Saturday, March 14, 2009

Dear Facebook: It was nice knowing you.

This morning I watched the first nail crack into Facebook's coffin. A re-design. Not just any re-design, but one that shows Facebook admitting it's no longer the innovator. Do you remember when Myspace started adding Facebook-features like photo albums and status updates? Probably not. Because by that time, everyone was closing their accounts.

Now Mark Zuckerberg and his team have unveiled a design that looks like one massively over-cluttered Tweet. And once one social networker starts ripping off another, it's clear who's ahead. Twitter may seem like meek competition in comparison to the massive global network Facebook has grown. But the early adapters are now tweeting their lives away while your mum's updating her carefully picked profile picture.

Facebook, let's face it: you got old. But maybe that's a good thing. Social networks work best with a niche. Pre-tween scenesters favour Myspace, the rich and uber-elite seek selective privacy on A Smaller World and the gays use Dlist to plan their sexual schedules. Maybe it's time for the Face-book-fourties. Your dad can use it to plan fishing trips with high school friends and your mom can use it to gossip with her virtual quilting club about their American Idol picks. 

Could the talk of the Harvard campus become your Aunt's new newsletter? Maybe this will all blow over tomorrow as we adjust to yet another advertising-initiated re-design. 

But I have to say, I smell a Friendster. 

4 comments:

Jamie Lynn said...

So true. And just in time. Being on facebook is like having my mom sit on the couch at a party at my friends house. This seems to be a popular topic today in the blog scene.

Andrew said...

I find myself going on it less already due to the new design. I hate to say it might you might be right...

LaurenceW said...

I couldn't agree more! The new design is so cluttered and non user friendly. The folks at twitter must be beaming, because you know what they about imitation :)

Kasandra Bracken said...

I guess I've been delusional all this time - 'till today, when, after receiving a text message about a post on my wall, I was asked by Zuckerberg and Co. if I'd be interested in "subscribing" to my friend's "status."

Tonight, I joined the revolution.
@mamakasss