The Predictable Demise of a Company Called Facebook

I’d like to propose a Moore’s Law for social networks. This of course is entirely unscientific, but it seems appropriate, at least anecdotally.

The life of a prominent social network doubles the life of a preceding successful social network.

When I think of Facebook, I’m struck by the weight of the service. I’m not talking about the billion+ users, almost the size of China, but the scale of the platform itself. It’s a bloated mess of options, settings, features, apps and undocumented support for all of the above. It reminds me of the SNL skit Taco Town.

Saturday Night Live - Taco Town from alyssa sarfity on Vimeo.

At its core Facebook is really a messaging and photo sharing site. That’s it. Plain and simple. That doesn’t really seem like a core feature set that’s difficult to upset but for some reason it is. So who are the biggest contenders to take on this behemoth? Certainly not Ello (reminds me of Diaspora) nor Google+.

The real disruptor is already here and it’s Twitter.

While Facebook is busy building itself a walled garden within which to sell off its inhabitants at market price, Twitter has built itself a nice messaging and photo sharing platform and open communications medium. The biggest difference between FB and Twitter isn’t really how they share messages and photos but in the fact that Twitter is really a communications system wherein Facebook is not.

What do I mean? Well, Twitter is akin to IM, SMS and the phone for that matter. This is revolutionary (yes, I know it’s not 2007) while Facebook’s platform isn’t. Don’t get me wrong, Facebook has some nifty creations under its belt but it hasn’t created a brand spanking new communications medium.

So how long will Facebook be around? Again, this is entirely anecdotal but if you think about Myspace, founded in 2003 and sold by Rupert Murdoch in 2011, that’s 8 years. If you count the Justin Timberlake involvement that’s 11 years. If we double the first number, we’ve got around 16 years for Facebook, 10 of which have already passed.

What will cause the actual demise? A couple things. A mass exodus by teens. In fact, if you want to test the canary in the coal mine, take a look at where 15 year olds in America are going. It certainly isn’t Facebook, a social network their entirely family is on. It’s Snapchat, Vine and Instagram (yes I know FB owns this).

The second is an ad system that targets based on interest as opposed to intent. Google’s ad platform gets intent correct based on what you search

Where can I buy a new Prius?

Versus the Facebook platform which targets people that just like the Prius. In that group of people we have no idea how to tell who’s buying and who’s just a fan. For Facebook’s ad platform to really bring in the dollars and not scare away advertisers, they’ll need to start gauging intent.

Do we really have six years left of Facebook? I really can’t be sure but we’re going to continue to see contenders take a stab at bringing them down.