Have you been bored with Facebook lately? If so, don’t worry, you are not alone. As many as 34% of users recently surveyed by Reuters and Ipsos claim that they spend less time on Facebook than half a year earlier. The analysts herald that this online service will live up to 2020 and not a year longer. Are we watching the beginning of an end?
The survey was conducted on a group of over a thousand Americans. 21% of them answered that they do not use Facebook at all, so obviously, they were excluded from parts of the questionnaire. 34% of the remaining respondents, however, admitted that they spend less time on this site than 6 months before. What’s more, there were individuals who claimed that the website is becoming boring, trivial and simply useless. Some of them also indicated that they are deeply concerned about Facebook privacy issues.
Only 20% of users stated that now they spend more time on Facebook than in the past. The trend is thus clearly downward.
Another issue that could be quite disturbing for Facebook is what the respondents said about the ads displayed on the site. 80% of them claimed that they had never bought anything as a result of advertising on FB. Profit generation is now very important, because the company shares have recently made a stock debut, which failed to sizzle. The share price is already down by almost 30%.
Analyst, Eric Jackson, is definitely not optimistic about the future of the portal. He strongly believes that Facebook will disappear completely by 2020, due to lack of ideas for how to “cash” in on mobile users, who already constitute a huge part of all Facebook users – and those numbers are growing.
Jackson suggests that FB might share the fate of Yahoo. The former golden goose still generates a profit and employs over 13,000 people, but is worth only 10% of its value from the year 2000.
In the analyst’s opinion, this is all a result of generation changes. Yahoo belongs to the first generation of internet companies, where huge network portals were the supreme rulers of the World Wide Web. Nothing lasts forever, though, and they were soon ousted by the second generation of online enterprises, that is, social networking websites, with Facebook at the forefront. Now it’s time for the mobile generation, and unfortunately for Mark Zuckerberg, his baby is not doing too well in this area.
According to Jackson, it is impossible for this generational transition to go smoothly, no matter how much money there is on FB’s account. Google+ sets a good illustrative example. They keep trying to enter the realm of social networking, but with meager results. Facebook has the very same problem in reaching mobile users.
So what’s the next step in the evolution process going to look like? Can you imagine the world after Facebook? We shouldn’t worry, because nature abhors a vacuum. So even if the portal disappears entirely, which I don’t believe is actually possible, it will simply make space for something new and even better. And when you think about it, that’s actually kind of exciting.
===== About the Author ====
Nadine Schulz is a contributing author who writes articles on numerous subjects, including network security and VPN software. She has been in the field of VPN service for a couple of years now and feels very strong about the future of the technology.
