Is Social Networking Just a Fad?

Facebook just lost six million American users, marking the end of an era for the world's largest online community. Well, not really. But it does beg the question: what does the future hold for social networking? And how can six million people just vanish from Facebook? Statistical Anomalies While it might seem like Facebook just lost a large number of visitors, it's important to remember that the site is bombarded with spam pages that are designed to dupe people into becoming “friends” with a porn site promoter. You know you've seen them: an unusually attractive stranger sends a message, says she wants to be friends, and then you click on her page and find one or two obscure images with a XXX dot-com watermark on the front. Over the past 15 months, I've received at least two dozens of these faux friend requests. At that rate, we can only imagine how many millions of fake pages exist. If these pages are ever deleted – either by the user or by Facebook's technical team – one can imagine that there would be an enormous drop in the site's number of users. Of course, they weren't really “users” to begin with, so Facebook didn't lose anything. Additionally, many Facebook users create more than one page to separate their friends from their professional connections (and most likely to prevent any embarrassing moments from going public). Some users also create individual pages for their pets, children, or alter-egos. Thus, it is wholly possible that the number of real Facebook users is several million less than the current estimate. Unfortunately for Facebook, that revelation sounds far worse than a monthly loss of six million users, so don't expect the company to talk about this anytime soon.

If They Left, Where Did They Go? The obvious answer is Twitter. With more than 200 million estimated users, Twitter is a force to be reckoned with. It leads the social networking pack in terms of media attention, thanks entirely to celebrities who tweet every little thing they do. If we are to look at this realistically, however, it is very unlikely that Twitter had that big of a negative impact on Facebook. While I know several people who prefer one over the other, I do not know anyone who left Facebook for Twitter or vice versa. The sad truth is that, if Facebook truly lost six million users, it is probably because people were (A) tired of the frequent changes, (B) concerned about their privacy, or (C) they got bored with the service. That last option is the worst possible outcome for Facebook. While the social networking giant can feasibly recover from privacy concerns by making the service more secure, and eliminate our frustration by maintaining the service as is, Facebook will not survive if its members are bored.

Social Networking is Safe; Social Games, However… Don't fret, Facebook friends: the site isn't going anywhere. MySpace has been dead for several years, but it has yet to disappear from the World Wide Web. If Facebook began to fail – if a hundred million people suddenly walked away from the service – it could still survive for another 10 years, providing its remaining users with plenty of years to “Like” their friends' silly comments. If, however, there is any area of social networking that's in peril, it's social gaming. Contrary to the overblown hype for Zynga's initial public offering, the future of social gaming has not been set in stone. For the time being, social games should be viewed with a cautious eye. While it would be unfair to refer to this industry as a fad, it's important to remember that most video game trends turn out to be just that. This is especially true of the mainstream trends. Want proof? Look no further than arcades. At the industry's peak in the ‘80s, arcade operators lined their outlets with Pac-Man machines. Almost overnight, the industry collapsed. Arcades resurfaced in the ‘90s thanks to Mortal Kombat but quickly declined when Sega released the Saturn and Sony SNE released the original PlayStation. Nowadays, you'd be lucky just to find an arcade that's still open. But if you do, you're not likely to find any new games to play since developers stopped investing in arcades a long time ago. Similarly, video game aficionados may remember how the role-playing genre exploded in the late ‘90s following the release of Final Fantasy VII, the only game of its kind to sell 10 million copies worldwide. After FFVII hit it big, the market was flooded with role-playing games. Consumers initially bought into them but eventually lost interest. By 2001, the genre receded and slowly lost its status as a mainstream success story. One of the biggest (and certainly most recent) gaming fads was brought on by Guitar Hero and Rock Band, two music games that persuaded everyday consumers to pick up a plastic guitar and rock out. After a few years at the top of the charts, the music industry tanked so badly that Viacom VIA decided to sell Harmonix, the studio behind the Rock Band series. Three months later, Activision ATVI announced that it had pulled the plug on the Guitar Hero franchise – at least for the time being. Considering how many fads the game industry has seen, do you still think the future of social gaming is secure? Follow me @LouisBedigian