It’s hard to dethrone the king. It’s not because the king is
necessarily best, or even the most beloved. Sometimes the king was just
the first on the scene, or maybe circumstances just fell that way.
Facebook is the current king of social networking and despite some
faltering steps doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon. It has
many lessons to learn from its predecessor, MySpace. But so do its
competitors.
A Noble Background
Facebook won’t last forever. MySpace certainly didn’t. But Facebook
was designed to be a king of social networking. As was MySpace. And so
will whatever comes next. All social networks are designed to be kings,
provided they ever get the opportunity to rise to the top.
Other social networks took the more clever approach by filling a
different niche, like Twitter, Tumblr, and Pinterest. But what about
those that are trying to battle Facebook on its own turf? There’s
Google+, Ning, Path, and countless others that the mainstream public
haven’t even heard of.
What set Facebook apart from the others? Really, just circumstance
and precedence. You see every social network, by virtue of its design,
is meant to secure its own dominance. Just whichever has the most
dominance, wins.
Built to Win
The heart of the matter is this: all social networks are designed to
be mutually exclusive; or in other words to be used at the expense of
others. By using one social network, you shun the others; unless they
occupy different spheres of influence, of course. Using Facebook and
Twitter? No problem. But Facebook and Google+? Now there’s some
awkwardness.
The question is why?
There is no question that some people don’t like Facebook, and would
even go so far as to stop using it altogether. But they like the
networking afforded to them by a social network. So for them, the quest
becomes to find another social network that has the features and
policies they like. Nowadays there are some alternatives, chief among
them being Google+.
But there’s just one little problem, or rather potentially hundreds of them. Friends.
Why do you chiefly use a social network? To stay in touch and
communicate with friends and contacts. So not having all those friends
and contacts would essentially defeat the purpose of a social network,
wouldn’t it? And therein lies the problem.
Even if you decide to hop ship and use another social network, the
exercise becomes moot once you discover that none of your friends have
too. Though you’ve left behind the frustrations of the mainstream social
network for the liberties of another one, trying to convince your
fellows to follow suit is usually no easy task. Why? Typically it’s
because they don’t want to leave their own friends behind.
The price of leaving behind the king, or of being an early-adopter of
a new social network, is loneliness and frustration. And inexorably,
the king draws you back in to his kingdom, and remains the largest in
the land.
To Dethrone A King
But we do have one glaring instance where a king was dethroned.
MySpace was the first massively popular social network. It had secured
its audience first, and therefore should have been able to keep it.
Again, why leave to another social network since everyone you knew was
already on MySpace?
And yet, people left. And Facebook took over. So again, the question is why?
The former king fell victim to poor business decisions, technical
inflexibility, and bad press. A perfect storm of bad luck combined with
the worst crippling blow of all, a worthy competitor watching from the
sidelines. The users on MySpace were becoming increasingly frustrated
with the website, and the allure of a cleaner, more feature-packed, more
focused alternative was definitely appealing.
People started to migrate over to Facebook. But what sealed MySpace’s
fate was the fact that people’s friends migrated as well. Individuals
weren’t just leaving, entire social circles were. Soon enough, staying
on MySpace became its own liability as the majority of a person’s
friends were now found on Facebook, leaving the MySpace loyalists the
deprived and isolated ones.
Repeating History?
So can history ever repeat itself? Certainly. All it would take is
another perfect storm to dethrone Facebook: technical inflexibility due
to business demands, increasingly cluttered and unfriendly user
interface, bad press to scare away new potential users, and a worthy
competitor as an appealing alternative. This concoction isn’t as rare as
it would seem.
With Facebook now publicly owned its direction is dictated by its
shareholders, not by what is technically sound or appealing. Its
interface is constantly undergoing redesigns, and while many complain
but eventually adjust to it, more intrusive ads and privacy worries
easily mirror what happened on MySpace. Bad press can come from any
direction, from any source; all it takes is a big enough scandal.
And as for worthy competitors? There are several. Right now they seem
insignificant because there’s little reason for the masses to migrate
from Facebook. But if Facebook’s ship begins to sufficiently list to one
side, like MySpace once did, then the users will flee.
Once the mainstream user base wants to abandon Facebook, they’ll
follow the trails blazed by the early-adopters who first explored other
competing social networks. Once people find something they like, the
word will spread and everyone will converge on that one social channel,
thus making it the new king.
Long Live The King
Now that social networking exists as an mainstay of the Web, it isn’t
going away anytime soon. Possibly never. The cat’s out of the bag;
Pandora’s Box has been opened. Now that people have experienced social
networking, they must always have it.
Consequently, this means there will always be demand for it. And by
its own nature, whomever happens to be most dominant in filling that
demand will be king, to the detriment of all others. But should that
king falter, everyone will just flock to another, and then make that one
the new dominant kingdom.
There can only be one king. But there must always be a king.
Do you think Facebook will ever lose the crown, and if so, how? Who
do you think is likely to replace them, an existing competitor, or
something we have yet to see? Let us know in the comments.
Article by Vince Ginsburg in SPN
The Social Network King