From articles I’ve read about teens losing interest in Facebook and their major push with ads and corporate input, Facebook is no longer the “hot” social media. The stock is maintaining momentum with a strong push towards mobile which is pretty much the only thing you have to say if you want to sound like you are in tune with what is going on. From what I gather (good phrase), Facebook is maintaining popularity amongst the older crowd, 40+, because it’s new to them whereas it was new to Generation X 10 years ago. This is preferred by Facebook because they are the demographic who has, and spends, money. Problem with this is that this group isn’t all that interesting and quality content is severely diminishing. I want to add a clause that it’s not that older people are not interesting, it’s that they don’t know how to appeal to the masses.
Stay at home moms and the unemployed tend to rule my Facebook news feed to the point that I don’t want to log on. For some unexplained reason I’ve had an influx of activity where I accepted, and requested, about 10 new friends. I have to assume that this activity opened the flood gates to people who are in my network. So without being the dickhead of the past, I decided to accept all requests. Big mistake. Within the first 12 hours of accepting their request I was littered with 2 profile picture changes of head shots. Head shot profile changes are screaming for attention. I can deal with a profile picture change quarterly and even monthly, but not weekly or daily. It clogs up my feed and immediately makes me think the thoughts I’m thinking now. Essentially, I don’t need or want you to be my Facebook friend.
It’s not just the head shots, the lack of interesting content is what is killing Facebook. Sometimes I’ll see some interesting links but am too scared to click them because 9 out of 10 are ads or spyware. The other problem is that people in general are boring. Twitter allows you to follow as many celebrities, comedians, pornstars, and athletes as you want who update with clever and fascinating tidbits. Facebook has me following 400 of my lame “friends” who update me about flat tires and bad hair days. It’s a matter of time before people start fleeing in droves.
So I don’t spend the entire post bashing Facebook, I do think it is a worthy place of displaying events and giving you a last resort way of contacting someone. Invitations of a party is perfect because people can get the details in a public setting. Also, there are cases where you know someone but don’t have their number and you can direct message them which is better than nothing. I know there are some people who use Facebook as their own blog or diary but these people are far and few between who post noteworthy work on Facebook. I find it neat to be on the edge of trends like these even though I’m still probably a year behind.
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