The concept of social networking was still being defined. Now, facebook is social networking in most people's minds. The concept has been solidified. Google's recent offering does nothing to reinvent the concept.
Also, social networking was still something mostly young people were into. The network-effects now are much greater in magnitude than they were then.
The biggest factor in myspace's downfall was that it was perceived as a "ghetto" (I had multiple people describe it to me as such). People didn't join facebook because it was more compelling, they left myspace because it had degenerated to a ghetto and facebook was the most viable option.
The social networking battle is facebook's to lose, not google's to win. As long as facebook doesn't stumble majorly, they're not going anywhere.
edit: There is a serious anti-facebook downvote brigade going around here.
and FB isn't?
"People didn't join facebook because it was more compelling,"
exactly!
"they left myspace because it had degenerated to a ghetto and facebook was the most viable option."
And now there is even more viable option on the horizon...
It's like we've all forgotten who the 800 lb gorilla is! Google's launchpad is tree-mendous. The show is just getting started.
Will people use it? Sure, but I doubt that millions of users will actually leave FB for Google+.
http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2007/06/24/viewing...
True, and in fact, they are so much greater in magnitude that they're no longer always a good thing.
I don't benefit from any 'network effects' when my mother, my boss, my wife, my girlfriend, and the kid who used to beat me up for lunch money in 4th grade are all part of my one and only 'network.' If Facebook doesn't get a clue about that, Google can and will eat their lunch.
Come on now, isn't it a bit premature to make a statement like this?
Google has positively sucked at social every time they tried anything until Google+. Now they have something that is obviously a lot better and interesting in many ways, but I don't understand why the bubble pundit set is frothing at the mouth so vigorously. They have a huge road ahead to compete with Facebook in any meaningful way.
Everyone wants to sound the Facebook death knell, but you can't look at Friendster or MySpace for historical lessons, neither of those sites crossed the chasm, and both suffered from severe technical setbacks that hampered development. Despite the valley mentality of always searching for the next big thing, there's no sign that the public at large has any appetite for a new social network. It could well be that social network adoption was a fad, and Facebook just becomes the defacto standard for non-techies, and the up-and-comers all end up serving smaller niche audiences. I'm not saying that's what I believe will happen because I think it's foolish to make any predictions about something as volatile as social networking, but it certainly seems just as likely to me as Google+ just up and "eating Facebook's lunch".
Facebook has always had a "public by default" feel to it. Most people have adjusted their behavior, and their expectations, accordingly. The circles feature will take some serious marketing by Google before it becomes a killer feature for anyone but highly technical people. At that point, all facebook would have to do is make lists for visible to mitigate any mass defection. The ball will always be in facebook's court, until some major redefining feature is invented by an upstart.
Not to play the doubter, but I remember when Hertzfeld was slated to be the savior of Linux back in 2000/2001 (god I feel old!). His company, Eazel, did produce the file manager Nautilus, but then promptly went out of business.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/08/22/hertzfeld_spills_all...
I switched to Linux on the desktop for a couple years largely on the strength of Nautilus. I eventually gave up and went to OS X (conveniently if accidentally using Linux to skip most of Apple’s rough OS transition period) when it became clear that, although there were some brilliant people on the Gnome team and elsewhere,* Nautilus and its approach was being left for dead. Instead, there were five years of stagnant file managers with pseudo-Aqua pinstripe themes. But Nautilus gets a lot of credit for trying.
* For example, http://www.tigert.com/ was a graphic artist who come up with some really elegant interface stuff.
Myspace has 63 million users, maybe less. [2]
I think userbase is a valid part of a social network argument. Or at least far from "patently flawed".
1. https://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics 2. http://social-media-optimization.com/2011/03/myspace-loses-1...
Userbase size is a symptom of something else. It is not causation.
Please take this with a grain of salt because I am still working on liking myself but at this stage in my life I do identify with Mark Zuckerberg very much. I listened to him talking on a YouTube interview at the Palo Alto house in 2005 and noted an intense similarity or parallel I perceived in our body diction - particularly vocal tone.
I personally think that Facebook suffers form the same problems, especially contentedness, with the additional problem in the fact that their founder and public face isn't all that likeable.
In short, solely because of Google+, Facebook is the new Myspace in all the wrong ways.
And of course, it would be naive to discount the advantage Google has through the presence of one person and one person alone; Andy Hertzfeld. He's a big hitter... a really big hitter. To me, it feels like Yoda just turned up to show the young upstarts what it really means to be a Jedi.