Facebook on the Way of ‘My Space’

The problems with FaceBook are problems of human nature. What do humans want? To have the most and the most-of-it. Wether is a single person, single nation, company or single kid playing in pre kindergarden. When Facebook started 60 friends was not enough. I remember when I finally hit 50 I said, “Gosh so Many” Until I started seeing people with over 5000. I wanted to cultivate my 60 or so, like send them birthday cards and interact with messages. There the wish I always had to write and had people read what I write could be possible without going to the trouble and the time (which I did not have) of writing a book.

When I saw 5000 I knew there was trouble somehow. A part of me said “ more so you can have more.” That should be good! Common sense said no way Jose! Life is taught me that things don’t work that way that easily.

Now one day I find out that only small percentages of my friends were receiving what I wrote and then they had to be a in regular conversation cycle with the small percentage allotment., Then there was this get friend wars. Some started by companies and people trying to make money of a big pool of people. People being hire to have friends, people want to have the highest number of friends, competitions of who could get more friends.
The key work here is “ friends.” Facebook was supposed to be your own black book but with pictures of 'friends' and readily available not to the phone like it was before but instantly on your computer.

That dream is no longer what drives Facebook. Now is to make money. Yes people still connect but even though the word friend is used,  the meaning there is far from it. Unless you met the person or the person is related to you, there is no such a thing as a Facebook. Just names. The name of a big public corporation, name of people who’s name is not that. Pictures of 70 yr old men with their 12th grade picture as profile.  Nothing is the way it looks. Yes you can still make a friend, but is easier to make an enemy because with people comes the bias. The ones that don’t like blacks or gays or people from Quebec, Mexico or The Bronx NY. You can also have a date and get to have sex, but you have to be more careful than someone you meet at a bar or club. At least there you see their faces, their clothes and why type of drink they like. Femme, butch man or women. You can see if they are oozing from somewhere before you commit to travel and meet one to one. I could tell you stories, but anyone on Facebook could so I don’t need to. But got to tell you the one with no teeth exjunkie or may be still a junkie with a killer pic and no teeth enough (lol)

Well that is the problem with FaceBook. The challenge of the administrators was to overcome that. I mean they went into this as an accident without a well thought out plan. That’s ok.. It took off. But then you have to address the problems. Whatever  team they got addressing the problem happens to be from day 365 on is a problem them selves. “Restrictions” with restrictions, rules there most be enforcement with rules. With a strict rule on everything and an enforcement which is not left to the same nanos that check websites for cookies, etc. Another (Lol and jeje and a stupid too)With enforcement there most be punishment. With punishment there is no fun, without fun people wont do anything voluntarily and that’s where FaceBook is.

It will stay afloat but only as a corporation for corporations. Something that makes money by having other things make money. Like The Commercials. Look at GM, they got pissed because they did not make what their p&l told them it was going to make so it picked up it’s marbles and went home? Made a quick U turn, change the numbers on their expectations put another plan in place and came back. Ford and VW of Germany never left. Wait..on that is time for another LOL. and a happy smile  :)

Talking about the technical aspects Robert Miles writes on Digital Journal the following:

"The latest stats show the numbers of Facebook users having declined sharply in the United States and Canada. According to research assembled by Socialmediatoday, over a six month period, those logging on to Facebook declined 7.37% over six months in the United States and 5.3% in Canada.

Teenagers are reported to be gravitating towards other social media apps like Kik Messenger, WhatsApp and SnapChat while the most commonly cited reason for their switching off from Facebook was teenagers' embarrassment by the presence of their parents ‘dropping by’ or monitoring what their kids are up to socialmediawise.

Facebook’s move up the age demographic is borne out by data gauging that the average age of Facebook members increased from 38 to 41 years over the two years between 2010 and 2012. Whereas in 2010, 61% of Facebook users were over 35, in 2012, that figure had edged up to 65%.

Parents seem to be increasingly opening Facebook accounts to check what their children are up to. The survey reports that one in two parents’ reason for joining Facebook was to keep tabs on their kids! Not only that, a sky-high 74% of parents said they checked their child’s Facebook several times a week.

As a check on children behaving badly, monitoring via Facebook may be counter-productive, however. In the days before social media networks, parents might have made do with an occasional enquiries such as ‘What time will you be back?’ or ‘Who did you see last night?’ in the latter case making a judgement call on the shiftiness or otherwise of the interrogee. These days a parent’s stealth tactics on their kid’s Facebook page might result in children squirreling away their secrets buried far from parental prying eyes in the likes of Tumblr or other less prominent social media.

For parents, the survey indicates that if they want to keep checking up on their children in cyberspace, they are going to have to become more socially adept on social media networks other than Facebook. Nearly one third of teenagers say they are embarrassed by their parents’ Facebook comments and 30% say they would adopt the Facebook equivalent of sending to Coventry and ‘unfriend’ their parents.

Although Facebook overall has a user-base of an estimated 1 billion plus members, since Facebook's Initial Private Offering (IPO) on the stock market in 2012, the decline amongst the teenage movers and shakers of the social media world may be a problem in the longer term. Once customers gravitate away to other social media, it can be nigh impossible to win them back to any significant degree as Myspace has demonstrated.”

My opinion of FaceBook is sharper than Miles but I think that it all depend on how the most obvious problems are fixed (no chance of that) and who can replace it without being like it, which is been G+ problem. Trying to be FaceBook with another name. Advanced technology and nice pics wont do it because technology will keep advancing. It’s the people stupid.

Adam Gonzalez, Publisher