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IPFS News Link • Social Networking/Social Media

Could This be the Beginning of the End for Facebook?

• http://www.thedailybell.com

"Facebook is for old people," I was told by a 17-year-old last week in San Francisco at the Startup Societies Summit.

He doesn't use the social media platform. He's right too. About half a million fewer teens aged 12-17 will use Facebook this year compared to last year.

Facebook depends on older people for its advertising revenue. But it needs to get users while they are young in order to keep them coming back to the social media website when they are older.

Facebook may be busy cooking up ways to attract the younger crowd, but they will inevitably fail at doing so. It is too late. If I am being told by a teenager that Facebook is for old people, the company probably suffers from an insurmountable branding problem among teens.

If parents are on Facebook, kids aren't interested.

It's not time to dig Facebook's grave just yet.

Instagram is the preferred alternative to Facebook among youngsters. And Facebook owns Instagram.

But Facebook and Instagram are totally different platforms. On Instagram, you share pictures. Sure, you can write a caption and use some hashtags. And plenty of people still share memes. But it is not the personal information clearinghouse that Facebook is… or was.

Facebook is struggling with how to get people to share more personal things on their website. That was the main feature for a while, and probably what made Facebook popular. But now people are moving towards sharing more images, memes, and videos… things you can do on Instagram, Youtube, and Snapchat.


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