All Roads Lead to Facebook

All roads lead in and out of Facebook.

Facebook is where we are going, and Facebook is where we have come from.

Facebook drives the future of business and entertainment, as well as controlling the social networking market. Now, through Facebook's upcoming 'Timeline' feature, it will help track where you have been. Many of the changes that Facebook has recently implemented will seem insignificant in the face of this upcoming shift. Facebook will now become not only a place where you interact with other people, but will become a more dynamic platform for people to represent who they are and what they are interested in.

With the unveiling of the new Facebook design and almost a fundamental shift in Facebook's purpose in people's lives, I am continuing to hear more and more from people 'threatening' the make the move to Google+. This whole social media phenomenon is very intriguing to me and I look forward to how it plays out. But here are a few of my thoughts at the current time.

First, You DO NOT threaten Facebook. Facebook has become a driving force not only in people's leisure activities, but has become a mainstay of business and advertising. Facebook does not need you and is WAY too powerful to feel the insignificant impact of the lack of your digital presence. If Facebook was a country it would be in the top 4 and much of the growth is happening outside of the United States, so all of the pompous users that like to scoff at change could and they would still not affect Facebook's overall numbers one bit.

This is not the time when there was a viable alternative, like during the MySpace/Facebook duality days- Facebook is the only option because everyone is on it. At this point, at least for the time being, I really don't think that it even matters if Facebook is the best. Even if there was an awesome alternative that blew Facebook out of the water, yes some people would get it but then you would realize that you were relatively all alone. What gives Facebook power is that EVERYONE and their mother, (and now grandmother, with the fastest growing demographic of new Facebook users coming from those over 50 according to recent surveys like the one found here), literally everyone is on Facebook. It is the universal nature of Facebook that has become its strongest competency for the time being.

But will Facebook have a downfall, just like Rome? What will be the contributing factors?

Let's learn from MySpace.

I remember my friends having both MySpace and Facebook growing up. As the number of friends on social networks grew, I began to think about which one I wanted to sign up for. All I remember is hearing that MySpace was had more predators and was unsafe for young users. So naturally, I signed up for Facebook.

Looking back on my options between MySpace and Facebook I realize that the two were actually fundamentally different. MySpace was a place to put a personal page, with some possibility for interaction with other users. But mainly it was about putting up all of your interests so that others could know who you claimed to be. Facebook was a place for connection, with the ability to have your own page. It was about getting to know someone, not just about putting up a pretty cardboard sign in the shop window. It allowed users to see what was really happening in their friends' lives and helped them connect in a new way. I can see why Facebook was definitively more appealing than MySpace and therefore won the social networking battle. People crave interaction.

MySpace let its gaze come off of what was the true benefit of their social network. This should serve as a lesson for Facebook- decide what your true benefit to users is going to be and make that the sole goal of your strategy. Everything you do should be working towards making that goal a better reality. I cannot yet speak on the uses and purpose of the impending Facebook change, but I will say one thing- if it distracts or changes the benefit that people are trying to get out of Facebook, essentially what makes it a useful platform, then the change will hurt Facebook's long term growth. People will go other places to find satisfaction for the interaction that they crave. Facebook is about your friends, not the layout or bigger pictures. It works because it allows a new level of connection. If that connection is cluttered, it not longer works the same way it once did.

The other possible pitfall I see Facebook falling into is with privacy issues. They have not yet figured out a good way for users to set who can see what parts of their profile without either blocking them out or giving access to their whole profile. This could be a leak that sprouts into a waterfall as I believe that people's privacy will become a increasing prominent issue in our world of cyber contact mining and computer savvy individuals that can work around basic safeguards.

Rome didn't fall in a day. Neither will Facebook. But will we see the social networking giant begin to show signs of corrosion in the coming years? Let walk the path and find out...