Is the Great Facebook Sell-off Upon Us?
About a month ago, Facebook completed the transition to “New Facebook.” A week after migrating all users to the new platform, they formally burned the ships and removed the “Go back to Old Facebook” link from their header. A veritable legion of aggravated users formed groups in protest – some over a million strong.
I chose to make a different statement, one that failed to receive nearly as much press coverage (read: received zero press coverage), but that represents the unspoken majority view of Facebook users: OK, “New Facebook” is a little different, but it’s not that hard to get used to, it might even be better… and I’m gonna go right on using it just like before.
In this time of financial crisis and stock market collapse, it’s easy to conjure up fanciful analogies of a Great Facebook Sell-off. After all, many argue the site is tremendously overvalued, and undeniably has not yet settled on a great way to monetize. With this forced transition to a “New” platform, will Facebook suffer a massive hemorrhage of users to services like Twitter (or even good old MySpace), and collapse?
I wouldn’t bet on it. First of all, where would they go? Twitter, and even MySpace, are not competitive services, despite appearances to the contrary. The things users love about Facebook (squeaky clean profiles, robust privacy settings, the now-beloved News Feed) are not to be found all in one place on either platform. Not to mention the biggest asset of all: Facebook users already have established their network there, and they can’t take it with them. The average Facebook user has 150 friends; many of us have hundreds more. Facebook is our neighborhood, and we can’t move to a new one without severing ties to all of our neighbors.
Facebook isn’t dying, it’s just going through adolescence. It’s growing in all kinds of new and exciting ways. International growth is accelerating at a ridiculous pace, and Facebook has recently rolled out their Translations platform to keep up. Facebook app developers have had to go through a rocky transition, but the outcome is a better service for everyone. The first Facebook Connect-driven sites have begun to pop up, with the platform soon to open its doors to all sites.
Hardly sounds like the death knell of the old ‘Book to me. Facebook may have gone through a metamorphosis recently, but this change is only the beginning of good things to come.
Facebook is dead. Long live Facebook.
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