I remember that I compared Facebook's size some years ago in presentations to the size of the United States. They both had roughly the same amount of inhabitants; 400 Million. Today, Facebook has 1.6 Billion inhabitants. That is roughly 4 times the United States, it is all of China and a bit more, or, looking at my country of origin, 95 times the Netherlands.
Remember Web 2.0?
When the internet matured at the end of the first decade of the 2000’s, we moved from what we now refer to as the 1.0 era to Web 2.0. Browsers matured, computer speeds increased exponential, as did the bandwidth of our connections. It was the era of MSN Messenger, MySpace and some local hero networks like Xing in Germany, Hyves in the Netherlands and Orkut in Brazil. What made the web worth a ‘2.0’ extension, is the fact that it changed from a one-way-publication channel into an interactive one. It massively increased the user-generated-content part on what had been a predominantly institutional publishing space.
Blogging grew to new heights (still one of the biggest social media categories on the net). Commenting on blogs, reposting. The first review sites launched. And on the social networks individuals started to share updates, photo’s and sharing their daily life activities. Not to forget: in 2007 Apple launched the iPhone, which would be the start of an incredible growth in number of internet connections and ways to communicate.
The Big 3
Over the course of the years the social networking space has delivered what I would call ‘the Big 3’: Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Especially Facebook brought all local and regional networks to their knees. Advertising, but maybe more the network-effect itself (the more contacts you have on one and the same network, the more value that network offers to you) made it the biggest social network on the planet. LinkedIn, smaller in size, but dominant in the B2B space, developed into the place-to-be for business contacts, business events, groups and business related user generated questions and answers. Twitter finally, the smallest one, gained a very visible position as an ‘in-the-moment’ news and opinion delivering channel. Often used to reflect the opinion of the people in news shows and sports.
End of an Era
It is the year 2016, June to be precise. The news breaks that Microsoft is buying LinkedIn. This network had already moved away from a lot of social network features. The ‘Events’ and ‘Answers’ sections where closed, the embedded Twitter integration removed, and the APIs where very limited, preventing data flowing through 3rd party networks and systems. You could say that LinkedIn had already turned into a semi-social more closed database of contacts and user generated news. Although it is not clear yet how Microsoft wants to utilize LinkedIn after the acquisition, chances are that it will further loose it’s social aspects. Microsofts core business experience and business model are based on software licenses and not on retaining people on a social network.
Not too long after Verizon acquired Yahoo (another end to an era) news came out that Twitter is looking for a partner that can acquire the network. The hey-days of Twitter have been over for some time already as the network never could maintain the speed of growth of it’s first years. A hardly further growing user base, combined with the inability to develop a profitable business model always meant that a turning point would arrive in the not too distant future. All potential buyers, Google, SalesForce and Disney, have decided not to move forward. Probably because their profitability is not good enough, which caused them now to cut costs by divesting their video-site Vine and cutting 9% of their workforce.
We don’t know what the future of Twitter is yet, after a takeover, but chances are small that it will play a significant role anymore as social network.
Facebook Monopoly
So who are the survivors? Of course Facebook itself. Not only has this network been able to build a profitable business model. It also maintains its user-growth ratio, while still offering the value to its network-members to keep them on the network and maintaining their relationships with friends, families, colleagues and old school mates.
Facebook's achievements are remarkable in many ways. Facebook has over 1.6 billion members today. Up 600 Million since it went public on the stock exchange. Both revenue and profit show a healthy and steady growth, fueled by further improved advertising capabilities and an increased reach among target groups that is hard to match nowadays by any other medium. Including television and radio. After a rough start, Mark Zuckerberg choose the right directions for investments, and lead a successful transition for Facebook from desktop-first to mobile-first experience.
Facebook also acquired WhatsApp and successfully developed Facebook Messenger. With that it ensured a major market share in what seems to be the new way of 1:1 and 1:many communications. Facebook Messenger is even developing now into a platform that makes more and more starting companies decide to build their mobile app functionality within the messenger platform. With that, avoiding to have to develop a complete mobile app themselves and that for different mobile platforms.
Finally, Facebook bought the only network that shows a very good growth rate: Instagram. Combined: Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger totally dominate the social space. The followers like Snapchat, Twitter or LinkedIn are so far away, that it is save to say that the social networking space has evolved the last decade in a complete Facebook monopoly.
What does this mean for users and businesses?
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see that Facebook is here-to-stay as the leading party for at least the next few years, maybe even the next decade. New networks and messengers will arrive and challenge the status quo, and that is good. But across the board, both users and businesses only need to remember one word when they are thinking of joining a social network or reaching target groups with advertising and content: Facebook (including Instagram, Facebook messenger and WhatsApp). Forget the rest.
PS: keep an eye on Facebook’s search capability. It is probably the only one at this moment that could be a threat to Google. The biggest difference: Google only knows what we want to find. Facebook knows what we like, how we feel, who we know and where we live.
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