What is the true value of (and future of) Facebook?
Facebook shares have recently climbed to all new highs with the purchase of WhatsApp and other smaller companies in an effort to expand its footprint with users. However, being almost 10 years old with over 1.1 billion users, the question that remains is “for how long will facebook last?” Many social media sites have been around before the whole facebook craze, and most if not all, have suffered the same demise; failure.
If you look at other social media sites such as Myspace, it can be inferred that Facebook will most likely follow down the same path unless something completely new and innovative arises. Recent surveys suggest that young teen users in the US have started gravitating away from Facebook. “Facebook has a huge audience and provides a real service as a way of keeping track of a loose network of friends, but it will struggle to expand its brief beyond what it’s currently doing.” It is not the only “game” in town and must continually compete with other sites such as Twitter and LinkedIn.
The user age group has begun to shift from teenagers to a more mature audience because of its ability to maintain in contact with long distance “friends”. This more mature genre is somewhat forcing the younger generation away. The “cool factor” is starting to wear off.
In order to keep users interested, Facebook has begun investing large amounts of money to acquire other companies.