How long will Facebook last?

[Danoz]

I've been on Facebook since the beginning, when it first became available for Kent State and required a valid university email from a registered campus to sign up. Facebook was very different-- no feeds, allowed you to connect to classmates via course number, and mostly worked through wall posts, groups and events. Since creating that account I've been a Facebook junky now for years, and I've seen it grow from the small profile site to the leviathan it is today. It used to seem like Facebook, like other sites, would eventually fall by the wayside-- but now it's looking like it's here to stay.

Could you conceive of Facebook still being a player in the decades to come as technology changes? Or do you think something could change the scene rendering it irrelevant or changed? The site has undoubtedly shaped the way I exist, the way I interact with people all of the world (especially while I live abroad) and the way I share information w/ family. The feed, which at first seemed creepy, now is something I find extremely necessary to the function of the site.

So, even though we're dealing with rapidly changing technology-- how long do you think Facebook will/could last? Or will the next generation be even more tied into the social networking giant than we are?

 

[BlobVanDam]

With the ever rapidly changing face of the internet, it's really unpredictable. It really does seem to be pretty firmly embedded in popular culture now, but that can be so fickle.
But I see so many ads for products/companies only advertise the facebook page now, and not their own websites. And many competitions and promotions seem to be run only on facebook, along with exclusive reveals of videos and information. Not to mention that if you want it to be, it is a legitimately useful site for keeping up with information, and spreading information, making it more than just an excuse not to talk to people face to face.
But then we have the fact the site is constantly evolving, sometimes for the worse. Facebook has made a lot of minor misteps, and these could add up quickly to the point where people abandon it. I know there are people who do that now, but it's still on an upward trend overall. But it could only take one major mistake for that to change.

Ten years is a long time in internet land, but I'm going to say it's possible, maybe even likely that Facebook will still be around. But it also wouldn't surprise me if it wasn't. I'll give it a 65% chance of being around.

 

[the skullcowboy]

there are so many places out there...hi5/beebo/tagged/fubar and yet facebook seems to eclipse them all thanks to word of mouth and peer pressure, Myspace used to be the big boy on the block until the upstart facebook came alongm so you have to believe that somewhere right now someone is developing a site that will dethrone fb, while I don't think it will ever truly be gone...it will become much less popular when this happens...I say by 2015 it will have run its course

 

[F. King Daniel]

How long will Facebook last?

It wasn't in Planet of the Apes, so...

 

[Australis]

Not as long as you might think if they keep pulling douchey acts like hiring a PR firm to diss Google's Social Circles.

Personally I can live without either of them. This place is in yer facebook enough for me.

 

[Jadzia]

It will last until:
(A) It becomes unfashionable because something else surpasses it. For example, the next generation of phones may be designed around a new social networking paradigm, and people migrate to that.

(B) The website develops a notoriety and has to be shut down. For example, if it becomes rife with criminal activity, whereby it helps more crime to happen than it helps criminals to be caught.

 

[C.E. Evans]

It'll last until we finally get too lazy and impatient to use keyboards anymore.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Facebook will last one thousand years, until the rise of a new galactic empire.

Or is that the Foundation?

 

[HoneyBLilly]

Whatever happened to Myspace?

Myspace was awesome and then Facebook came along and gathered steam, so it'll stay as long as it stays current.

 

[Australis]

MySpace is still around, and seems to concentrate more on the musicality of its members.

 

[Admiral_Young]

I agree with both points that Jadiza made. MySpace was made irrelevant by Facebook offering pretty much more user friendly options in my opinion. At least at the start of things when word of mouth was really starting it's popularity. I was late to both of these phenoms. I think I joined Facebook in 2007 and about six months after I first heard about it. Same deal with MySpace.

 

[JarodRussell]

It's a fad. Just like the Internet. And 3D.

 

[Sean Aaron]

I think it will be around until someone else does it better and convinces people to jump ship or until Facebook cocks it up massively.

My main gripes with it are a cumbersome and non-intuitive interface - I really don't get why it's so difficult to do something as simple as browse through a list of friends and view their pages or review friends/sites I've hidden so I can unhide them, or why the iPhone App lacks the full functionality of the website.

And the chat client seems to suck ass unless you're in the same country as the person you chat to. Given how superior Yahoo! Messenger is you'd think that they'd make a real effort to unthrone Facebook, but I guess I should be lucky they're still around to serve my email...

 

[Mr. B]

It's only a matter of time before something better comes along. It might take ten years, but it will happen.

 

[Owain Taggart]

I give it another three years before it goes the way of Myspace. These things come and go like trends.

 

[Canadave]

Facebook will last one thousand years, until the rise of a new galactic empire.

Or is that the Foundation?

The idea that we might be following the Zuckerberg Plan is a frightening one.

 

[Candlelight]

Is anyone still using Yahoo Chat?

 

[ITL]

I think FB will be around for a while, yet. I have many family members who know nearly nothing about computers or the internet - but they're on FB so they can connect with each other. And they like it. My mother only started using the internet a short time ago, but she loves using FB. I could never see her getting a MySpace page.

Plenty of people like that on FB, and I can't see that changing for a while.

 

[Brian]

I never found MySpace awesome. It was a morass of glittery graphics, obnoxious music, viruses and myriad other things that accomplished nothing but to cross your eyes and slow your computer. That's why Facebook squashed it when it came on the scene; its simplicity.

As to the question of will it be around forever? Ask AOL. Once upon a time, that was a 'must have'. Something else will eventually come along.

 

[Sean Aaron]

Is anyone still using Yahoo Chat?

I use it almost daily. It's called Yahoo! Messenger now and has a Windows desktop version (which automatically hooks into Yahoo! Mail and tells you if you have a new email faster than the web client does), a mobile version - though that's basically like text so I'm not sure what the point is - and a web client, which is what I use since I have a Mac.