Facebook, Losing Face?

By: Jay Osterholm, founder and CEO of The ODM Group

This morning I was driving to work and I heard an interesting comment on NPR, “Facebook is becoming more like Adbook”. When I arrived at the office, I shared this comment with my staff and it led us to this: What is the difference between “members-only” and the “only-member.”

If the trend continues, some are speculating that the popular site Facebook, with its overnight success and embodiment of the social media revolution, may soon see a mass exodus of its younger membership.

Facebook originated as a site for college students, and then expanded largely among younger generations. In addition to advertising taking note of the growing Facebook popularity, older generations have taken up the torch and joining the online community.

While it is impressive that the same site can appeal to a 13-year-old and a 65-year-old, it is essential that we carry our normal social boundaries into the online space. Would you invite your grandparents into a conversation with your teenage friends?

The young users, generations Y and Z, have grown up with digital communication, and the Internet is second nature to them. When older users, 30+ years-old, embraced Facebook and reveled at the novelty, digital social divides were created among the generations. The privacy and exclusivity started to fade for many of the younger members.

Facebook is undoubtedly revolutionary in its ability to keep us connected, and allow us to reconnect with friends and acquaintances we meet along the way. But, the Timeline and the launch of the new Open Graph API take these “friendships” to a new level. These updates are going to make the content that you share with others more accessible than ever before, which can be creepy.

We can assume that Facebook implemented these changes to sell the information to marketers, thus increasing ad sales. However, with each new wave of changes, members threaten to leave and find a new platform.

Without a doubt, Facebook is the largest social network. With an estimated personal net worth of $17.5 billion, it is not surprising that Mark Zuckerberg has been blinded by the light of his own success, possibly at the expense of his original creation.

This presents the ultimate love/hate relationship for Facebook users. Recent studies show that globally, we spend 2.6 million minutes spent on Facebook each day. The site we are “addicted” to is no longer meeting the demand of its users. This begs the question: would you ever actually delete your profile?