I find it fascinating that according to the emarketer article linked above, that most shared content (besides via email) is trafficked through Facebook (44% to be exact). It seems that the social media platform is the new digital portal by which most internet users share, converse, and interact. I bet the folks at AOL aren't too happy...given that they had first mover advantage in the medium.
It's interesting to see how a site that started as a facebook for college students to connect with each other has grown into the monster that we know today. Facebook not only has a newsfeed from individuals from your social graph, but also includes a marketplace that rivals craigslist and the capability to cyber stalk with startlingly precise accuracy.
It begs the question, is Facebook losing touch with it's core competency (and as a consequence with its core user)? Or is it moving beyond social media to become the new dominant net portal?
Looking back to the good ol' days of AOL dial up and all the things that made it dynamic, you can see that Facebook is now fine tuning those exact functionalities for a modern era (e.g chat, email, forums, etc.) with the added benefit of a status update newsfeed. As Facebook becomes more of a web destination from which users explore the interwebs, it moves farther from its roots. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, especially from a revenue generating standpoint.
I think that in the next five to ten years, Facebook will either become the portal that AOL never could, or it will share in the fate of its competitors and be replaced by the new kid on the block. It all depends on how well FB caters to its current users, and how far it goes on the path of selling out to corporate profitability.
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