Comments on: 2010 – the trend away from Facebook and Twitter

By: M G Thomas

M G Thomas — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 13:34:00 +0000

I think facebook can play an important role connecting people with similar social and environmental concerns. For example when people unite to promote human rights and link to action based websites much information flow and action in the right direction is possible….that a online petition can attract thousands of signatures within a few hours because of networking sites like facebook/twitter just shows how powerful the idea of globally connecting the like-minded is.

By: kilbot

kilbot — Sun, 23 May 2010 00:23:28 +0000

Thanks Barn, it should be 130 *million* (http://siteanalytics.compete.com/google.com+fac...)

That was then of course, nowadays Facebook is getting ready to announce it's 500 millionth user, that's about 1 in 3 of all internet users have a Facebook account ... staggering.

However, there is a change in public perception of Facebook, people are leaving due to privacy concerns (http://www.quitfacebookday.com/) and there is the bad stories that will (unfortunately) follow any social networking site (http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2010/s290530...).

I am not cheering Facebook's demise, I hope it exists if only as a very convenient phonebook of everyone I have ever met - and a few that I haven't met ;p ... I just have no interest putting my photos, videos, thoughts into their system.

By: Barnsworth

Barnsworth — Mon, 17 May 2010 10:11:20 +0000

edit req'd: only 130 unique visitors daily?? (para 1) Feel free to delete comment once read. :-)

By: kilbot

kilbot — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 05:58:51 +0000

Looks like Google is sidestepping an acquisition and going for the end game with Buzz http://code.google.com/apis/buzz/. The guys at Twitter would have to be weighing up their options to cash out now or dig in for the long haul... which is not impossible, Yahoo beats Google in mail (about 250 million users for Yahoo, around 100 million for GMail).

By: girish sagaram

girish sagaram — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 19:39:16 +0000

I like the idea that people might stop faffing (farmville) and start doing something more meaningful like growing things. Might not be wishful thinking.

By: sue_anne

sue_anne — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 15:11:35 +0000

I agree Twitter is itching to be bought. Google is likely … I don't think Facebook would survive a serious bidding war. I think the only way Facebook is even in the game is if something pisses off @ev and they sell it to Zuckerberg under the table.

By: sue_anne

sue_anne — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 15:11:35 +0000

By: kilbot

kilbot — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 12:08:33 +0000

Twitter would be crazy not to sell this year and Google would be crazy not to buy it, they need each other. Twitter's value is in data-mining; search, trending topics, news (both authoritative and gossip) … Google can monetise that data and needs a better implementation than the clumsy real-time results they released recently. I really think we will see Twitter data going directly into the Google search engine by the end of the year.

Facebook is harder to predict. It's a huge presence on the net and still really important for a lot of people… but things are a changing. Facebook Connect and all the moves toward opening user data may be it's undoing. I hardly ever visit the actual Facebook website anymore, I chat through Adium and scan my newsfeed on Tweetdeck.

If Facebook open up their content to search as they seem to want to (and if users let them), then I can really see why I wouldn't just go to Google or YouTube or Flickr or Delicious or Digg .. it just becomes another aggregation service.

By: Michael Wyres

Michael Wyres — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 11:27:22 +0000

Well said. I've long thought that the time would come when Facebook would lose it's “newness” and it's “novelty”. I do think it's coming. If people used Facebook for what it's meant for – connecting people – it will remain a well-used tool for a long time. However, to monetise it, the apps have to exist for Facebook to exist as a whole. They are at the point where they have to find the balance. Do they go public? Probably, but I'm not convinced it's the right time. The right I think was 12-18 months ago. Twitter is interesting because it's far more “generic” than Facebook, so as a framework for other uses, it's got much more potential for “add-on” success than does Facebook.