Today’s news that AOL is being forced to sell or shut down social networking site Bebo just goes to show how fickle us digital natives are. Sounding very familiar to last year’s revelation that ITV was selling Friends Reunited for a mere £25million after paying £175million for it less than 4 years previously, it seems that there is only room for one major online community; Facebook.
We can attempt predict the future of the online social media landscape until we are blue in the face, but the truth is, it’s an unpredictable phenomenon which seems to change faster than we can say ‘petition to get the old Facebook back’. I mean, look at the once beloved Myspace. At the risk of sounding older than my 20 years... when I was at school everyone had Myspace, but then came Facebook. Now, the meticulously maintained profiles of my former classmates lie dormant somewhere in cyberspace (along with their Bebo pages).
It seems that there is an almost inevitable pattern emerging when it comes to big companies buying out digital start-ups. This is the opinion of a ‘source close to Bebo’ quoted in today’s Guardian. "You set out with a certain strategy and aim for a certain user experience, and they change it," the source said. "They get rid of staff and cut costs, and it still doesn't work...”
Who knows if Facebook will be replaced by another international online sensation two years down the line, but I think it’s high time we stop placing so much emphasis on the future and focus on the here and now. Now is the time (particularly for PR folks) to harness the sheer power of Facebook in the right ways and also to concentrate on the smaller, niche online communities forming on networks such as LinkedIn and Ning.
What are your thoughts?
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I think Bebo and MySpace had no staying power. On Facebook people have hundreds of real friends (not the stalkerish people on myspace) and thousands of photos. The only way people would leave it, is if a new service offered to transfer all the photos for free.
ReplyDeleteTwitter is also different the older Social Media, as it has a purpose. Whereas Bebo and MySpace were just used by annoying school kids using too many flashing images.
I think something will take over Facebook, but Twitter I believe has staying power, due to the amazingly insightful search engine it could offer.
I agree with you about Bebo and Myspace. Do you think AOL was naive to think that Bebo had a place alongside Facebook?
ReplyDeleteI think AOL was naive about thinking Bebo could take on FB but having said that, there are plenty of different markets Bebo could have taken (say the tween market).
ReplyDeleteWhat I found more astounding is what AOL paid for it.
Kagem Tibaijuka
founder of vox-popPRcareers