The cool kids are leaving Facebook, says Pace Lattin based on data from InsideFacebook: the 18-35 demographic is now having negative growth in this "early adopter" demographic. I can't yet find the raw data, but let's assume the trend is true. Let's assume that the explosive growth of Facebook for mobile doesn't have anything to do with it.
Any platform that requires the "cool kids" to be there for it to be successful will ultimately suffer the same fate. We can't all be East Village hipsters enjoying our own exclusive online party, with VCs chomping at the bit to try to invest in the things we think are cool. Even if all the cool kids leave, Facebook will still have a huge business with the uncool kids.
However. Viewing Facebook itself as the cornerstone of social is just false. They beat out all the other social networks, more or less. Round 1: Facebook. Bigger, longer term, the interoperability of social graphs will make the choice of any one web site unimportant.
Any platform that requires the "cool kids" to be there for it to be successful will ultimately suffer the same fate. We can't all be East Village hipsters enjoying our own exclusive online party, and there will continue to be plenty of business opportunities for Facebook even if those users leave.
However. Viewing Facebook itself as the cornerstone of social is just false. They beat out all the other social networks, more or less. Round 1: Facebook. Bigger, longer term, the interoperability of social graphs will make the choice of any one web site unimportant.
The fact is, hipsters still have parents, and teachers, and friends they want to connect to, and some they want to be able to ignore. Technologies built on opening the social graph and intelligent selectively sharing the content we ourselves consume is the direction we're heading.
we haven't really seen the companies that are thinking about this. Check out where Diaspora is going these days, and see the interoperable social future.