Am I the only one that is beginning to feel that FB has reached its apogee in the social media space and is now at a stage where it’s simply going to hover for a while? How long can it expect to continue to add wave after wave of new users? It reached a point of critical mass long ago, but anyone who really wanted to join the site has already done so and those who haven't done so yet can't be expected to become avid, active users even if they eventually do so.
I am not at all suggesting that FB will crash and burn. No way. But time after time I’ve seen or heard people make comments like “I wouldn’t miss it that much” or “not such a valuable tool” or even “a waste of time”. Granted, the site has something like 700 million+ users, so there’s a ton of virtual inertia there, but except for enabling users to post lightweight, frequently superficial ‘updates’ and uploading photos, many of these same users don’t see the huge value proposition that FB would have you believe it offers.
One big caveat is that these same comments I noted above were taken from a BusinessInsider.com article the other day. Obviously the ‘audience’ for this online news outlet is somewhat more upscale, professionally employed, technologically astute, well educated, and skewed to the slight older side of the average FB user. Facebook’s own statistics show that only about 15% of its users are age 35 or above and fully well over 50% are between 18 and 34. These are highly prized demographics for advertisers of course – the most valuable group – but will we see that same 50% continue with FB once they reach their middle years and are themselves busy with their families, careers, mortgages, and daycare ? It’s unlikely that many will actually close their accounts, but the rapid growth of new FB accounts and the associated new postings I believe is unsustainable.
I think that what we’ll see is that as this 50% demographic ages, the users will use FB less and less frequently, and eventually gravitate more to G+ which (at least in its infancy) offers a cleaner interface and a simpler user experience – for now. I like G+ quite a bit and I certainly hope that those folks in the Googleplex hold true to their ‘Don’t be evil’ pledge, but it will be interesting to see what happens once G+ opens the doors to advertising and businesses try to entice users with assorted promotions, coupons, or discounts. At this time though, there’s not much content and current users aren't much of their own yet either (at least in my own G+ network). What I would be worried about if I were the G+ braintrust is that there seems to be no 'Buzz' about G+ anywhere (pun intended). At least, G+ isn't being funded by a start up and Google can certainly afford to give it plenty of time to succeed.
Pete Cashmore of Mashable offers up a great list of what he calls ’10 things Google Plus does better’ than Facebook, and I couldn’t agree more.
