Facebook

[maqroll]

Watching their stock plummet last week got me thinking about the long term viability of the company.

What do you think, is Facebook a passing fad, or is it here to stay?

[briggaman]

Who knows, yet they obviously plan on being here to stay. Apparently they are going to attempt to break into the mobile phone market now too...

[Paddywhack]

Financially, I haven't a clue. I know it's really shite now though. My news feed is full of 'games people have played', 'who's viewed my profile', 'trending articles' or some horrible photo of a beaten child which you have to 'like', because it stops child abuse if you do. All from people who I went to school with and didn't speak to even then. I predict it will go the same way as myspace until the next big thing.

[TrentVilla]

What do you think, is Facebook a passing fad, or is it here to stay?

It depends upon them really.

As a social medium I think it could stay the course, I think it is about perfect in terms of what people want.

The problem for Facebook, the thing they can't quite get right or figure out though is how to make money out of it.

They tried through impression advertising, where you are charged every time your advert appears on someone's profile. It didn't work.

Then they pinched one of the top people from Google's adwords team, I forget her name and they pinched the PPC model. It still doesn't really work though not in the same way as Google Adwords and you burn money at a stupid rate.

Because advertising wasn't a part of Facebook from the start everyone now has company pages and they advertise these to drive Facebook users to their pages and not Facebook to do so.

Added to these issues is the fact the number of people who access Facebook through App's on smart phones is increasingly rapidly and the adverts aren't visible to these users.

Facebook's biggest threat is itself and the desire to make it into a money making machine rather than the world wide social media phenomenon it is at present.

I personally don't think it will ever make the money some think it is capable and I think the shares will plummit when people realise this.

The only other option that Facebook have to make money other than advertsining is to charge its members to use the site. This is something they've been remoured to be looking at introducing, if and when they do that could well be the beginning of the end for them because millions simply won't pay and some other site will be waiting to step in to the void.

[Tomaszk]

Bit unfair to be asking if it's a fad, they've been growing at a phenomenal rate for 6 years now.

It'll stay fairly big, which mean the same ill people live their life on it thinking they've got loads of mates when they don't.

In about 20 years there will be people with a facebook page whose entire life is documented online. How many of you have seen those pages made for a baby of an old school friend, very weird I think.

[Stevo985]

It's already been around long enough to not be a fad.

It's bound to die out, at least in it's current form, at some point. But I don't think that will be for a while yet. It's still an incredibly useful social tool.

And it's also constantly growing. I think we're still far from seeing it at it's peak number of members.

[VillaGoMarching]

What do you think, is Facebook a passing fad, or is it here to stay?

It depends upon them really.

As a social medium I think it could stay the course, I think it is about perfect in terms of what people want.

The problem for Facebook, the thing they can't quite get right or figure out though is how to make money out of it.

They tried through impression advertising, where you are charged every time your advert appears on someone's profile. It didn't work.

Then they pinched one of the top people from Google's adwords team, I forget her name and they pinched the PPC model. It still doesn't really work though not in the same way as Google Adwords and you burn money at a stupid rate.

Because advertising wasn't a part of Facebook from the start everyone now has company pages and they advertise these to drive Facebook users to their pages and not Facebook to do so.

Added to these issues is the fact the number of people who access Facebook through App's on smart phones is increasingly rapidly and the adverts aren't visible to these users.

Facebook's biggest threat is itself and the desire to make it into a money making machine rather than the world wide social media phenomenon it is at present.

I personally don't think it will ever make the money some think it is capable and I think the shares will plummit when people realise this.

The only other option that Facebook have to make money other than advertsining is to charge its members to use the site. This is something they've been remoured to be looking at introducing, if and when they do that could well be the beginning of the end for them because millions simply won't pay and some other site will be waiting to step in to the void.

great point, i think that's what set it apart from anything else, it's not the endless status updates people use it for, it's the connectivity. if they start charging, what would make it any different from the likes of Friends Reunited?

[Stevo985]

Financially, I haven't a clue. I know it's really shite now though. My news feed is full of 'games people have played', 'who's viewed my profile', 'trending articles' or some horrible photo of a beaten child which you have to 'like', because it stops child abuse if you do. All from people who I went to school with and didn't speak to even then.

You know you can hide all these?

You only have to see a post you don't like once and you can "hide posts like these" or "hide posts from this person" and they're gone forever (unless you want to get them back)

[Demitri_C]

if they start charging for fb i will delete mine

maybe they will charge for certain extras perhaps?

[mjmooney]

I quite like it. Although the CONSTANT tinkering with the format gets annoying. It's like their development team are a bunch of kids with ADHD.

The annoying factors that Paddywhack mentions are easily dealt with though. If peoples' posts get on your nerves, either unfriend them or filter their status updates and/or pictures, etc. Adblocker sorts out the advertising irritations.

I have about 150 FB 'friends' (which, interestingly, is Dunbar's Number), but only really use it regularly to communicate with a 'hard core' of about twenty or so 'actual' friends and family. For that, I find it incredibly useful.

[irreverentad]

I am not a big fan of Facebook. I don't get it.

You can have hundreds of friends who you never meet again. If I want to keep in touch with people, I will call them or go for a pint. If they live abroad, I will Skype them.

The only useful thing for Facebook is when you are interviewing someone for a job, you can tell a fair bit about them from Facebook.

[Stevo985]

I am not a big fan of Facebook. I don't get it.

You can have hundreds of friends who you never meet again. If I want to keep in touch with people, I will call them or go for a pint. If they live abroad, I will Skype them.

The only useful thing for Facebook is when you are interviewing someone for a job, you can tell a fair bit about them from Facebook.

Well, for example, my mom is on Facebook, and she uses it to keep up to speed with her family in Ireland. It's a big family (there's 30 grandchildren on her side of the family) and some of them have moved to Australia. So she uses it to see their pictures and send them the odd message.

She'd never ring these neices/nephews or skype them, and she'd never get to see these photos otherwise. but FB allows her to see them.

She loves it for those reasons.

Ultimately, it lets you keep in touch with people you wouldn't normally keep in touch with. You say if you wanted to keep n touch with someone you'd speak to them. But you wouldn't do that for everyone, and if you did, you'd be a minority.

Despite all it's irritants, it's a very useful social tool.

[Paddywhack]

Financially, I haven't a clue. I know it's really shite now though. My news feed is full of 'games people have played', 'who's viewed my profile', 'trending articles' or some horrible photo of a beaten child which you have to 'like', because it stops child abuse if you do. All from people who I went to school with and didn't speak to even then.

You know you can hide all these?

You only have to see a post you don't like once and you can "hide posts like these" or "hide posts from this person" and they're gone forever (unless you want to get them back)

Ooh, I didn't. I knew you could hide all posts from one person, but not similar posts, cheers.

[irreverentad]

I am not a big fan of Facebook. I don't get it.

You can have hundreds of friends who you never meet again. If I want to keep in touch with people, I will call them or go for a pint. If they live abroad, I will Skype them.

The only useful thing for Facebook is when you are interviewing someone for a job, you can tell a fair bit about them from Facebook.

Well, for example, my mom is on Facebook, and she uses it to keep up to speed with her family in Ireland. It's a big family (there's 30 grandchildren on her side of the family) and some of them have moved to Australia. So she uses it to see their pictures and send them the odd message.

She'd never ring these neices/nephews or skype them, and she'd never get to see these photos otherwise. but FB allows her to see them.

She loves it for those reasons.

Ultimately, it lets you keep in touch with people you wouldn't normally keep in touch with. You say if you wanted to keep n touch with someone you'd speak to them. But you wouldn't do that for everyone, and if you did, you'd be a minority.

Despite all it's irritants, it's a very useful social tool.

I can see your point on a big family. I don't have one so it may just be me.

With regards to it keeping in touch with people that I wouldnt' normally, I just don't get it.

I prefer a small close circle of friends, if I cannot be bothered to speak to them I just lose touch and they drift away and I am ok with that. But I accept I am probably in a minority with that.

[mjmooney]

I am not a big fan of Facebook. I don't get it.

You can have hundreds of friends who you never meet again. If I want to keep in touch with people, I will call them or go for a pint. If they live abroad, I will Skype them.

But I like to keep some contact with some people that I knew years ago, and may only see once a year or so.

Many of my friends live all over the country, or abroad, so I can't just phone them to go for a pint.

And I don't have Skype. Actually I also hate using telephones, so I prefer messaging anyway!

It's also great for things like the running club. If I want to ask if somebody can give me a lift to a race, say, posting on the club FB page is easily the best way to do it.

[irreverentad]

I am not a big fan of Facebook. I don't get it.

You can have hundreds of friends who you never meet again. If I want to keep in touch with people, I will call them or go for a pint. If they live abroad, I will Skype them.

But I like to keep some contact with some people that I knew years ago, and may only see once a year or so.

Many of my friends live all over the country, or abroad, so I can't just phone them to go for a pint.

And I don't have Skype. Actually I also hate using telephones, so I prefer messaging anyway!

It's also great for things like the running club. If I want to ask if somebody can give me a lift to a race, say, posting on the club FB page is easily the best way to do it.

Fair enough. Its horses for courses. I love twitter and I can understand why some don't like that.

A lot of my mates live all over the country too. I am in the North West and they are in Suffolk or Bucks etc. But I do not have an aversion with Skype or the phone.

As I said, I can only speak with my own experiences and to me I don't get it as I don't need it and I have other more personable tools. But as I said I choose to keep a small circle of friends as opposed to an extended ring.

But I can see it makes life easier in that instance.

[tonyh29]

Think i've said this elsewhere but

I used it as a tool to get back in touch with some old school friends , and then we'd all be on it having some banter

But now we just meet up and go down the pub or out for the day with our families so not on it as much

I've got family and friends scattered around the planet so as a tool for sharing updates on the kids and what not it's quite a handy tool , and for abusing a certain Irish VT'er when Jedward appear on TV it's also quite handy

So I'll always use it , but nowhere near as much as I first did and I believe it's novelty factor has worn off .. maybe Facebook camera and future developments will help keep it fresh ..or maybe something new will come along and Facebook will die a slow death

Saying that I did have a look at Google+ and couldn't be arsed to have to start all over again adding new friends etc so maybe social network apathy will also help Facebook ?

Edit: just read MJ's post so i could have just done a "This " to his post really

[tonyh29]

The only other option that Facebook have to make money other than advertsining is to charge its members to use the site. This is something they've been remoured to be looking at introducing, if and when they do that could well be the beginning of the end for them because millions simply won't pay and some other site will be waiting to step in to the void.

even though the Facebook login screen states

"Sign Up ... It's free and always will be."

there was a good TV show on the BBC the other week that showed how they make money .. and how if one of you friends "Likes" a product , that then puts that product into your newsfeed .. there are huge marketing potentials there for companies , assuming the users don't get hacked off with it

[leemond2008]

I despise facebook

only time I have ever used it is when my flatmate had a 2 month holiday in vietnam and that was just in case there was a small emergancy that I needed to speak with him about

within minutes of re-activating my old account (which has been dormant since 2010) I had 4 friend requests - 1 message on my wall - and 2 text messages from people asking if ''I had re-activated facebook''

I removed every friend I had on there apart from me flatmate.

All I have ever seen facebook do is cause trouble and for some strange reason take over peoples lives

[legov]

some horrible photo of a beaten child which you have to 'like', because it stops child abuse if you do

But I like to keep some contact with some people that I knew years ago, and may only see once a year or so.

Many of my friends live all over the country, or abroad, so I can't just phone them to go for a pint.

And I don't have Skype. Actually I also hate using telephones, so I prefer messaging anyway!

It's also great for things like the running club. If I want to ask if somebody can give me a lift to a race, say, posting on the club FB page is easily the best way to do it.

Hence why I do what I do - keep my account existent, but hardly touch it.