As The Sun Sets on MySpace - Who Will Beat Facebook?
The year was 2013. Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg was still the social network's public persona, but he had a young family and new-found loves of world travel, exotic regional cocktails and faux-native art. Facebook had become overgrown with spammy apps and awkwardly targeted advertisements. The company quietly gave Zuckerberg a huge salary to pursue those other interests and leave product development and the business in the hands of other people. There was no denying it - Facebook was on the decline as Social Network XYZ rose to global social networking supremacy.
But what in this future scenario will Social Network XYZ be? As the sands of time wash MySpace into obscurity, with a wave of hundreds of employees being let go this week for example, now seems like a good time to think about what comes next. What could kill Facebook, the MySpace killer? We've identified four possible scenarios - which do you think is most likely? Most desirable?
After these four scenarios, we've got a poll asking readers what you'd most like to see come next.
Scenario 1: Incremental Change
In some ways, Facebook was just a series of incremental changes away from what MySpace offered. The same core functionality of messaging, media storage and personal expression is consistent across both sites - Facebook just purports to be classier, it's more about school friends than music and it came along at a time when being online was more 
universal than it was in the days of MySpace's rule. Perhaps another social network will challenge Facebook simply by making small changes in response to the most annoying things about Facebook. Perhaps they will more effectively deal with app spam and they will make preservation of privacy easier. It's about to get a whole lot harder at Facebook, if you believe Michael Arrington's report that Facebook status messages will soon be publicly visible by default. Facebook's privacy settings are already so labyrinthine that company watch-dog blogger Nick O'Neill's post on changing the settings has been viewed by millions of people and he's now selling a book on the topic.
Perhaps a challenger will make incremental changes to these kinds of policies and steal Facebook's thunder.
Scenario 2: A Smarter Technology
Facebook's technology is very smart already, but it could be a whole lot smarter. The future of social networking may come in the form of more sophisticated recommendations. If you liked this video that your friend just shared, then you might also like these other videos, these groups and these public figures to follow.
The Facebook news feed keeps users engaged by following the progress of their friends' lives - but most peoples' friends have pretty boring lives. The flow of information we get from our social networks could be spiced up a whole lot with smarter recommendation systems.
Unfortunately Facebook is moving away from the kind of rich user profiles and connections that sophisticated recommendations are built on. The company is removing geographic regional networks and no longer prompts users to note how they met the people they connect with on Facebook. (Its executives also speak to their users like children, in big vague terms like "we help you Connect.")
The future crown of social networking could be stolen by a system that offers users powerful features, options and recommendations. Think of how television is moving towards increased complexity of features and imagine social networking going that way as well.
Scenario 3: Augmented Reality
Augmented reality is one of those new buzz words that is going to get old fast, but the user experience is not. Social networking as a layer on top of real world experiences has a lot of potential to capture peoples' imaginations. Systems like Loopt and FourSquare are already catching on.
Why would I want to leave my network at home on my desktop when I could bring it with me and detect a residue of restaurant reviews written by my friends, wherever I go around town. Is this place I'm in just a fountain in the park, or can I click a button on my phone and see pictures of my friends smiling there in the past, read a short history of when it was built and leave messages for friends who come there in the future? On second thought, if you thought information overload was an issue today, an augmented future like that could drive us all even more insane.
Scenario 4: Distributed Social Networking
Imagine being an AT&T customer and being unable to call T-Mobile customers on your phone. Imagine being afraid to leave your phone provider because you'd lose your friends' numbers you'd stored and the photos you'd taken. (Heck, imagine having a great phone but being unable to use it on another network! But that's another story...)
That's where we're at with social networking today. They are essentially "walled gardens" little different from the old AOL days.
Talking Social Network Interop @ GSP East from Brian Oberkirch on Vimeo.
There are people working to change that. Check out the DiSo (Distributed Social Networking) Project. Check out the writing of Marc Canter, a man on a quest against user lock-in.The next step after Facebook may be no social network in particular at all - it may be social networking as a protocol. A set of standards that let you message, share with and travel to any social network you choose. Suddenly all the social networks have to improve because they are competing on quality of service, over customers that have free will and are able to leave at any time. Someone might even build an interoperable social networking service so compelling that you'd be willing to pay for it, instead of being served up ads.
This is probably the most radical vision, the riskiest when it comes to making money, and so the least likely to happen. But it sure does sound interesting.
What do you think the future of social networking is going to look like? Facebook can't rule the world forever. No one can. The marketplace and the internet are all about churn, innovation and cycles. Just like MySpace has fallen from the top, someday Facebook will too. What do you want to see come next?
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What about scenario 5 where Facebook still rules the roost in 2013? I mean, will search have a new leader in 2013 or will we still be Googling (or using something made by Google, even if it doesn't quite resemble the current search engine)?
2013 is 9 years of Facebook, and just 4 of Facebook at #1. In 2009 Google has been around for 11 years and has been #1 in search for, what 6... 7 years? And nary a true competitor in sight, though many have tried.
I think there is a fifth scenario for Facebook where they are the Google of social networking, and stays at the top for awhile. Not saying it is any more likely than the others you've presented, but certainly it is not less likely either.
Wise words, Mr. Catone. Proof again that we're happy to call you a friend of RWW not just because you're friendly and handsome and used to work here. You are a smart cookie, too. There are no doubt a number of other scenarios that could be included but FB as the Google of Social Networking seems like it deserves a place on any list.
No one at the moment...
I see a greater technology as being the downfall of Facebook. At the end of the day, people want to have the hottest tools to communicate with their friends. In time, someone will develop a "cooler" method for communication and Facebook will lose popularity like MySpace. Though this is far from being an easy task.
@Marshall: And of course, it would appear that Mr. Zuckerberg is actually trying to achieve that scenario by hiring as many ex-Googlers as he can. ;) There's a lot of Google DNA floating around Facebook HQ these days.
I really want to see FREE will of the user...no boundries...just like mobile carriers but online..anyone can communicate to anyone at anytime...
What we need to create is an open code system where by user's can extract all the information and friends with them to other platforms without necessarily leaving facebook/myspace etc...
just like a suit case...u pack it up...and leave...
i hate the walled gardens...someone needs to do something about it!!! TOO MUCH CONTROL FOR A 25yr old!
Arrrrggggh. Honestly I wish FB would go down first. I think MySpace has and continues to serve a real purpose for artists and musicians. Facebook? Cluttered, not intuitive, cheesy...I could go on and have. Get a blog! Use Twitter and Facebook. Let FB go.
I was just wondering why does facebook makes my browser to freeze! LOL
I think Opera Unite is the start of Distributed Social Networking. Although integration with OpenID or a free MobileMe clone would be better.
I think scenario 4 is going to be in full force by 2013. Scenario 3 probably won't catch on until transparent OLEDs go into glasses lenses so we can see augmented reality through our eyes as opposed to our phones. This may also occur by 2013, of course.
Has anyone considered Google Wave to be a competitor? No, seriously. Think about it. From the demo we all saw, it looks like Google Wave will revolutionize communication as we know it. And... it's a protocol.
-JP
I suspect 1, 2, and 4 will happen - I'm too primitive-minded to understand 3, so 3 would have to "overtake me", I suppose. There are of course great privacy/security obstacles to overcome, and (as they did with Facebook and will hopefully be with GoOgle) these will be stumblers again and again.
Google Wave will be the next big rave just as Twitter is now all a flitter and Facebook will lose even more of its shimmer! Ha! Sorry for the horrible rhyme... but its true. All tech is niche and will continue to piggy back itself until: A. We reach an inevitably unsustainable place with it or B. We reach a higher state of consciousness with it. I see "A" happening first but since both are such a long ways out my vote above goes for the model suggesting distributed social information. Prediction: Google is about to bring a bunch of this in "waves".
I agree with JP and Matthew:
Wave has the potential to be individual Facebooks, Twitters, MySpaces, et al for everyone. Form a group, 'wave' it around and you have an ongoing social network that anyone can join, make their own options for and cart around the results wherever they want to.
This function will be what takes Wave out of the internet geek column: "Any conversations on those waves also show up in your Wave client, making Wave an easy way to aggregate conversations you care about all over the web in one place."
Imagine that.......
Who will beat Facebook, once folks were talking who will beat myspace and that time this question was unanswered but as time passed now we know who beaten myspace, I do not know who will beat facebook but as time passes we all will see who beat facebook.
As you might expect from my record on opposing social network bigotry -http://bit.ly/socialbigot - let me first attack your premise. You are positing the Highlander model of social networks that There Can Be Only One. MySpace has a huge number of avid users, as do many other networks; that you only see Facebook is mostly a function of your own class and social circle.
Distributed Social Networking is the de facto situation now - by only mentioning the smaller projects you make it look fringe. There are around a billion users of social networking sites today, and many of them use more than one. What we have seen over the last two years is an amazing convergence on common ways to express social information, and I only see this continuing.
The Augmented Reality scenario accounts for a huge part of this too, as we are increasingly carrying devices that know when and where we are and with whom, simplifying the mapping of social overlap.
But as I have argued for a while, modelling social trust within computers is fraught with hubris- it is what a very large part of our brain is for, and while both explicit and tacit correlations can help filter information, when it comes down to trust we will still be calling out to our brains' deep and subtle modelling in 2013 and even in 2050
I think (4) is the the "next" evolution.
FOAF is probably the way to go.
But, it's arugable that this is here already, as there are 100-300 million FOAFs out there, just waiting to be activated.
I think your insight is spot on. Subtle change within a large system (social networking is part of a real social system) has often the most meaningful and long term effects.
What needs to be looked at most carefully is the shift away from corporate type governance and more towards a ground swell. This needs to be reflected in a new type networking system where all users are felt to be intricate members of the whole. Whilst having total privacy and intimacy with in their grouping of friends and acquaintances,couple to real relationship and discretionary led information that fully supports your real world activity.
With Microsoft now supporting Facebook and Twitter it doesn't look like they will be loosing their footing anytime soon. I do think, to thrive the social networks to come will need to be open and share with each other. I have accounts on many social networking sites. Some with themes but all of them separate.
Poor investors, they've put some hundred millions to back FB, and still haven't got a buck towards ROI :-(
Imagine, if a facebook killa appear any time soon?...
Sad news for MySpace. Facebook is really the no. 1 SNS today and I don't think that Facebook will fall down.
It is my feeling that the "Facebook killer" will be the aggregation of social ELEMENTS online, rather than networks themselves. Technologies like OpenID as well as tools like DISQUS, as integrated into blogging software like Wordpress, are already giving us a glimpse of what the capabilities my be in this arena. Time will tell.
What about niche social networking? For example, there will probably always be a giant social network of some sort (a la Facebook), but beneath that there could be thousands of networks organized around common interests like in the forum days of the late 90s.
E.g. FiredNetwork (www.FiredNetwork.com) is a business networking community for the laid-off, those looking to change careers, and entrepreneurs that is organized around resources in five areas (employment, entrepreneurship, fundraising, company purchase for owner operation, and post-grad education (MBA/JD)).
I think the scenarios are not to far off but I think the network will get so ubiquitious that is essence it will become a cross platform SAS based environment. It will be seamless across mobile/portable/console/home with a small but burgeoning augmented reality component that will take time to dev. Leaders will move away from ways to interact and focus more on quality of interaction across all web components. I think this will also herald a more serious approach to weeding out and killing the spam gorgon that has done as it pleased. Google hints at future components of this system with its Wave project.
Walled gardens don't bother me, because proprietary companies take more care to devise and manage the rule of law, such as it is, and proprietary coders are more directed to show up for work and serve customers not abstractions are they are in opensource.
Remember, Google itself is just a giant walled garden. And most users don't need to transfer thousands of contacts from one garden to the next, like Scoble. Some people *like* being able to have different services for different facets of their lives.
So I think the future will be in whatever company can help people make their own social networks like Facebook, with their own DIY technology, using perhaps some opensource technology, but putting it into a framework where there is a responsible proprietary company to serve customers, unlike the chaos and recklessness and frustration of OpenID, Drupal, etc.
So just as Typepad/Six Apart and Wordpress made it possible for millions of people to blog, so something will come along that enables people to make a facebook but the way they like it. That might in turn spawn a very steep power curve and long tail that winds up leading to many people just joining the power facebook that somebody else makes and accepting their decisions, and then lots of little guys making their own little garage facebooks.
Really nice article. I think that one of the future options is a different way to keep in touch with your close friends and family. For that reason, I'm developing www.feelinq.com.
Have a look at it and send me your feedback.
Vitor
I'm in for n°4, n°3 is cool, but I don't see that as a competition for social network as we know it today (aka-aki could evolve that way if it gets rid of its nasty cluster effect in Europe).
Wordpress and Buddypress could really change the game here, by adopting DiSo, and releasing a Buddypress plugin for single-user Wordpress installs (and of course using it on Wordpress.com), it could really change everything.
Of course, there's a lot of work to do before this can become a reality, but give it some time, and you could see distributed social network becoming a reality in a very shot transition period.
An insightful article Marshall. Thanks! I think with attention becoming really scarce with scattered search on the web, people will not have the time to create their own sns even if they are provided with savy tools, as Prokofy suggests in the comment 25. I think Google wave clearly demonstrates that point!
A mix of better technology,with a felxible (open id) structure is what is really needed! Google Wave!
No.3 is really cumbersome to be caught on!
Just like the Dot Com investing days...as soon as your grandmother asks you how to set up a Facebook page it's over for Facebook. The interest level is reaching people in their early 50's now...after the intial 6-8 months of newness wears off - the frequency of posting falls off quickly. The apps grab all of your personal data and barrage you with app spam - a new technology will replace it scenario #4 and augmented reality will add a depth that will be amazing.
it looks like Google Wave will revolutionize communication as we know it.
what about linkedin? any thoughts there
@Brien, then it's all over for Facebook.
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I think that the future of social networking is even more exciting than we think. We will tend to the architecture of that will support the global brain. Enterprise software and social networks will merge to form one deep service to help people to: exchange value, deliver services, connect etc etc.
Pawel Lubczonok
ThoughtExpress
Welcome to the professional tech reviews site.The motive of this site (www.protechreviews.com) is to provide you with the latest happenings prevailing all around the world in the world of technology.I myself have been in this field for more than 15 years and want to make people feel the POWER of technology.
This needs to be reflected in a new type networking system where all users are felt to be intricate members of the whole.
I think twitter maybe beat facebook. but have a long way to go. maybe the biggest competitor from google. it is difficult to say the result now.
I think that Multiply.com already is a smarter technology. I don't know that it will ever become the next big thing, but it's been a big thing for me since I joined back in 2004. It ties the real bits of my life together in a way that's easy to share with my friends and that doesn't frustrate the heck out of me (like some sites do: FB and Ning being the two that top that list for me).
I wasn't impressed by FB when I first joined back in 2005. As it's grown, it's definitely been exciting to hook up with old friends. But then it's hard to connect much more than that initial hookup, which I find incredibly frustrating. I think the Causes app. is fantastical and I love it to death. But that's really the ONLY thing about FB that I'm still positive about. The FB feed is so hard to customize well that I really think they need to chuck the whole thing and start over. (Multiply's feed has definitely spoiled me.) If I remove 25 quiz app. notice, at some point FB should figure out that I'm not a big fan of those idiotic quizzes and turn off every quiz post to my feed ever. I shouldn't have to keep turning off new ones every time someone makes a new frackin' quiz.
I really don't see FB being the big thing for too many more years. Google wave, yeah, there's definite potential there. I also see Twitter apps as being a grand frontier that could pull together technologies in a way that FriendFeed just doesn't capture for me yet.
I agree with Kelly that Myspace has a great purpose in Music. I wish they would focus on that more and get rid of the distracting crap that makes the site a pain in the butt to use.
I see a greater technology as being the downfall of Facebook.
nice article, from the nice blog. I hope u still keep the good job. I guess facebook is still the best right now, but I don't know later. I have always took inspiration from your cute cute blog. keep blogging.
thanks for sharing
as the sun sets in 2009. can any one finish that mistery qwestoin of
Well, now facebook is on the top and right now its really hard to say who can beat so we can just wait n watch!!
Well, now facebook is on the top and right now its really hard to say who can beat so we can just wait n watch!!