We have seen it with social networks like MySpace or Hyves, gaining a lot of users in a short period of time, and then abruptly die off. MySpace was acquired in 2005 by News Corporation for over $580 million and surpassed Google in 2006 as most visited website in the United States. As of April 2016 MySpace, the former social media king, was ranked on place 1,747 of that same list. But will Facebook follow the same path as MySpace or Hyves?
I believe it will. A research led by the GlobalWebIndex showed that there is a strong decline in active Facebook users. To be more specific, there has been a 52% drop of active Facebook users in the age of 16-19 in the Netherlands. This is a substantial decline but also one that is mirrored globally. Countries such as Malaysia (-45%), France (-44%) and Mexico (-34%) demonstrate that Facebooks teen decline is global and happening on all continents. The declining activity on the News Feed should be very concerning for the company. It is the lifeblood of Facebook, given that is where all the ads are displayed. But where did all the active users go?
Facebook is being defeated by Instagram, Pinterest and Snapchat, like Facebook defeated MySpace in 2008. These social network platforms are growing rapidly and are using less ads than its competitor, Facebook. I believe that the ads are scaring the people away. Facebook even introduced a new algorithm which gives active users even more ads as they can endure more advertisements, according to Facebook. This contradicts with some fundamentals of business, where loyal customers are rewarded rather than punished for being active.
What is your opinion? Are you still as active on Facebook as you were a couple of years ago? Are you also tired of a News Feed with personalized advertisement and videos of cats?
Thanks for sharing this Dirk. In my opinion, Facebook changed negatively over the last two years, especially in the content they offer. Personal information, pictures or stories of your ‘friends’ are not the core of Facebook anymore. When I scroll down I nowadays see a lot of advertisements and videos. Besides that, I have the feeling that elderly people invented Facebook as well, therefore younger people share their moments and pictures more often via other channels. All these reasons contributed to the fact that I use Facebook less than before. However, I still use it, mainly because of events and group communities. Almost everyone has a Facebook account and therefore it is easy to network and check out events. If there are no substitutes offered, then I believe that Facebook will live for more years than expected.
When I was looking for a blog topic I considered writing about the same thing, so Ill just share my opinion instead! I agree that facebook changed and negatively but I personally am not annoyed by personalized ads or “32 of your friends like KLM” for instance, I just skip those. And I would contest that people leave Facebook because of increased advertising. If it was for that I think people should be running from Instagram just the same, its full of ads and if they are not marked as such you see some c-level celebrity holding up the next best fitness shake or body shaper. I think most leave because it has become boring and “slow”. For instance, I communicate a lot more via WhatsApp, others use Snapchat and Instagram instead. You can get the same videos/memes/GIFs on Instagram and Snapchat allows you to joke around with your friends in a much easier way and you get to narrow your audience much better than on facebook. Personally I think the change and the issue of especially teens leaving FB is more about convenience: snapchat and instagram are much easier to do share quick snaps or upload pictures with a nice filter. I share your opinion that FB will be struggling and personally I think the main reason Im still using it is because it facilitates group work for Uni, finding your team mates etc. Overall, Im just not sure if it really faces the same fate as MySpace, after all, Facebook “have their fingers in almost every pie”…
Thank you for this interesting topic. I was actually very unaware of this phenomenon, due to the fact that I still use Facebook on a daily basis. People want to stay connected all over the world and Facebook provides that opportunity, in contrast to Hyves.
Facebook overtook MySpace in the number of American users by June 2009. One man who thinks he knows how that happened, is Mike Jones, formerly the head of MySpace. Jones tells Business Insider he believes that Facebook was able to overtake MySpace because Facebook “perfected” the social networking concept, whereas MySpace just introduced people to it (Schenker, 2015).
There’s no denying Facebook’s mass appeal. The site boasts nearly 1.3 billion users who are active on a daily basis. That’s more than four times the number of people who use Instagram every day–a still impressive but comparably paltry 300 million (2016). I think that Facebook is nowhere near being in danger. People massively make use of the platform every day. To search for tickets to a party, to find fellow students for group assignments, to find information about travelling and different countries etc. Besides, I actually experience minimal irritation regarding to the advertisements on Facebook. I have always experienced Facebook as highly convenient and useful, especially when I was travelling through Thailand. I can’t imagine Facebook ever awaits the same fate as MySpace.
On the contrary, I do agree with you that the videos of cats can be a bit tiring, but in my opinion scrolling through Facebook still is a perfect way to kill some time when you are waiting for the subway or a train.
Schenker, M. (2015), Former MySpace CEO explains why MySpace lost out to Facebook so badly, http://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/former-myspace-ceo-reveals-what-facebook-did-right-to-dominate-social-media/
(2016), Facebook vs. Instagram: Which Is a Better Fit for Your Marketing Efforts? http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/preston-paynter-elite-sem-guest-post-facebook-vs-instagram/644431