Did Facebook suck the life out of the Internet?


by Erik Jun 29, 2007 fileunderFound in Home


Let's go back in our time machine to the beginning of 2006 and examine the Internet landscape. The buzz-words among the Internet elite were "wisdom of crowds", "user generated content", "crowdsourcing", "democratization of the Internet", "tagging", and so on. Sites that focused on content created, filtered, aggregated, and voted on by its passionate community of users were all the rage: Wikipedia, digg, del.icio.us, flickr, YouTube. What is so great about these sites, is that their volunteer contributors (ie. the geeks) are doing some useful work for the benefit of everyone else (ie. the lazy people).

So what happened?

Jump to today. (Are you back yet? Ok, good) I'm not saying that these popular UGC sites have disappeared, but something has definitely changed. Examine the following Alexa graph:

Digg is suffering, Facebook is flourishing, and I think they're related.

At some point in the last few months more or less, everyone who uses the Internet (ie. everyone in North America 30 and under) got a friend request on Facebook. This innocent auto-generated email originating from your grade 7 classmate spurred a phenomena. A phenomena not that different as to when the Bubonic plague did its viral thing back in 14th century Europe. Through the magic of viral marketing, the ethos of the web community quickly changed.

Facebook is easy and seductive. Why should I edit a Wikipedia page, when I can spy on my grade 9 classmates? Forget tagging an interesting article on del.icio.us, I'm going to tag a photo of my University roommate getting hammered.

Is the web going to hell-in-a-handbasket because of Facebook?

No, MySpace is having some say in the matter as well.

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8 comments

1.  avatar Omar  Jun 29, 2007 8:23am

Give me a break. The type of person that tags an article, or contributes to a wikipedia article is not the same kind of person that would RATHER tag some stupid picture. Instead it's the LAZY people that are migrating to these other venues because they're more PERSONAL. What would somebody care more about, seeing a friend they haven't seen in 10 years, or a picture of some stupid car? Some people might go for the car, but on average there is WAY more people that would rather see a picture of their friend because that's what they care about. I guess I could put it this way. On Digg, there's a 5-10% chance I'll see something that I care about on any given moment, on Facebook it's a 50% chance. For lots of people it's 0% chance on Digg, and 100% chance on Facebook.
2.  avatar Erik  Jun 29, 2007 8:36am

There is a reason you haven't seen them in 10 years. YOU DON'T REALLY LIKE THEM. Technology doesn't change that.

As the 100% likelihood argument, you're missing the point. I know that people like Facebook more; what I'm saying is that Facebook is like a drug. Addictive and pointless.
3.  avatar thesimpleleaf  Jul 26, 2007 9:22pm

have you guys given any thought to a Facebook app for PW? You could share your wishlists, favorites, etc with your friends, and invite them.... It could even be...oh, I don't know - addictive and pointless ;). Seriously though - it's worth thinking about...isn't it?
4.  avatar Erik  Jul 26, 2007 9:31pm

'tis. I can't help but think about it. Someone (not mentioning any names) is doing something very similar already.
5.  avatar Amanie  Jul 27, 2007 10:08am

thesimpleleaf, thanks for the suggestion. Erik's kind of the anti-facebook king so it's hard to get an opinion out of him...
6.  avatar Erik  Jul 27, 2007 10:13am

As anti-facebook as I am, I'm for a PW facebook app. Don't get me wrong, I think Facebook has been wonderfully executed and has potential to be used for good. I just don't see that it is.
7.  avatar ruthers  Jul 27, 2007 12:54pm

I really think you guys should create a PW facebook app, it would increase the people in the community! It's also a form of advertising.
8.  avatar GT-D  Jul 27, 2007 3:10pm

I've so far found that most apps on facebook are terrible. Some notable exceptions are specific tie ins with other sites, like last.fm, a few things I fing hilarious, like the Chuck Norris fact randomizer thing, its small and amusing, otherwise so much has been crap. A PW one would be cool though... I'd put it on my page probably, even if I hardly ever use it.

Edit: though one MAJOR point that I just thought of... that's an Alexa graph, it doesn't tell you much about internet popularity, it tells you about what sites are popular with Alexa users. CmdrTaco on Slashdot posted this article about Alexa, which I agree with in many ways. People who use digg are far less likely to install a spammy toolbar that monitors their web traffic then facebook users.
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