One more thought on Facebook and its place in the Internet ecosystem that I missed last time.
Sitting on my couch watching television this week, it hit me that the age of Facebook’s cultural relevance, at least as seen from my couch, was short. Remember when television shows and ads put their Facebook page addresses, memorably replacing the ubiquitous website address. At the time, I remember thinking how interesting it was that we were moving from a public internet back to a walled online community. I don’t see Facebook pages on television ads or shows all that often anymore, but I do see twitter hashtags all over the place, for example, on American Idol.
For Facebook on television, that was a Buster Douglas-length reign on top — very short.
I’m not sure whether this is correct or not, but let’s throw out a hypothesis. It’s not just television, but Facebook is no longer on the cutting-edge of cultural relevancy.
What’s “cool” now about Facebook seems to be its potential market valuation and the number of folks who are going to get rich. With due respect to Sean Parker, market valuation without more is only so cool. But think about some of the recent issues — symptoms of their incredible success. Facebook has done such a good job at getting us all on that user growth is about getting the holdouts on now — the moms and dads and gramps. Employers ask for Facebook passwords from potential employees.
This is all incredible and testament to the success that Facebook has been, but is it still cool? If not, are there consequences to being uncool and what are they?
takingpitches 