Here's Why Google and Facebook Might Completely Disappear in the Next 5 Years

[steve2470]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2012/04/30/heres-why-google-and-facebook-might-completely-disappear-in-the-next-5-years/

We think of Google and Facebook as Web gorillas. They’ll be around forever. Yet, with the rate that the tech world is moving these days, there are good reasons to think both might be gone completely in 5 – 8 years. Not bankrupt gone, but MySpace gone. And there’s some academic theory to back up that view, along with casual observations from recent history.

When I was a PhD student 15 years ago, I studied with Don Hambrick who is a scholar known for a career showing the effects of management teams and directors (for good and for ill) on their organizations’ strategies and performance. One of the central tenents of this school of thought on organizations is that senior teams and directors have an outsized influence on organizational outcomes. What’s more, their backgrounds (including education and career paths) have a big effect on how they see the world, various competitive situations and the choices they make.

There’s another school of thought which takes the opposite view called population ecology or organizational ecology which put forward that managers don’t really matter all that much. This view grew out of sociologists who’d taken to study organizations in the 1970s. They assert that organizational outcomes have much more to do with industry effects than who the CEO is and the choices he or she makes. They study birth and death rates of populations of organizations, as well as the effects of age, competition and resources in the surrounding environment on an organization’s birth and death rate. Most of these organizational ecology scholars come out of the University of California at Berkeley.

As a graduate student, I didn’t have much time for this ecology line of thinking. I believed in the power of the individual executive to overcome all challenges in the external environment. We can always point to dynamic CEOs as case studies, even though the sociologists would say those are the equivalent of celebrating the smarts of lottery winners.

[mdmc]

1. very interesting

thanks for posting

[steve2470]

2. yvw ! :) nt

[cali]

3. amusing article.

Google and Facebook aren't MySpace. And they are both multibillion dollar corporations. They aren't just going to disappear.

[Johonny]

11. I agree

Google makes the operating system that runs a heck of a lot of cell phones. Are cell phones not going to be around in 5 years? Google has been around since before Myspace and has already out lasted it. By no means am I saying any company is immune to failure. Just that Myspace is so massively different than Myspace comparing the two seems odd.

[Shankapotomus]

24. Does anyone still actively use MySpace?

LOL

[Edweird]

4. For the same reason nobody uses compuserve any more. Things are always changing.

[Tunkamerica]

5. nobody?

http://webcenters.netscape.compuserve.com/menu/

[Edweird]

7. Yeah, nobody.

[madinmaryland]

14. Stop posting pictures of vaginas.

[Tunkamerica]

17. someone's going to read that and think that's really what's at the link.

[Kablooie]

18. Except for Usenet. It's been puttering along for almost 30 years now.

[Edweird]

27. True, but nobody 'owns' Usenet. It won't get put out to pasture if it doesn't lay golden eggs.

[Dawson Leery]

6. Google one of the largest search engines around.

And: http://www.google.com/services/

Facebook? What does facebook do besides sell your personal info to marketers?

[Zalatix]

8. What's going to replace them? Something nastier, I think.

MySpace was an easy mark - it was a prototype for a real social network. Facebook is far more mature and will be much harder to out-evolve.

It can be replaced, but not in the next 5 years. And eventually what will replace Facebook is a much more advanced version of Facebook from another company. It'll be more pervasive and more intrusive, and certainly NOT as nice a global player as Facebook.

It'll probably be replaced by a company that's hooked up with your Internet service provider (ISP); they already know your IP address, and if they'll have relationships with the ISP, the ISP will cough up info on who you are as a customer, and they'll automatically have all your background check information, your web browsing history from the ISP's own logs, all kinds of stuff. This future social network will tap into (read: sell info to) employers who want to see your Facebook data and will make backroom deals with employers to share your social networking activity.

As I said, Facebook's replacement will be a nightmarish beast.

[saras]

16. And everyone who feels compelled to talk about it will LOVE it. Yep.

[Zalatix]

19. I forgot to add one other fun and exciting thing

These future social networks will have info pages up about you before you even sign in.

CVS Pharmacy is an existing example of that; you sign up for them and they verify your account through records that they automatically receive about where you lived before.

[Shankapotomus]

26. Yes, terrifying

People will finally learn how to make their own websites and connect them to their friend's sites with things called hyperlinks.

[Javaman]

29. My first thought as well. nt

[provis99]

9. the author reminds of Alvin Toffler.

'nuff said.

[Romulox]

10. It might disappear into a narcissistic black hole. nt

[bemildred]

12. I don't understand why anybody would think they are permanent.

Even to the extent that one thinks these companies are not just internet fads, which is what I think, most of these high-tech companies pop up and die like mushrooms, or get eaten.

[bluestate10]

13. You forgot money.

Google and Facebook have plenty of money. They can buy up competitors that could one day replace them.

[madinmaryland]

15. Microsoft is still here after 30+ years. nt

[customerserviceguy]

23. Same with Apple

But both of them make actual products, not just fairy-dust "services".

[DiverDave]

20. And I thought they would die

because people really dont care what everyone is doing at this very instant.
Oh, and the naked pics from that party that anyone with a bit of hacker knowledge
can see just might get to be embarrassing.

[trumad]

21. LOL---Facebook?

Try telling that to my kids and their friends.

ain't gonna happen.

[customerserviceguy]

22. Agreed

Both of them have as their sole business model the practice of spying on the users, then selling that information to hucksters. While there are millions of stupid people who buy shiny things from clickthru ads, eventually that model is unsustainable.

But the Winklevii twins will make out OK.

[Shankapotomus]

25. I think FaceBook will eventually die because

people will eventually realize, duh, why do I let some company control my online information when I can just have my own personal website?

[Johonny]

28. depends

The best computer/internet related companies seem to be able to branch out past their initial base. I think a user content site like facebook is really vulnerable (I remember all those yahoo befriending features and where are they now) but facebook as a company may not. Depends if they develop other products. Google seems like a safe company to be around because they are more than just a one product search engine site. If you look at the original DOW you would conclude eventually every company run its course

[bemildred]

30. Their software is crap too, unlike say Google, and they don't actually do anything unique. nt

[LanternWaste]

31. Those jet packs certainly replaced the 150 year-old internal combustion engine overnight.

Those jet packs certainly replaced the 150 year-old internal combustion engine overnight.

[Zalatix]

32. No, the flying car. I just saw one go by, in fact!