Gary Andrews

Monday’s Evening Standard contained a rather curious feature suggesting that Facebook was declining in popularity, while profiling the social products that could take Facebook’s place.

I say curious, because among those suggested were Instagram, the addictive fast-growing photo sharing tool, and Foursquare. Yes, Foursquare.

I suppose much depends on your definition of waning. Certainly it’s a little bit of a concern for Facebook to see 100,000 British users no longer active on the site (as opposed to quitting entirely, which Facebook makes it very hard to do), as global growth, somewhat inevitably, slows down.

But then when the company is still growing in emerging markets, has 700 million users worldwide, this number pales somewhat.

Secondly, it’s difficult to tell if this this dip is significant or the start of a long-term loss of active users, although it is the second month active users has dropped. The number of users no longer active may well decrease next month, and could be attributed to natural churn.

What the article, in a roundabout way, may do, is suggest that Facebook users use the site differently these days.

Proclaiming that Facebook is dying and a new network will take its place still feel wide of the mark.

Yes, you can point to Facebook eclipsing MySpace, but this was in the early days of social networks and before Facebook became all encompassing. It’s telling that most social sites or apps offering something that Facebook doesn’t, still offer connectivity with Facebook.

What the article does show, though, is the niche nature of the “challengers” and this is probably Facebook’s biggest weakness.

Facebook has shown us the value of browsing the web socially and, for many, has become a daily or weekly way of keeping up with friends and a social life, and for big-to-medium brands it’s a great tool. But when it comes to engaging in niche areas, the one size fits all approach that’s normally so effective for Facebook, falls down somewhat.

For small to small-to-small medium interests, websites, brands, etc, Facebook is a good news feed and traffic generator but may not necessarily be the best place to grow the community.

Certainly off Facebook you can see burgeoning communities develop, often through engagement on Twitter, as these communities look for the most effective way to get together (even if this does involve connecting to Facebook on occasions).

Facebook’s groups and fanpages are quite disparate and don’t necessarily make the easiest communities, which are often best when they grow organically.

That’s not to say it can’t, because there are some excellent groups, fan pages and communities, but if you’re really interested in something, chances are Facebook is a conduit, a means to an end, rather than that end itself.

Of the other sites profiled by the Standard as contenders for Facebook’s crown, many fulfill a service that is perhaps lacking on Facebook, or just does it better (and it’s a bit odd to see Google Places on the list).

Essentially, if we’re looking beyond Facebook – and the site will have a lifespan, although I don’t imagine it’ll collapse quite as badly or as quickly as previous competitors – we need to be thinking completely beyond what Facebook currently is.

It’s unlikely that we’ll see another social network, along the likes of Facebook and MySpace emerge. Like it or loathe it, Facebook is so firmly entrenched in our lives it would be difficult to totally shift.

But the new generation of smartphones and tablets may give us something social that we’ve not yet thought of that becomes as much a part of our day as Facebook has been. If that sounds vague, remember, 10 years ago we didn’t have any concept of Facebook or why it would become so important to us.

What’s most likely is you’ll see something new that becomes as useful as Twitter and as addictive and socially necessary as Facebook, but does something completely different, and sits neatly alongside them both, threatening their market share but also co-existing.

After all, Twitter didn’t kill or even dent Facebook. It’s unlikely Foursquare or Instagram will do either. They’re different beasts altogether, and fulfil different needs. And, ultimately, no matter how cool something is, users will go where their friends are. Because nobody likes talking alone online.

written by Gary \\ tags: Evening Standard, Facebook, Foursquare, Instagram, social networks

Google Buzz slipped out yesterday with a minimum of fuss, or at least, a minimum of fuss compared to the launch of Google Wave. Still, at least expectations were dampened down, and today Gmail users have found Buzz arriving in their inbox.

What to make it of, though. Mark Cahill says it’s the moment that social media has finally reached the mainstream, calling it a “Facebook killer of epic proportions”.

On the other hand, Jon Silk poses a few reasons as to why Buzz might not be all that. His point that not everybody uses Gmail is especially valid. If you’ve already got one email you’re happy with, why move to Gmail? There’s less of a reason to do that than to sign up to Twitter and especially Facebook.

For me, as it always tends to do, Buzz falls somewhere inbetween. On first impressions, yes, it does seem to be similar to Twitter and you wonder why on earth you’d need it. But building it into email is a smart move – you can’t avoid it and if you know the majority of people on there, then that’s another good reason to use it.

It also seems to sit somewhere between Facebook and Twitter and has excellent sharing functionality, plus the mobile aspect seems good as well (and this is one area where it can really steal a march on the other social networks, should it want to).

But yet it still doesn’t seem essential or compelling, in the way that Twitter and Facebook are when you first sign up. And there are little niggles as well. I’m not keen on having responses land directly into my inbox (you can set up a filter for this, but how many people can be bothered). And if your Gmail contacts are, like mine, a complete mess and full of everyone who has ever spammed you, then that’s also a negative.

At the end of the day, despite the breathless hype and analysis, probably a greater indication of how important Buzz is in social media will be how often we’re all using it six months down the line. If there’s demonstrative growth and users find themselves returning every day, then Buzz is worth watching.

In a way, Google products now have it harder than, say, Twitter or Facebook had. The latter two were allowed time to grow organically. Google launches come with an air of expectation, both in terms of the product and in terms of immediate success. If it’s not done what’s expected of it in a month, then it’s written off.

Which brings me nicely to Google Wave, that collaborative tool that was launched into Beta to a huge amount of fanfare last year and is no the subject of an endless trickle of snarky asides from social media land.

If you listen to Twitter, the consensus is that Wave is a damp squid that’s died a death. I’m not so sure, and there’s a reason for this. That reason is my dad.

A quick explanation: my dad is not somebody who immerses himself in social media. He does not, to the best of my knowledge, blog, Facebook or Twitter, although he’s probably used social review sites without realising they’re social. He also edits a Devon folk magazine and another country-wide folk newsletter.

He has a loose team of contributors and edits both in his spare time, often chasing down copy, pictures and listings. Most of this is done via email, as are any discussions around it.

When, on a visit home for Christmas, I showed him Wave, he was excited. He immediately got it and got what he could use it for. To him, it wasn’t social media. It was a tool to make his working life infinitely easier, and immediately asked for a Wave invite.

And that’s where I think the value is in Wave. There’s been a number of times recently I’ve been involved in long emails chains or collaborations where Wave would have made a difference, but nobody’s been prepared to move it into Wave because they perceive it to be a waste of time that nobody uses.

Well, with Wave, you don’t have to have everybody using it and being visible to the world. The small groups who are busy sharing and collaborating on projects are probably finding it more useful than the social media evangelists.

To me, part of them problem with Wave was the amount of fanfare and hype that accompanied it, followed by the confusion, didn’t help its cause. And because it was social, but not quite what was expected and wasn’t somewhere that you could easily hang out, like Twitter or Facebook, it was deemed not worthy. Yet I still think it’s value as a business tool, not as a social media tool, has yet to be realised.

I still believe in Wave. Providing it doesn’t completely die, there’s a good chance it could see a revival when people start realisting how useful it can be for their working (not social) world. Out of Buzz and Wave, I still feel Wave has better long-term potential, despite it gaining less brownie points.

I may be wrong. I so often am. But it’ll be interesting to see is Buzz can hold the collective interest. Either way, it’s certainly less innovative and useful than Wave.

UPDATE:

If you want a good example of why Buzz hasn’t perhaps thought through all privacy explanations, then this is a very serious and sobering reason as to why opening up to your inbox contacts, and others, without asking is not a good idea.

Also, I can imagine journalists and sources may not be best pleased. And if your Gmail contacts are anything like mine (ie chaotic) then there may be a few people in there who you’d rather not share things with. I still think Buzz is (just about) a good idea, but privacy’s taken a back seat on this one, which is worrying.

written by Gary \\ tags: Google Buzz, Google Wave, social networks