Facebook has been quickly dominating the social networking world a few years after its appearance in 2004. Its simple registration process and connection processes with other people resulted in more than 50 percent of all Internet users signing up, according to Ian Maude from Enders Analysis.
When we look at only the revenues Facebook collects, it is not easy to claim that Facebook will decline in popularity in a few years. It seems like the firm stands tall among competitors. However, according to Maude, we have to look at Facebook’s net additions, which is only one million per quarter. The world already has too many people using this platform!
According to John Cannarella and Joshua Spechler, two researchers at Princeton University, Facebook will lose 80 percent of its active users by 2017. While this seems to be a radical claim, it demonstrates a decline in Facebook’s growth trajectory.
Then what are some of the potential problems in Facebook? According to Forbes, a 13-year-old Ruby Karp said that “Facebook has been trying too hard. Teens hate it when people try too hard; it pushes them away. Teens just like to join on their own. If you’re up in their faces about the new features on Facebook, they get annoyed and find a new social media.”
According to Chris Hoffman from MakeUseOf, there are many other alternative choices that are great such as Tumblr, Instagram, SnapChat and WhatsApp. “People are moving away from social networks like Facebook that are linked to their real identity and towards other networks where they use pseudonyms that aren’t their real names and avatars that aren’t their real faces,” says Hoffman. Simply put, Facebook lacks privacy and most people need their personal space.
Gene Marks of Forbes emphasizes the effectiveness and prevalence of emails. He says, “The death of email has been vastly over-exaggerated. Email is still the primary means of communication for just about all companies in the world … Because Facebook is not a place for corporate, professional communications. It’s always been and will continue to be a place for fun.” Marks continues and raises a point saying that Facebook is too broad. He claims, “But now the social media industry is being broken down into specialties: photo sites, video sites, news sites, micro-blog sites, check-in sites, etc. The trend will continue, and along with it will be Facebook’s loss of members.”
As a person who goes onto Facebook first thing in the morning everyday, I think it is an extremely convenient website that has the whole package that some people point out and use against Facebook. However, I think Facebook has changed dramatically ever since I first started to use it. Ever since they introduced the concept of the news feed, it seems like the site started violating the privacy that a lot of people desire. The news feed gives way too much updated information, and makes us stay in the site longer and waste time.
I started to use Instagram last year and it seems like my experience when I’m on Instagram is more pleasurable than on Facebook nowadays. The idea of hashtags is creative and widely used. Instagram only shows photos and videos uploaded by those you have followed, which doesn’t make you waste too much time. According to Scott Galloway, who is a professor of marketing at New York University Stern School of Business, Instagram will be the most powerful platform in the world in two years based on its growth trajectory and engagement rate.
It is quick to determine the fate or evaluate the potential doom of Facebook. It is still the largest social networking service that is only growing and, importantly, financially stable. However, with multiple creative applications emerging in the market, Facebook might start losing users to applications that only focus on fractions of what Facebook provides. After all, the statement made by Gene Marks might be true: “In the end, Facebook is just an application. And people get tired of applications after a while.”
Sun Ho Lee is a sophomore majoring in Economics. He can be reached at SunHo.Lee@tufts.edu.
The potential decline in popularity of Facebook
