(PCM) It goes without saying that many, if not all of us are completely and totally addicted to social networking especially Facebook. Just think about how many times throughout the day you are checking your page, liking the statuses and pictures from your friends and family, laughing over silly memes, etc. But have you really thought long and hard about what Facebook really is and just how long it can last.
It seems that more and more people are beginning to realize that what you share on Facebook essentially belongs to Facebook. The social networking juggernaut is the ultimate data collection tool and a good portion of that data is information that most people probably do not want collected.
While Facebook is an absolutely wonderful tool in keeping people connected, many people are beginning to think twice about their privacy and just how much of their personal information is being shared throughout the network. It also doesn’t help that the company’s IPO was released so very late. Normally that is something that should be brought out in the open right away, however Facebook took their time and waited until they were beginning to decline in popularity before releasing the information. Definitely not a smart move on their part. Facebook has been on a slow and steady decline for several years now and things do not necessarily seem like they are going to be looking up.
One of the major problems that Facebook has is that there is just too much information being shared and there is really no proper way for users to be able to access everything that is being thrown at them. Yes, Facebook has made some changes where only news and information from your close friends and associates a.k.a. the people you interact with on a daily basis will show up in your Newsfeed and they are significantly cutting back on the amount of memes that pop up, swapping those out for legitimate news, however is that enough?
Another major issue is that Facebook is filled with a ton of spam. Thousands of users that sign up for accounts everyday are not even real individuals and many of the “fake” accounts are in the business of selling “Likes”. Imagine, if a “like” suddenly meant nothing. Companies would not longer want to push their pages and a huge driving force behind Facebook would be lost.
Facebook has broken the trust of its’ core users over the years with all the privacy changes and social plugin’s, many of which have effected the user’s account and experience without their knowledge or permission. This has led many users to abandon Facebook and any new users very hesitant to create an account. Without new users the company can not continue to grow, hence why we make the prediction that Facebook may indeed implode upon itself by the year 2017.
No need to worry just yet, Facebook is definitely still going to be around and probably always will be to some capacity, however many of the factors listed above may be enough to knock them down a few pegs and open up room for some of Facebook’s competitors to bask in the spotlight for a bit.