Honest question here. Do you think we're going to see any new product that will possible replace Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn in the near future?<p>Which companies should we follow closely?
When AOL first entered the market, you could only send E-Mail to other AOL users. Eventually, faced with the potential of users leaving their platform for more interoperable (if less full-featured) alternatives, AOL relented and made their email system a proper, standards-based utility.<p>Now, granted that scenario is not a great example as email existed as a standard long before AOL came into existence, but I do think that as the number of users on Facebook/Twitter reach their inevitable peak, those companies, too, will be faced with the need to open the gates on their walled garden.<p>It's interesting that, thus far, both companies have delayed such a situation from arising by buying-out the other platforms people have been moving too (Instagram, Vine, etc.) and incorporating them ever-more-tightly with the parent platform. At some point, though, I think (hope?) this strategy will prove untenable and open interoperability will once again rule the web.<p>Call it crazy speculation, but I could foresee a resurgence of RSS/Atom eventually doing to Facebook/Twitter what SMTP/POP/IMAP did to AOL. If you think about it, the only thing that RSS/Atom was ever missing from becoming what Facebook/Twitter are today is a central aggregation point in the cloud. A smart startup that pulls a user's Facebook/Twitter feeds and mixes in any other RSS/Atom, as well as allowing users to post back to Facebook/Twitter/Atom could potentially spell the death of proprietary timelines.
I think you already see that younger generations don't prefer (or simply don't at all) using those social apps. Instead they use several social apps for specific things: snapchat for pics/text, whatsapp for text, vine for video, tinder/grinder for dating, instagram for social and pics, and more that I'm probably just not aware of because I'm 30. I think you're less likely to see a replacement and more likely to see them become places for "old people."
For a company to replace Facebook (or even scale to a point where they're a legitimate competitor) they would have to turn down offers from Facebook/MSFT/Apple/etc to buy them. If Facebook buys then they just stop being a competitor and become part of Facebook. If anyone else buys then they're unlikely to want to go up against Facebook consider Facebook's marketing power. That alone makes it highly unlikely.<p>There is one the notable exception though - a startup that got enough traction to worry Facebook and then sold to <i>Google</i> might actually come out on top. Google actively wants to compete with Facebook. The problem for such a startup would be Google's track record in social, so they'd need to resist Google's desire to assimilate them too much. That would (probably) be quite hard.
"Replace" is a loaded term in the sense that it implies these are categories dominated by one player. I think the reality of these kinds of services is that they overlap each other to various degrees rather than replace. People can use facebook, twitter, linkedin, HN, etc. etc. simultaneously.<p>So if you mean will other services in that general fuzzy category become popular, the answer is 100% yes. It's happening all the time. Whatsapp, snapshot, whatnot. These pop up all the time and many get traction.<p>If you mean will Twitter & Facebook loose popularity, that's harder to answer. But, I think it's reasonably likely. They're basically mediums for online culture and online cult evolves fast. It also depends on your horizon. If the question is "will a large portion of humans check Facebook daily in 100 years?" that seems pretty unlikely.
I think (hope) that eventually these centralised monoliths will be taken over by distributed versions.<p>The Internet Of Things IoT will be a precursor to any device being a node in a massive mesh net. That means that I can run my own private, secure personal social node on my cell phone, or even on my toaster.<p>The front end app will literally just be a front. The backend processing can be done on any number of nano-cloud processing instances run by companies like Amazon or Microsoft.<p>Storage similarly will be outsourced, but all data will be protected at rest using strong encryption.
Yes, that is inevitable. Growth is slowing down for FB and the platform has grown to the size where it can't pivot hard. Any new player in the marketplace simply has to reject FBs success and present a wholly different way of interacting, free of the all-inclusive strategy employed by FB.<p>One thing we are seeing a bit and may see more of is microplatforms. They will focus on specific interactions instead of the generic type FB goes for (thinking bangwithfriends (some would even say Tinder <i>is</i> this type of SN), sector-specific Linkedin, regional social networks).<p>FB will be around for a long long while thou. It was a twist of genius implementing federated logins, in effect becoming your passport to the internet.
I foresee Google being replaced by something else. As a search engine Google has been stagnant for a while.<p>I still cannot black- or whitelist websites that I want or don't want to show up in my results. Really, I want to control what I see!!!<p>When another search engine gives me the flexibility to control my results, I'll jump ship. But currently even with annoying results that I don't want to ever see again, google's results are still better than anything else.[1]<p>[1]- Although yandex is definitely better for search results in Russian.
I don't think there will be a direct competitor, I think we're going to start seeing the decline of the social network.<p>People are realizing that the benefits of social media are curses in disguise. Instead of a stream of interesting dialog between friends, they have a raging river polluted with the rantings of every person they ever met or any company they ever liked. It's hard to have meaningful interactions with people when that girl you met one night at a friend's party, your crazy uncle, and Starbucks are all screaming in your face.<p>Just as people are getting sick of Social Networking, businesses are starting to realize that the promise of the Social Network as a way to connect with customers isn't happening.<p>Case in point, I was shopping online the other day for an office chair and was prompted to take a survey (I'm a sucker for surveys). The survey went something like this...<p>Will you be sharing anything on our site with social media? No.
Have you ever shared anything on our site with social media? No.
Have you ever shared anything on any of our competitor's sites with social media? No.
Have you ever shared anything from an online store on social media? No.
Do you find any value in social media buttons on online stores? No.
When you are shopping online, do you utilize social media? No.
I think the consensus is that Twitterr is already dying, fast. They lack direction and a way to engage with new users. Facebook won't go down as long as Zuckerberg cares. Beating their core product is pretty impossible, and he's made smart acquisitions of products that young people are favoring over the core product. Now they're taking over in video ...<p>LinkedIn is clearly the worst of these three. Please let an ethical competitor kill them ...
I would doubt that we see one in the near future. The one that had the biggest potential, Instagram, was quickly bought out by Facebook. A competitor not only has to overcome the huge userbase, thereby convincing everyone <i>and</i> their mothers to switch, a competitor also has to resist the urge to cash in and risk not making it.
I can't imagine what it would be, but less than 10 years ago a colleague was lamenting that Microsoft was invincible and would never have any competition. Google looks that way now. But no company maintains their lead forever.
There won't be a direct replacement, rather some other network will grow while one of them gets 'legacy' status (and will be eventually shut down)<p>FB (the company) is hedging their bets by acquiring Instagram and Whatsapp and not relying only on Facebook (the platform)