The Death of Facebook (circa 2017)

"(Facebook's) decline in growth is inevitable because Facebook is literally running out of humans. Facebook has signed up more than 50% of all Internet users on Earth." - Ian Maude, Enders Analysis
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/decline-of-facebook-user-numbers-2014-4#ixzz3L3Uf35Ru

As we head into the last month of 2014 and look forward to Christmas and eventually the New Year, I was reminded of something I read awhile back that set me off on a long-form thought about social media and specifically Facebook.

In January of 2014, there was a much publicized article by Princeton University that cited the decline of Facebook and it's impending doom. The researchers there even asserted it would be completely dead by 2017. This set off a chain of articles online where lots of smart people weighed in on the reasons for this decline. The suggestions go in many directions but usually settle on varying degrees of: 

• there are only so many people in the world
• teen audiences have moved on to other services 
• users simply just lost interest.  

Now, I am not really wanting to discuss all the reasons WHY Facebook might be in decline or the long lasting implications of the effect certain factors will have on it as a business. I am more interested in discussing how everyone is looking at it wrong. Essentially, you should care about Facebook and here is why.

The very competition that everyone points to as the cause for the downfall are all examples of what is right about Facebook. The growing popularity of services like Tumblr, Instagram, and especially Snapchat are all reasons why I think Facebook should be considered just as important. Having teens in the house myself, I see how the allure of Facebook for them has definitely weakened when compared to the older (30+) audience that seems prevalent there now. Many of the younger generation have embraced Snapchat as the hot item (of the moment). However, everything there is temporary (exactly the point of it). It leaves no lasting impact and "self-destructs" the message or picture like it never happened in some Mission Impossible (would they even get that reference?) sequence. What kind of imprint is it leaving in the long run? Absolutely nothing.  There is no "throwing back" to a moment except in your own memory. For some things I suppose that is better, but for the few reasons I outline below, there is strength in the long-term effect of having a public and lasting profile:

• Pictures

I take a lot of pictures. With kids, grandkids, other family, work, travel, and other interests it is not surprising that my phone would not begin to have enough room to store pics. I still save copies of all those photos onto my laptop (and eventually backed up on the cloud). However, in my mind I know that they also are stored, filed, organized, and accessible at any time and anywhere on Facebook. You can go to my profile and view my life thru pictures dating all the way back almost 7 years now. And not just that but those photos are tagged with locations, the other people in the photo are linked to the memory, and each one can be reshared at the click of a button any time I want.

• Journal of Events & Memories

Everyone wants to be a blogger. Very few ever do it right. I still don't do it completely right and probably never will. But something I tend to be better at is posting to social media. For anyone who follows me on Facebook they know I am always sharing stories, quotes, pictures, events, and much more as they happen. Now having 7 years worth of content it is fun to go back and "relive" those moments thru those posts. Some of them I have even forgotten about myself. Yet I am able to have them chronicled, backed-up, and accessible to me in a social setting that I can then re-share with anyone I wish. No fear of losing the journal to moving or house fire or any other reason.

• Private Groups for local commerce

There has been an explosion of private local "SWAP" groups where people are selling used items and services. This has been a neat and unexpected side effect of social media that I see people increasingly joining in on. 2015 will most likely see the integration of businesses also selling directly to the consumer thru Facebook stores. You no longer have to rely on Ebay or Craigslist to get rid of that junk in your spare room.

• Facebook Login on Other Sites

(The one login to rule them all) - Many have probably noticed the trend of Facebook allowing services to integrate user's personal login information as a means to login to various websites. Honestly, who likes to remember passwords for a dozen different things? There are a handful of toolbar add-ons and plugins that also provide this type of service but the simplicty of only using one login is very nice. Additionally many of these same services will even pull your basic information to auto-fill tedious form information. Nice!

In summary, there will always be negative aspects of all social media like annoying pictures/posts, ridiculous opinions on politics/religion, and other random general drama. Yet, we should make the distinction that those are all the side-effects of the users and not the service. What other service provides all of the added perks I mentioned above...for free? Besides, anyone who remembers being on MySpace and moving to Facebbok can relate to "starting over" on a new network. Sometimes the demons you know are better than the angels you don't.

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