Culture · Media · Science/Technology

Do you think Facebook is a passing fad?

Eric Ringham May 16, 2012
17

A poll conducted just before Facebook’s public stock offering suggests that half of Americans think the social network is a passing fad. Today’s Question: Do you think Facebook is a passing fad?

  • Hiram

    Facebook is something that will be around for a while, and I think it will lose it’s quality as a fad. I don’t think it’s much of a fad now. The question I have about facebook is, what does it have that it can sell? Where can it expect to get it’s revenue in the long term?

  • Emery

    Ask your self what do you need 1000 so called “friends” for? Do you have time to live your life? Do you have time for your family?

    As for the future generations using facebook? Ah ha ha, the next generation don’t want to use the things their parents or grandparents used. It won’t be cool anymore. The next generation(s) prefer to create their own novelties. This is the fact already. Don’t forget humans are forever making new things and discarding the old ones. The speed of these process is getting faster, faster and faster….. Facebook is The Internet Fashion at the end. And it’ll be out of fashion before you know it.

  • Rich

    I was one of the first several thousand people to have Facebook back in 2005. In my opinion, the site started going downhill when it allowed high school students to have accounts (it was college only at the time). Many of my friends who were also early adopters have canceled their accounts within the past two years. Those of us who still have accounts spent 15 minutes a week on FB, tops. FB grew too fast, invades ones privacy far too much, and fails to listen to its users promptly. I think many folks are going to lose money investing in this fad.

  • Gary F

    Who still uses Internet Explorer? Netscape? Yahoo or ASK search engines? AOL? MySpace?

    Pinterest.com and gentlemint.com are already gaining on Facebook.

    It’s not a stock to hold in the long run.

  • James

    I believe Facebook will be long-lived, but not the cashflow generator that the bankers would like investors to believe.

    As as adult, it’s a several times a week thing for me. A great way to keep up with my college age kids, and the handful of friends I have out there that post interesting things.

    For my almost adult kids, it’s way bigger than that, still, after many years. It’s their newspaper, their social network, their link to other reading materials, etc.

    I believe it will maintain its supremacy because of network effects. Sure it would be nice to try something new or better, but you can’t move unless your friends move. It is hard to imagine someone creating something sufficiently incrementally compelling to cause a mass migration.

    With one excpetion. Facebook itself can kill the golden goose by chasing profits. Too much privacy abuse, too many ads, too many silly user interface changes, too many security issues and eventually the costs will exceed the benefits for many and alternatve social sites could become more appealing.

    Again, my guess. Facebook will be long lived but will not be able to generate the cashflows that investors will need to sustain a $100 billion+ valuation.

  • Allison

    I’ve got to think Facebook is way ahead of itself. Zuckerberg is no Jobs or Gates and Sandberg is no Eric Schmidt. Senior Management is weak, extremely weak. This firm will drown in its success and flounder in legal morass and lack of innovation soon after. Take the money and run.

  • Will

    Facebook makes most of its money in North America ($2.86 ARPU vs $1.21 Global average). The North American market for FB is saturated and I don’t see how they can further monetize the US users. Asia doesn’t look promising either: year on year ARPU growth rate is about 20% with negative momentum: most likely it will never reach the US ARPU level. Can’t blame Zuckerberg for wanting to cash out now, since FB as a company seems to have peaked.

  • Steve the Cynic

    Isn’t everything a passing fad? The only question is how long it will take to pass.

  • Larry M.

    Fad, I don’t think would be an appropriate term for something as established as Facebook (FB). However, I think that there are threats that could hurt FB: 1. Too much change- Facebook has a tendency to over-design and often not to the advantage of the user. 2. Attempts to monetize could be too intrusive into privacy. 3. Technology on phones could lead to competitors especially with younger generations.

  • Mark in Freeborn

    I don’t give a hoot about Facebook, and I know very little about it. The only problem I have with it is that many people say “look me up on Facebook” and I have to say “uh, no…..that’s okay.”

  • david

    I thought it already passed. Don’t most sane adults tire of facebook about a month after signing up?

  • Jim G

    Once people see that the loss of privacy is the primary consequence of holding a Facebook account it will fade as quickly as it became a fad. Investing today? Nope I’m with the 99% who have no chance of even getting in on the frenzy. Those one-percenters that do should have a good exit stragedy or a dependable golden parachute. Go for the gold!

  • GregX

    Facebook will fall apart because of this IPO. There is no enterprise, created by a single person or small group of people, that can’t be absolutely ruined by a larger team of people. Primary among its failings is the corporate growth model as a wealth generator. Had it evolved purely under an open platform development model – allowing others to contribute and build in features , as well as expose deficiencies and problems, it might well be a lasting enterprise. This IPO will expose Facebook to something its never dealt with very well …. having to accept sharing personal information about itself as it expects its users to do.

  • Jeff

    Fad? No. I think will be used for several decades but it won’t be the game-changer that it was or some think it will be. Kind of like talking movies, new people will keep discovering Facebook and old users will continue to use it but not in the amount that they did at first. FB is huge now because so many people are discovering it (young and old) but that growth will slow. Just like when kids see movies they think they are great and want to go to them a lot. As they get older, they still go, but not as often as when they were younger.

  • Lawrence

    It’s difficult to say. Now that cell phones have cameras in them, a lot of people prefer to communicate via text and paste. Then, there’s Twitter, which gets Americans thinking about what their “TV” stars are saying instead of talking to each other on Facebook. At the same time, people still like to say they have Facebook even if they aren’t using it that often.

  • Ann

    People in the media are constantly talking about how busy people are and how so many people use food shelves. I just have dial-up Internet. I don’t spend very much time on the Internet or on the phone. I’m not criticizing, but I do wonder how people have the time and money for these things. I don’t even have kids! So I guess that’s why I don’t buy the gadgets or use them.Is it cheaper to use the Internet and cell phones in other countries?How can they afford it? If I knew these things, it might give me more information about Facebook’s future.

  • megan

    Because of privacy concerns and facebook’s tendency to act like an over bearing, jealous, stalker (now, they have added a feature that tells you if a person has read your msg) it has resulted in posting less from my end. I rarely comment or post, just “like” things. My name is even fake, but now they have added things like you can only change your name once. There’s also a lot of censoring going on on facebook and people are catching on. Facebook is is a conservative republican, and censors things it doesn’t agree with. The main reason I use it now is for getting news from many sources on one feed. I hope it goes down, honestly.