to say about facebook. all that matters is that they are keeping their customers happy which they are. well maybe not the 40 year olds who really dont have a use for facebook. Please do me a favor, old people, if u dont like it, keep your comments to your self. no one cares
You’re nuts. FB is tied into colleges. Their core market gets bigger w/ every graduating class.
Beleive it or not, the media does’nt alway dictate a company’s success. Facebook is imensly popular regardless of what you might think of their PR department.
Say what you want about the media hating facebook… what will keep them alive is “word of mouth” advertising.
I highly doubt the millions of users already on facebook will be willing to switch to some random new site, unless it can offer something facebook does’nt.
Your article is absurd.
Facebook is a joke.. I’ve been on it for almost two years now and honestly you can see how far it has declined.. All you people flaming the author of this peice should do us all a favor and stfu.. If you can’t see this being a problem you must be part of the ignorant masses this would appeal to.. Its pathetic how many of these rediculous applications are nothing more than a tool to skim your personal information.. I for one will be deleting my account and taking a break from the online social network thing, its become more of an annoyance than anything..
Well, I completely dropped out of Facebook and removed all of my data, networks and all. The price to pay in minimal as there are very good alternative networks out there that don’t make choices to invaded privacy like Facebook made. It’s not the only game in town by a long shot. Every single person I was connected to on Facebook is also registered on http://www.linkedin.com, which has a much better interface and connection tools than Facebook ever had. i am sure many of the people who have written above will defend Facebook despite its choices, but I sure don’t have to. If they were so willing to share all the sites I visit with all of my Facebook network, just imagine what choices they will make tomorrow.
Tom, it’s not the press that has a problem with Facebook, it’s the advertisers doing business with the site. Facebook’s poor handling of their new Beacon advertising program has a lot of their big backers shying away from the social-networking company. Their CEO’s apparent absence and lack of communication only exasperates the problem. Do some research by visting here: http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/12/03/more-facebook-advertisers-bail-from-beacon-plus-new-concerns/
I use Facebook. I’ll just say that I liked it a lot better when it first came out then what it is now. I liked it for keeping in contact with people, not to add hundred of applications and seeing advertisements left and right. I think a lot of people are getting tired of Facebook’s privacy issues.
Can you please email this to yourself for this time next year. Mark and Facebook provides an unreal product without lots of bells and whistles attached to it- I think you could learn a ton from them.
Josh - do a little checking and you’ll see that I invoked Facebook’s “jumping the shark” just two weeks ago. (nowisgone.com)
It’s not the blunders or the gaffs that are the downfall. It is the complete lack of checks and balances. You are dead-on that Facebook needs a Mom - someone to make sure it washes up before dinner.
Facebook does some wonderful things, but it all has been predicated on “CAN we do it” rather than “OUGHT we do it.” If there were an internal advocate for the end-user, none of the stumbles we’ve seen would have happened, and Facebook might be worth a very healthy fraction of its supposed market cap instead of a sliver.
And to the Facebook fans who don’t like this article — we’re not slamming you. This isn’t generational warfare, just a recognition of a business reality: a boat without a rudder can go very fast, and will crash as soon as the banks turn.
What a load of crab.
Does this article really worth to be on cnnfn.com?
As long as there is customers using them and they know they info is being sold to support the free service…no one cares what the CEO of face book says.
And as long as there is customers, people are going to put ads… other company is going to inject money in it.
Josh’s own comment can only be classify as a theroy…there is no facts supporting that face book is in trouble. Just a general feeling that he think the press (just himself) is upset with face book and face book is going down… There is absolutely no proof or even a bit of facts in the whole article. Just pure speculations.
Young people don’t care what the press (Josh) thinks and facebook member number is still growing by day….
Advertising on their website is one thing. Having the site collect private information about my shopping habits and pass it on to the advertisers AND my friends is QUITE another thing.
Then again, I am not a Facebook user, for the reasons discussed in Don’s post. People with names like John or Jane or anything usual can probably freely give out some information anywhere using just their first names without any fear. But people with unusual names have to worry about the crazies out there. It may seem like an unfounded fear to some, but I prefer to play it safe. I know that just posting using initials or a user name is NOT anonymous. People need to realize that. As soon as I found out that FB would not allow me to use a psuedonym, initials or user name, I immediately stopped creating an account with them.
And knowing now that they would use what I view as spyware to report my purchasing habits to all and sundry, they can forget about me ever starting an account. One person may not make that big of a difference, but I’m sure there are others out there who feel as I do.
The fact of the matter is, the sharks ARE circling around and eventually Facebook will fall. Too bad for Micro$oft!
Some of your readers don’t appreciate your inflammatory characterization of recent events at Facebook. Personally, I think Zuckerberg is a schmuck and deserves whatever karma-related injuries he receives for the way he started Facebook, but he’s within his rights and is only being responsible to his company by taking perfectly legal action to remove defamatory documents from publication. Those documents should have been sealed, at least until the end of the ongoing litigation. To characterize a public record os an article of free speech is wrong-headed and to then say Mr. Zuckerberg disregards free speech is inflammatory bulls**t. Be more responsible!
Are you kidding me?
Facebook is going NOWHERE. There is no reason to leave Facebook at this point in time. There is nothing better out there. Even if there were something a bit better out there, it takes a lot A LOT for a person to leave a social networking site when they have invested so much of their own time in it and have accumulated so many friends.
I just got back from a trip to Europe and the use over there is INCREDIBLE. More and more people signing up every day because there’s nothing out there like it. The largest network on Facebook right now in terms of users is London, England. Imagine that? The growth in Anglo countries is absolutely extraordinary.
People have complained about their lack of privacy since the beginning of Facebook and the company has made changes each time to address the concerns.
I spend as much time online as the next person and the “negative” Facebook press is overblown. Vastly.
Nice try though sport.
Facebook is not the first social networking community.. and it won’t be the last. Although I agree that its arrogance will be the fall of the company.
My favorite part about this article is that there is the option to post it on facebook right at the end of the article.
Facebook is turning into a joke quickly… soon it’ll be as bad as myspace
Don Shellings - it is the users choice to decide how much of their personal info they want to put on their profile. it’s not like FB is holding a gun to their head telling them to put all it in public.
advertisers and the press are trying to find ways to profit off of facebook, and now that FB doesn’t let them do what they want or do it their way, they all start whining about it. The core users of facebook will keep using it and advertisers will have to keep advertising on it, because how could they miss such an aggregation of every segment they could want to target.
I was kind of upset reading this article thinking it was biased BS, until I clicked on the link “lies” embedded towards the end of the article.
From that article:
“Matt Hicks, a Facebook spokesman, said Mr. Zuckerberg had meant that users would be given the opportunity to opt out of having information sent out by Beacon, and the company had assumed that anyone who didn’t say no meant yes.”
No means yes? What is he, a frat boy rapist? I have noticed other programs on facebook which mass email my friends quizzes and the like that I did not approve, or wish to send to everyone I knew.
I’ll be on Myspace.
The article might be a little assumptive, but it does hold many true facts such that facebook has this thought built into their head that people want to see ads and sprite sips on their site. The reason facebook started to become more popular is that it is a clean interface which is good for building users bad for advertising. They think they can build user interest in products through gimmicks not realizing how fickle people are, it could have been anyone of a dozen other social networking sites who is in facebooks position of a large user base since that is what all social networking sites a chilies heel if they dont have a lot of users they are worthless.
Facebook got lucky just like youtube got lucky that people decided to go with it instead of the dozen other video sharing sites.
I rarely click on ads but I have several times using Facebook. I find it refreshing to see ads from companies other than Walmart, Ford, and Macy’s. Facebook has done a fairly good job at targeting ads and I’d much rather see these ads from smaller companies I might actually purchase something from than closing out these small companies and only allow huge corporations to advertise.
I’m one of those supposed users who are about to jump ship… I don’t think so. Facebook has lost no love from its users and as being one of their target market users, I hear no one grumbling among my friends. Is this actually an article, or a blog? It feels like an ambitious college freshman wrote it who has little to no idea what they’re talking about.
Josh, tell the truth, did you get banned from Facebook? Is that what all this negativity is about?
Finally, people are realizing Facebook is not worth $15 billion — the money went to the staff’s head — I have heard advertisers are getting horrible response. I once ran a web site that sold to the college market and the response rates were atrociously low. Hopefully the next big thing will erase the arrogance off their faces — plus, didn’t they steal the idea anyway?
I see we have some farcebook employees stopping by.
This article is ridiculous. I can’t believe that you assume press relations will drive advertisers away. Actually I can, believe you may think that; perhaps it is belief coming from your ego. The fact is that there are too many people who use it daily for advertisers to not be interested in marketing to this demographic.
the author of this entry is just pissed that the guy who created facebook is making a bazillion times more money than he is. Obviously, these entries on how facebook “sucks” isn’t changing peoples attitudes about it. So stop whining.