Why Facebook is the Next MySpace (aka Why Facebook is Going Down)

Facebook rocks. Everyone talks about its convenience and social applications, while of course, everybody else has it. But it's going down. Wait. Does this remind you of something? Specifically, the last blue-and-white social network empire?
Back when Harry Potter was still the big thing, George Dubya's approval ratings were still high, and the New York Mets weren't a joke, MySpace rocked too. Everyone talked about its convenience and social uses, and more importantly, everybody else had it.
But boy, did it go down. At this point, Facebook trumps MySpace in users by more than two times.
Now, taking a step back here, does anyone remember why so many people began to shy away from MySpace? Personally, I recall things like bugs, slow wait times, unnecessary features, poor interface, and an overall drop in coolness. Facebook downed MySpace with a simple user interface, geared toward a new generation, that solely performed the age-old task of social networking (age-old because talking used to count as social networking).
However, now the site is error-infested, with new features/layouts that confuse us innocent Facebookers more and more, every day. And to boot, the fact that everyone is joining may be Facebook's downfall. When this happened to MySpace, it stopped being the outlet where rebellious youngsters could come and say, "I'm different. I have this social network and not that one." In other words, when mom and dad join Facebook, it stops being chic and it sure stops being fun.
Still, I'm not saying that Facebook will crash tomorrow. 400 million people can't decide that Facebook sucks, all at once. The fall of an entire empire is a long process. However, every trend stops being trendy after awhile (with the exception of the almighty Google).
But for all intents and purposes, Facebook rocks. For now.

Why Twitter is Better than Facebook: How the New Kid is Beating Facebook in Social Networking

The old MySpace and the barely considered Friendster and Hi5 all loom in the background as Facebook takes the spotlight in the social network hierarchy. And for at least another 5 years, the web giant, currently valued at over $6 billion isn't about to take a supporting role (but it seems very ready to take a pay cut).
Still, there is a pesky new kid on the block; but by no means is it a scrawny little midget. Twitter is the real deal and the bright blue birds are making a charge for supremacy (I wish I could say the same about those Toronto Blue Jays). And one day, I believe, Twitter will be the dominating force; here's why:

Simplicity

Every day, people are getting more and more picky about where they waste their time. And the economic crisis doesn't help much either. This is where Facebook's support of videos, photos, notes, apps and everything I haven't yet listed might come back to bite it. Facebook's got a whole bunch of things you constantly have to keep up with while on Twitter, you're not an outlier if you only update your tweets.

Addictiveness

Now, it's really tough to explain this phenomenon but if you do try it, Twitter is much more addictive. One major factor, I think, is its simplicity. But another thing is that on Twitter, you want to post anything creative that you're thinking at any given time while on Facebook, you try to connect over little games and comment on each other's photos. And especially with the mobile age dawning, Twitter's model is a better long-term plan.

Personalization

Last but definitely not least, Twitter is more personalized than its counterpart. Facebook prompts you for a little passive bio and maybe a few "What are you doings?". On the contrary, Twitter's model is based on any thoughts, not just what you're doing; this includes insights, interesting quotes, jokes, anythings. Of course, you can do this all on Facebook too but Twitter is more friendly towards random thoughts.
In addition, on Facebook, you have friends ... well, just to raise your friend count (500 friends guarantees you a spot in the Hall of Fame). However, with Twitter, you only start following somebody, either if you actually know them or if you're truly interested in what they say.

These three important aspects are the things that will give Twitter a slight edge over Facebook.

P.S. I just got Twitter so last I checked, I had 1 follower. You can follow me at: www.twitter.com/jerryzhang222.

Why Facebook Will Never Turn a Profit

Facebook started out roughly five years ago as a social networking site for college kids. Then it expanded to high schools. Now, it's open for everyone, nearly everywhere to join. Today, it has well over 250 million users, using the network in 50 different languages for many different purposes.
Facebook is universally considered a good site, if not one of the best on the Internet. Still, after turning five years old a month ago, Facebook still has never turned a profit. Don't get me wrong, revenues are soaring; Mark Zuckerberg, the genius behind Facebook, projected that earnings would rise 70% this year. On the other hand, the cost of running a social network is not small either. The talent that Facebook must attract, the development it must constantly undergo and the fact that they have to store every photo, video, note and action from every user, even after they delete their account, all contribute to unyielding costs.
They've tried many different advertising models, each to no avail and the number of experiments going on right now is innumerable.
The general problem is that whenever they make an attempt to introduce new advertising, users revolt and create groups that run somewhere along the lines of "I Hate the New Facebook!" or "I Will Not Pay to Use Facebook". And if you don't have users on your side, advertisers sure as heck aren't going to want to give you their money either.
In addition, the developers of this site have made it so lovely and convenient and useful and awesome that barely anyone even focuses on the few ads on the side. And for good reason too; the ads that are normally scattered around the network include mostly the likes of, "I need a man: Install the Zoosk application and meet girls like me!", "Start a Mafia Family" and "Cariacature yourself!". Obviously, these don't cater to the great majority of the population in the world with an IQ over 1.24.
Oh, but what if they reduce costs? Then, there's the same problem, user dissatisfaction. Facebookers are very demanding people; they've been spoiled to an incurable extent. As soon as they even feel like something's worse off than it was before (which basically means any change to the site), the temper tantrums start flooding in. Of course, regular improvements are part of the appetites of the pickiest as well (so basically, you have to improve the site, without changing it...).
All in all, unless they start charging us to use the site, Facebook will collapse just like its rivals.

Food, Food and Food: Foodbuzz

Although not recognized as a real competitor to more prominent sites like Yahoo! Food or the Food Network's homepage, Foodbuzz is sure to start making some buzz. Basically, the unique facet of this site is its reliance on user sharing to stimulate the community. In other words, it's literally a Facebook of ... food. A lovely design coupled with powerful features make for a pretty good resource when you're cooking for the next party or looking for a nice restaurant.
With over a thousand "foodies", you'll find the best reviews, photos, recipes, blog posts, videos and more all categorized and searchable so you can easily find them. But one really cool twist is the buzz counter where views, comments, favoritings and votes are factored in to create a score that allows the best content to appear first, all decided by users.
Plus, you've got all sorts of other little features that'll help you tremendously in finding the perfect piece of content for your food situation. Filter by location (useful for finding restaurants), type of post, buzz count or date.
And with all this rich variety of features, you can look for anything that can be posted (reviews, photos, recipes, blog posts and videos) as well as restaurants, specific users and products, each with specialized search bars that let you input particulars on any of these items (price, cuisine, ingredients etc.).
Of course, this isn't a community for just professionals; it's suited for anyone and anyone can post their knowledge and opinions. You can communicate with your "friends" with an mail feature and set a wide range of preferences if you create a free account.

www.foodbuzz.com

Preventing Social Network Mind Control: 11 Ways to Spend Less Time on Facebook

Facebook. Everybody knows about it. Just about everybody has an account. And at least a third of these people are passionate enough to be called addicted. The world of social networking is a harsh place and Facebook is its biggest (and most corrupting) player. Don't get me wrong, Facebook is great but so is fitness, intelligence and experience. Here's how to spend less time on the most popular social network:

11. Don't go on the computer as much.

This is probably the best way to stop going Facebook. However, these days, most people can't spare precious computer time so this isn't exactly the most practical thing to do. Still, if you can cut down, do it; it saves electricity, time, your eyes and your body.

10. Eliminate useless notes.

Trust me, I've seen tons and tons of these "What's your stupidness percentage?" or "How Asian are you?" notes that seem to be gaining in popularity among teenagers. I'm just here to inform you that these are not "cool" and no matter how intensely bored you are, this is still hugely, immensely, vastly stupid.

9. Don't add friends that you don't actually know.

OK, I know it's fun having a guy who poses as your favorite baseball player as your friend but searching for these losers on Facebook just to feel all warm and fuzzy inside is lame and again stupid. Also, if somebody decides they want to start adding random people as friends and you're one of the victims, ignore, ignore, ignore. But that's not all; even if you know somebody's name, but don't really have connections with them, don't add them. 200 friends on Facebook isn't a symbol of popularity, it's a symbol of nerdiness.

8. Delete stupid applications.

You probably know what I'm talking about. Or to give you a better idea, I'll list a few examples: Sports Bets (no practically real prizes), Friends for Sale (totally and utterly gay), Mob Wars (reaches a new level of geeky homosexuality) and Bowling Buddies (social network, not games, social network, not games: repeat this until you get it). In other words, think of Facebook as a utility not a site for personal amusement.

7. Find alternatives to Facebook tools.

Sure, there are some good apps out there but every single one has its actually social counterpart. Half the time, you can just call your friends to tell them something (events, school stuff etc.) and for the movie, tv and restaurant reviews, small talk will give you a good idea of what's hot and what's not.
On the other hand, if you can't find something you like, you're bound to come across other websites that host similar services or tools. This will prevent you from getting attracted to other parts of Facebook from a particular application.

6. No email notifications.

Period. Put your foot down and say, "I don't want any more Facebook spam." Updates on every single comment and note and request are pointless and you can waste 5 minutes just deleting all of them while reading them would take a good hour.

5. Go offline.

This is really simple and can help a lot with getting over email addictions too. Going offline blocks anybody from intruding into what you're doing with a craving for company and tells people that if they send you a message you're not responding any time soon so they might not send you a message in the first place and then you have an excuse to not respond.

4. You don't have to share everything.

This is one of the underlying principles in Facebook reduction. If it's not a legitimately good photo, don't post it; if it's not a legitimately good video, don't post it; if it's not a useful piece of information, don't post it; if has no advantages for you or for others, don't post it.

3. Avoid joining groups/causes/events/whatever the hell else just because one of your Friends invited you.

Fitting in is great but fitting in on Facebook is nerdy. I'll make that plain as hell. Plus, if somebody pressures you into joining, "Take off your pants day" or the group "I go slightly out of my way to step on that crunchy looking leaf" consider breaking your connections.

2. Make a Facebook schedule.

I've never liked to go this far but if you are clinically addicted to the point where you're always on, maybe you want to give this a try. Maybe your schedule will be, come home, have a snack, check email for 5 minutes, check Facebook for 10 minutes and do work. But beware: Your schedule should not (excuse me, cannot) include checking for notifications every 5 minutes.

1. Do something.

Life is beautiful. Facebook isn't. There's tons of stuff that you can do other than Facebook all day (yes, it is a verb now). Bring out the ambitious side of you and by ambitious I don't mean creating a new group or event; I mean starting a fundraising effort, running a marathon or heck, starting a company (ok, maybe not).

Top 15 Best and Most Useful Facebook Applications

Facebook is arguably the most popular social network in the world right now and the entire website is based on the humble application. Applications are either user-generated or native-Facebook web programs (no downloads) that allow users to do such things as share favorite music, write notes, and compare people. Here are the 20 best user-generated applications:

15. Profile HTML

Get funky with your profile! Add some HTML to really spice it up possibly adding links to your websites, or other promotional banners.

14. Restaurants

This applications has a massive list of restaurants from around the world, complete with a few important details and reviews and ratings. This is your one stop shop for guidance for eating out.

13. tvClickr

Here's another review oriented application, which features a type of forum for comments on almost any show as well as a short summary and even a few videos. The main thing about this app though is the fact that you can participate in games to earn credits that allow you to participate in contests, all tv-related of course.

12. Movies

This application is the ultimate movie guide where you can quickly rate movies you've seen, compile a list of movies you want to see, watch trailers, find movies that are in theatres and even compare your preferences with friends.

11. iLike

Here's the music version of the previous one. This is very well-designed and lets you find concert dates, rate artists, songs and videos and finally show off all your likes and dislikes. Of course, quite a bit of music information is provided too.

10. Causes

With this innovative application, users can donate money to different causes, all categorized into groups such as animals, environment and political campaigns. As well, you can create your own causes to raise money.

9. StyleFeeder

With this application, you can tell the whole world about how you shop; what clothes, furniture, CDs or whatever you like. Then, theres coupons, suggestions of thing you might like and available friends' preferences to see what the trends are these days.

8. weRead

Now you have an excuse to get Facebook. Tell your parents about weRead, which features everything books. And when I say everything I mean everything including top authors, top books, top searched books, new releases and user-made book reviews. Plus, you can add books to your personal library to really keep track of what you're reading.

7. NHL Scores & News/NFL Scores & News/NBA Scores & News/MLB Scores & News etc.

If you're a sports fan, you won't be able to live without this. Many applications are here to serve your needs and provide news, analysis and most importantly scores that are updated daily to feed your constant sports craving.

6. Stocks

With the application made by Forbes, you can track all of your stocks right from your favorite social network. Find news, earnings and even friends' portfolios right from this nifty little thing.

5. Study Groups

Create well... you may have guessed it, study groups. Instead of going to the library to study with friends and classmates, just use everyone's favorite social network, Facebook. Basically, you can create study groups for others to join and join other study groups.

4. My Blogs

This application publishes a post on your wall whenever you write something on your blog. Just give them the URL of either the blog or the RSS feed and they'll handle it from there.

3. Captain Resume

This is really an amazing application and I'll bet that in many lists this would be first. With the state of the economy and the number of job losses, there's been a lot of talk lately about promoting yourself using the internet. This lets you do just that allowing you to upload your resume, edit tags and proudly display it on your Facebook profile.

2. ProductPulse

With excellent interface and very simple controls, ProductPulse is a very well-designed application. But that's not all, you can share reviews to maybe praise a good product or let off steam about a bad one. And of course, you can read reviews and ratings that others have given to things before you go out and buy them.

1. Social Calendar

The main feature of this app is to remember all the "social events" in your life, whether it be birthdays, holidays or other occasions. But you can do a lot more as well; Add wishlists, see movie calendars and give gifts to friends.

Honorable Mention:

Launch-a-Package

This application is both extremely well-designed and very useful and innovative. The main idea is to let users send virtual packages to friends enclosed with a message, a link, photos, gifts and even files. And of course, if the message is private, then you don't have to have the story published in your profile.

The Ultimate Social Network of Entertainment: Share Your Music, Photos, Videos and More on Bebo

On the web, there are literally hundreds of social networks and communities, all begging you to join and start posting. However, not many of these are actually worth your while and most of them, you'll find pretty useless. But there are definitely one or two that you have joined and are finding quite fun to play with. Bebo is one that you absolutely might want to give a try.
The basic concept of Bebo is not to center around the boring stuff but to venture into the world of entertainment. With an array of people joining every day, Bebo is becoming a real competitor in the internet market, hosting really the same things as the Facebooks and the Myspaces but with a different twist. Bebo still has the normal profiles, friends, groups and apps as well as a messaging system and blog platform but it really isn't the same.
As I mentioned before, Bebo looks to project the entertainment side of people with many band profiles as well as the ability to upload music yourself, popular videos that are posted by famous people and organizations which again, you can upload yourself, and various types of books (you can register your self-published ones to get international exposure). Even the skins (graphical customizations of your profile) and groups have a lot to do with entertainment, whether it be the web, music, movies or photos.
Still, this social network does not at all lack in the personal factor. In fact, you can create widgets, polls, quizzes, notes, drawings and comment on others' profiles as well.
So take a few minutes to check out the emerging social network of entertainment, Bebo.

The One Place Where People Will Listen To Your Opinion: ForandAgainst Debate

You go to work; your boss won't listen to you. You go back home; your spouse won't listen to you. You go to the mall; the employees won't listen to you. But there is one place where perhaps, your perspective actually counts and that place as to be ForandAgainst. ForandAgainst is a debate site that isn't just some blog where you'll get only a few select readers or a social network where only your friends will actually consider what you have to say. And it isn't a rough, inferior debate community either; it's the one place you sould turn to really get your view on things out.
With this website, you can vote for user-created debates, then declare your side in words, which you can keep short or add facts and evidence to. But you don't have to just stick with that, you can create your own debates, that will put your thoughts to the test in the web. Others can tell you what they think about that and basically, you'll be able to initiate an interactive discussion, with comments going back and forth, on pretty much any matter, whether it's fashion, sports, politics or anything else you can think of.
But ForandAgainst can act as a sort of social community as well with tons of features such as individual profiles and even shoutboxes. You can customize your profile picture and even subscribe to your personal RSS feed.
And arguing is incredibly fun, especially with the points system that gives you debater ranks.
You can start debating within about 5 minutes as long as you sign up and of course, it's all free.

In case you're interested, here's my ForandAgainst profile:
www.forandagainst.com/who.php?username=ZJerry

A Social Network of Books and Author Community: LibraryThing

Sharing your own library of books has never been easier with the introduction of LibraryThing. This very useful site that is quite similar to Facebook in that it features a homepage, not cluttered, but packed with gadgets/tools. These little things are perfect for people of any age as long as they have interest in books and don't like being loners.
Now, the basis of LibraryThing is for you to write recommendations and reviews and tell others about your own book collection. Thus, as with most other social networks, you can join groups with specific topics and add friends, often helping with your next book choice. Of course, you can send messages to others in the form of comments on their profiles as well. Speaking of profiles just like everything from Myspace to Orkut, you can update your mini-bio with "About Me", "About My Library", "Homepage" and "Location" sections (and more).
In addition, there is a forum for you to share ideas on, both general and group-related; a guide to local events pertaining to the world of words; a popular publication list; and a list of the hottest reviews.
And to cap it all off, get this: LibraryThing is willing to give away free pre-release books as long as you do the petty task of reviewing them with the Early Reviewers program. But you'll have to request quickly because of how much everybody loves this program.
With all this, maybe you'll stop listening to garbage Mariah Carey and start reading.