So… Facebook has announced it has passed ONE BILLION USERS.
Sounds like a reason for a huge celebration. What an amazingly awesome global community!
We should all rejoice together because we built it… together!
But unlike the supermarket that rewards its one millionth customer with balloons, gifts and plaques and everyone is so happy for the store, the only reaction to Facebook’s announcement is people commenting “Facebook sucks!” “Are they counting all 10 of my accounts including my dogs?” “I quit Facebook months ago.” etc. etc. etc.
Facebook has a problem and it’s one that it will not overcome.
Facebook is irrelevant.
Nobody cares about it anymore. There are no balloons, no cheers, no tears, just… meh.
Sure, people use it to post photos of drinking, of babies and bike riding for charity but we, the connected world, have moved past that boring old shit that used to be slightly cool.
I’m sure to that comment Facebook would say – “No, no, wait, you’re wrong, Jill – people also post funny sayings and signs that they find amusing.”
Indeed, they’re right. How am I supposed to know I should “have an awesome day” if I didn’t see it posted in the morning by one of my “friends”?
In the past, I have written that Facebook Is Worthless, Overvalued, and Must Be Stopped – but now, I just don’t care about it anymore.
I have become Facebook indifferent – it means absolutely nothing to me.
That’s not the way it was supposed to be.
The swagger and smirking of the executives and investors before the IPO made it seem like this was a company like no other on the planet – a truly game changing experience that would actually… change the world.
The world did not change because of Facebook.
We all have the same problems that generations before us had. Politicians still use the same rhetoric. American flags are still burned at overseas Embassies. Famine and hurricanes still occur.
The only positive thing Facebook ever did was allow us to see what our high school and college friends look like today. It doesn’t mean we’re going to have dinner with them or have an actual conversation. But we do get to see if they got fat. That’s it and I suppose that’s worth something.
During the first Presidential Debate between President Obama and Mitt Romney the social media winner of the night was… Twitter.
Nearly all the media outlets and pundits were talking about what happened on Twitter during the debates. Not Facebook. Not LinkedIn. Not Google Plus.
To be serious, I have no idea how they add their numbers to conclude that one billion people are on Facebook.
Perhaps they should say one billion accounts have been set by about 200 million people? We all know people who have multiple accounts (almost everyone) – accounts for dogs, literary characters and just plain fake names that we all use to hide from our “friends” and supposedly Facebook is cracking down on this practice. (By the way, you can “friend” me here.)
And that’s another reason the site sucks – who wants to be completely real on Facebook?
We’re not trying to get a job. We’re not running for office. We’re just trying to spend a few minutes out of our day looking at drunken babies and trying not to be monetized.
So congratulations, Facebook on one billion users – one billion bored, indifferent, and dissatisfied users.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
P.S. – I just thought of a way Facebook could be relevant… they could buy Twitter.
It’s not only Facebook that is overrated, I think twitter is overrated also. The only time Twitter is interesting, is the times famous people like politicians post dumb tweets they regret afterwards.
The fact that the old media use twitter as “the word on the street” doesn’t prove it’s relevant. It’s a hype that will disappear eventually…Just like Facebook will.
This this was both humorous and on point. I agree with essentially all that you have written and can add a great deal to it, but I’ll check out a couple of your other related articles before risking being redundant.
Many are missing the point here. We are still very much in an (early) evolutionary stage, I feel. In that Facebook’s own analytics have available so much ‘1st party’ intent data, that it ain’t funny.
I believe that Facebook will shortly announce the purchase of a small ad network – one that will give Facebook advertising a ‘double-play’. (From both a selling point to advertisers and from being a publisher POV, in it’s own right.)
An ad network that will allow it’s own advertisers to bid for users with ‘intent’ up against otherd in an OPEN marketplace and in what appears to be a successful and growing marketplace – a global CPC/CPM marketplace that’s based soley on ‘user intent’. The higher the bids, the better the ROI for publishers. (Incl. Facebook)
I’m “hot” for that ONE global marketplace where (with a common ‘currency’ or, an “Intent-Based Unit Of Trade”,) advertiser can (blindly bid and) compete with each other for targeted impressions all on a level understanding basis. I’ve blogged about this:
http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/36191-lookingconfident/1198061-x01an-intent-based-unit-of-trade-becomes-a-targeting-one-fits-all-certainty-x01
I love when “experts” write of a traffic source. Means there is more for me. Seriously Jill you sound like someone who tried and failed to market on FB. You don’t sound indifferent you sound jaded. Facebook has earned me as much Google this year, which is a 25% increase since last year. I no longer bother with my mailing lists that give at best a 1% participation rate. My FB pages have a 70% participation rate. Facebook is just another tool for business people and marketers. The people who don’t know how to use the tool poo poo it like you!
People are often tied to Facebook more than they think… Let me bring to light a few ways Facebook has captured their userbase and made them dependent on the service.
1) Facebook Connect
Have you ever logged into another site with a “Login with Facebook” button? Many people do this without thinking twice because it’s a time saver over filling out long forms that ask for your date of birth and mothers maiden name.
Over time, you may even forget which sites you actually signed up for an account on vs those you logged in with Facebook Connect. Since the idea of an account “audit” isn’t appealing to most people (or an “audit” of any kind for that matter), they will likely continue to keep their Facebook account around…even if its just for this purpose.
2) Getting Back in Communication with Someone
Facebook has over 1 billion users. Sure, they aren’t all active…but if you don’t know someone’s phone number (to call or text) or Twitter account (obviously to tweet or message), you can simply search their full name, or location (that is if you aren’t already friends with them!) if they have an account . It’s more likely than not that you’ll find them, thus Facebook at this point is your #1 method for an attempt to reach out with them.
3) Messenger
ICQ? Yahoo? MSN? AIM? Nope.
As Facebook built up its userbase and introduced messenger, it gave people reason to no longer use these services. Remember the likelihood of finding someone you know through the AIM directory? Yeah… Finding a communicating with people on Facebook is much easier.
You may think many things on Facebook are annoying. That’s just it though…people will deal with annoyances if a service is still useful to them. I believe we may come from different generations, because I use Facebook many times per day and would not only miss the social experience if it went away tomorrow, but would feel like I lost a lot of documented information on my life (Primarily photos and conversations). Lastly, I realize that people don’t all have the same needs, so Facebook is not valuable to everyone.
Oh, and on the debate topic…
People associate “real-time” news with Twitter, not Facebook. Although both can provide real-time information (newsfeed), users are able to see related tweets on Twitter based on user-provided hashtags… There is no feature like this on Facebook. (#BindersFullOfWomen)
I don’t think a company whose account base numbers over a billion (with a B) can be considered irrelevant.
Wrong…”millions” of users have photos and video from up to a decade ago on there…these people aren’t going anywhere. Imagine…little by little, year after year, decade after decade you upload a few of your favorite pics of friends, family, vacations and special events. When I’m old and grey I can be showing my grand kids hi res pics and video of their mother when she was their age on my tablet from anywhere in the world. There is no longer a need for family photo albums…it’s all there digitally with the swipe of a finger. Trust me, face book and it’s users aren’t going anywhere!
Twitter is incredibly non-personal, most normal people don’t update everything they’re doing and keep it interesting. Twitter is only good for keeping up with music, movies, corporations and politics, but it’s terrible at keeping up with family and friends.
Paperoq – “….it’s terrible at keeping up with family and friends.” ??? What kind of family and friend do you have? My family (which is large, but scattered) keeps in regular touch via FB, posting family news, events, entertaining posts, pictures and videos, etc. This way, we don’t have to e-mail all of this to 25 individuals! We all ‘meet’ at FB, commenting on postings, messaging when needed, and all the rest. It’s a GREAT tool for keeping up with family and friends. You just have the wrong kind of family and friends, or maybe the fault lies with you.
I don’t use FB much either, except to sign in to new sites, and read feeds that interest me.
If you’re not using it so what! My employees use it, and obviously many others do as well–ordinary people. If the “avant garde” has abandoned FB, well, they did their job by being first. Just like in real estate, a neighborhood gets popular by hipsters who like the low rent and location. Years later that same neighborhood becomes “hip” and that first group has left or cashed out, but the neighborhood thrives, becoming expensive and liked by high earning professionals. This happens all the time.
So goes FB.
Social networking, popularity contest, marketing/advertising, or all three. I still use email. People I know who facebook still can’t write an email, respond to one, or even check their email daily, but they are good at forwarding chain emails. I’m on facebook via family & friends photographing and gossiping about me. When facebook first got going, this guy I kinda knew once, a drinking buddy friend of a drinking buddy friend, who was married, was.. used facebook to literally get laid every single weekend for months on end, the internet really makes a great veil.
Facebook creates it’s own traffic as well, like the cop I knew who was out checking his 13 year old daughters page every single day, he’s like should I be worried?, her page is hidden?, I’m like why worry, he ended up having a heart attack at age 40.
Jill, Everything was going cool with this piece until you told people how to like you on Facebook…? was that sarcastic?
When, exactly, did Facebook jump the shark? I started saying so in 2009, but I might have been early.
Twitter will be over in 2013, and we can all move along.
I have 2 Facebook accounts. my personal one i don’t care about at all, the wife uses it for crap like farmville .. now on the other hand,,, i have the one for my Meetup group. our photo’s get posted this way everyone in our group gets to see them , and if they like a few i can send them a true copy over email. so in a way , I don’t care about the personal side of Facebook. but for a business and groups it still works great.
Just my opinion..
I think YouTube is going to out do them All !!!
http://simple2advertise.com/c/?u=pathtofreedom&c=video3c&ad=&vt=yt&video=kJ1tEP4EpHA
remember MySpace……..lol
Yes, we all remember MySpace, but FB isn’t MySpace, so won’t go by the wayside as MS did, because FB is innovative and keeps it interesting. I have a very large, scattered family, and none of us has slowed down in our FB usage since its inception. In fact, many of them now have a business page as well as a personal page.