Facebook - Has The Novelty Worn Off?

March 5th, 2008 | Categories: blogs, marketing, markets, networks, social media, trends, wikis

[Facebook - Has The Novelty Worn Off?] - It looks like the Facebook frenzy has finally died down a bit. It seems like only yesterday every tech blogger was posting a story about the social network.

The launch of the F8 platform ignited the PR fire. Eventually, the chaos hit a feverish pitch when acquisition rumours began to swirl. Facebook was quick to discount these rumours,Facebook new logo stating they had no intention of selling the company. The last big hurrah came when Microsoft invested a small chunk of cash in the company at an absurd valuation of $15 billion. Now that the PR hurricane has passed, the sea of Facebook is eerily tranquil…

Publicity aside, users are starting to shy away from the social network for another reason - information overload. When Facebook apps was launched, everyone was adding every application they received an invitation for. Now, people are being much more selective with apps, as well as events and groups. Personally, I don’t add any applications at all, and I’m very strict about which events and groups I sign up for. I focus on quality rather than quantity and I think others are doing the same.

If you sense pessimism, you are deceived. I am still very optimistic about the future of this social network. I think they’ve been very smart and strategic with their approach. Their constant push for innovation has led to some industry-changing features, most notably photo-tagging and news feed. If they continue to stay focused and strategic, I am convinced that Facebook can prosper for a long time to come.

2 Comments

  1. Gavin Says:

    FaceBook is a fad, it’s gonna be obsolete by the time Zuckerberg is 30. There was never anything special about FaceBook, and its a stupid business model, and a company that never had a good revenue model.

  2. Lord Snooty Says:

    Facebook HAS passed its sell by date; when companies such s Lookery build business models based upon “We’re working to fix the basic economic problem that social networks face: great user profiling but unpredictable ad inventory” you know that its just become another blatant ad delivery channel and that it will get filtered out of people’s lives in the way we filter all ad delivery channels (channel surfing, switching off, ignore function in browser etc etc).

    Well.. that just my view anyway.

    ^_^

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