Someone posted a TIME magazine article this weekend that claimed that scientists have been running computer models that showed that social media is similar to diseases and that Facebook will soon lose up to 80% of it’s users. I clicked. The article was from January. As in ten months ago.
Facebook of course has only continued to grow and immerse itself deeper into global society since January. These scientists were clearly wrong. As I wrote here in 2007, Facebook will eventually become so ubiquitous in our lives that it will come loaded on every phone and be the seamlessly integrated desktop on every new computer sold in the world. Every action we take on or off line will be recorded by it, many of them shared. Like it or not, Facebook is here to stay.
Twitter on the other hand MAY still potentially go the way of Yahoo or AOL. Most people still don’t use it regularly and very few find it indispensable. Twitter’s decision to enforce the 140 character limit greatly diminishes it’s ability to be an effective tool for much of anything except satire, a greatly appreciated and hot trend at the moment in western civilization but certainly not a necessary one.
Facebook on the other hand is more akin to Windows or Apple. Not only does it have more money and resources at its disposal, thus it can easily afford to reinvent itself as often as needed to supply the people with whatever changing needs they demand at the drop of a hat, it also has a complete monopoly on mainstream society — it possesses that very rare blessing of any product or service of being used by almost all demographic groups on planet earth; all races nationalities age groups income brackets social backgrounds and classes. Some may try to go without their Facebook account for a spell, only to realize, like TV 30 years ago, that to do so means they find themselves unable to keep up with their peers come Monday morning at the office. Facebook is not just the social barometer of society — it is also fast becoming the primary communication tool.
We may watch the latest hot viral video on YouTube, but we find out about through Facebook. We may tune in to the latest binge watching sensation on Netflix or Amazon or HBO, but we find out about them through Facebook. On and on this line goes. So deeply immersed is Facebook in human society at this point that it is more appropriate to compare it to the medium of television or the telephone than to other tech companies like Twitter or Yahoo.
In the end Apple, Google and Facebook stand tallest and win the dominance game.
– Posted by The Ambassador using BlogPress on an iPhone 8s Custom
