The end of Facebook? Are you kidding me? Facebook is the second most visited site globally, how could this possibly go wrong?
Let me be clear: nothing will go wrong today, or tomorrow, but Facebook will undergo some massive changes in its user base and usage in the next years to come.
The trend is happening. The Converstation reports results from a European Union-funded study on social media. From the study we learn that with 16-18 year olds in the UK “Facebook is not just on the slide, it is basically dead and buried. Mostly they feel embarrassed even to be associated with it.”
And the findings are inline with what Facebooks has found out about its user base and mentioned by Facebook’s CFO, David Ebersam during the Q3 2013 earnings call “We did see a decrease in daily users partly among younger teens. … This is of questionable significance.”
Wow.
So, what is happening? And what lessons can we learn?
First of all, Facebook is the brand leader of a very wide category called social network. To compete very focussed companies will come in to take small bites out of the big pie. When these focussed companies grow it is only natural that users will be coming from the leader.
The lesson we can learn is that in any category with one clear leader or a duopoly there is space for more players.