I've been keeping an eye out for the next social site where everyone is going. But, there doesn't seem to be one this time. I think social might finally be over.
Speaking of late to the party Facebook is just in the process of taking off here in Japan, it's already very popular and appears to be taking over from social networks like Mixi which have previously dominated here.
I don't have any numbers to back this up though, I'm just basing it on the change in usage I've seen here in the last two years. Certainly Facebook is alive and well here, even _useful_ if you can imagine it!
I can almost picture your friends snickering at you saying thinks like "Boy, look at vabmit, still has not realized that Facebook is so yesterday"
The only thing that sucks up more of my time is Hacker News :)
- I get its messages delivered to my phone.
- Most every party I go to has a Facebook event associated with it.
- Pretty much every picture taken with my friends goes to it (or Instagram).
I'd say that's pretty normal for most people I interact with.
"Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded."
Sometimes I think every social network is doomed to die in a certain number of years. Facebook simply isn't cool any more because everybody's on it now, which mean's it's ripe for disruption by a network of cool people.
When you think back to the history of social networks (AOL, Compuserv, Friendster, Myspace) these things don't have a great half-life.
They need to reinvent themselves and fast, and extending their reach isn't as much the issue as reasserting relevance through great content.