[jballanc]

When AOL first entered the market, you could only send E-Mail to other AOL users. Eventually, faced with the potential of users leaving their platform for more interoperable (if less full-featured) alternatives, AOL relented and made their email system a proper, standards-based utility.

Now, granted that scenario is not a great example as email existed as a standard long before AOL came into existence, but I do think that as the number of users on Facebook/Twitter reach their inevitable peak, those companies, too, will be faced with the need to open the gates on their walled garden.

It's interesting that, thus far, both companies have delayed such a situation from arising by buying-out the other platforms people have been moving too (Instagram, Vine, etc.) and incorporating them ever-more-tightly with the parent platform. At some point, though, I think (hope?) this strategy will prove untenable and open interoperability will once again rule the web.

Call it crazy speculation, but I could foresee a resurgence of RSS/Atom eventually doing to Facebook/Twitter what SMTP/POP/IMAP did to AOL. If you think about it, the only thing that RSS/Atom was ever missing from becoming what Facebook/Twitter are today is a central aggregation point in the cloud. A smart startup that pulls a user's Facebook/Twitter feeds and mixes in any other RSS/Atom, as well as allowing users to post back to Facebook/Twitter/Atom could potentially spell the death of proprietary timelines.

[d4nt]

> A smart startup that pulls a user's Facebook/Twitter feeds and mixes in any other RSS/Atom, as well as allowing users to post back to Facebook/Twitter/Atom could potentially spell the death of proprietary timelines.

A few years ago I would have said you were crazy. But after the race to replace Google Reader, the failure of Google+, the general sense of malaise that many people have with Facebook[1], and the political echo chamber and general bot fest that is Twitter[2], I think there's room for another player here.

[1] despite, importantly, continuing to use it all the time

[2] my default working assumption when someone follows me is now that it's a bot

[arihant]

History repeats itself, but not during consecutive events and not always.

I think natural way social networking would go forward is that there will be a lack of interest in general purpose social networking. These will be eventually replaced by cliques kind of things that are context specific. Basically, social structure would be integrated in most products, inherently. Now that might (or might not) require a centralized social graph.

But saying that RSS/Atom would replace proprietary general purpose networking gives an impression that there would still be interest in a Newsfeed going forward. It also assumes that we are at pinnacle of social networking evolution and all that needs to happen is even distribution of power. I think both statements are false. This is exactly the kind of thinking that drives FOSS products 10 years behind time.

The Web is not a distributed AOL. A distributed AOL would have failed. AOL evolved into Web. There are plenty of examples of distributed protocols being evolved into proprietary one. In fact, look at the usage numbers surging on messaging apps. Compare that to rate of e-mail and SMS.

[ebbv]

AOL is definitely the best comparison. AOL had a 10 year run of dominance much like Facebook has had.

But we're already in a world where kids today see Facebook as something for their parents. And I know more and more people who (like myself) deleted their Facebook account years ago and don't miss it.

Facebook is headed toward irrelevance. It will probably always hang on like AOL and Yahoo still do. But it won't be the center of the online universe like it has been for so long. We're already on the down side of that hill.

[arethuza]

I think Facebook is heading for the same kind of "irrelevance" as Microsoft or IBM.

Which is to say that they are irrelevant to a lot of people, particularly "early adopters", but they'll be around and profitable for a long time.

[ebbv]

Microsoft completely dominating the PC software industry for nearly 30 years, reaping insane profits for that entire time. In some ways they still do dominate it, certainly in terms of productivity software and business email.

Similarly, IBM was computers for 30 years.

Comparing them to simply the most popular social website for the past 10 years is not really fair. The fact that Facebooks value approaches those other two companies only shows how insane the current bubble is.

[fluxquanta]

You can't neglect the fact that while facebook's outward appearance is "social media site", which may indeed be on the decline, they do a lot of work behind the scenes just to manage such an incredible amount of data.

I could easily see facebook surviving long into the future in a similar way to IBM -- with a focus that is shifted from what made them big player, but still doing valuable work (and making money) in the tech "sphere".

[pki]

is ibm big iron still not computers right now?>

[ebbv]

I think you didn't understand my sentnce. The phrase "IBM was computers" means that they totally dominated the entire field of computers. It means that you didn't buy a computer that wasn't IBM. While in reality they had competitors, the hyperbole is still appropriate.

[brentm]

> Facebook is headed toward irrelevance.

If you only consider relevant company to be one that is creating a new and disrupt technology as their core product then sure they will have to fight daily not to become irrelevant. However, if you consider relevance to mean something that impacts the daily lives of many people, within the last 30 days they had their first 1B active user day. It's just very hard to displace that many people and so many of them have their lives (and memories) on Facebook in terms of the photos and connections. I am not extremely active on Facebook but having an account just seems like that otherwise missing world directory mixed with a personal life timeline which only increases in value as the years pass.

[brentm]

And one other thing -- Maybe less younger people will sign up as time goes on (I don't disagree with the kids not wanting to be where their parents are theory of why FB will fall apart) but FB has shown the right instincts in acquiring (or attempting to acquire) the next social product of the moment or where the "kids are" so to speak. Everyone thought Instagram @ $1B was near insanity at the time and now it looks like the deal of the century in terms of what their estimated private valuation would be today ($37B+ in March [0]).

[0] http://www.businessinsider.com/instagram-valuation-2015-3

[ebbv]

> within the last 30 days they had their first 1B active user day

I don't put too much stock in these types of numbers that companies release themselves. Facebook has long had issues with fake accounts created by bots, and has shown little interest in curbing that practice (since it inflates their numbers.)

Even if I accept the number at face value, I think that reflects mainly Facebook getting some penetration into other countries outside of the US. In the US it has already begun to decline, and while the Facebook "wave" may be at different points in other regions of the world, it is unlikely it will hold on for 10 years in those other countries given the increased relevance of other forms of social networking.

[rjaco31]

> If you think about it, the only thing that RSS/Atom was ever missing from becoming what Facebook/Twitter are today is a central aggregation point in the cloud. A smart startup [...] could potentially spell the death of proprietary timelines.

I've got the feeling you underestimate how important this central aggregation point actually is. Imho I'd even say it's the paramount reason Facebook/Twitter are still the top dogs, people are just attracted to the (unique) aggregator which already has the most people.

[dublinben]

When you can follow and interact with your friends/fans through a neutral aggregator regardless of what network they're on, what does it matter where most people are?

[rjaco31]

I'm not saying your point is wrong, I'm just saying that the current situation is in total opposition with this statement.

[tmaly]

some form of distributed set of nodes based on a blockchain would be cool to see.

[eloisant]

Unfortunately, if we take instant messaging as an other example, the expected opening never happened in the 20 years that followed ICQ launch.

We've have multiple proprietary competitors, an open standard (XMPP), Google even embraced IM federation at some point but removed it later.

[jasonhansel]

A similar idea I've had -- perhaps an impractical one -- is to create a social network based on email. Status updates, friend requests, etc. would all be sent via ordinary emails with machine-readable code inside, thus creating a decentralized social network with little new infrastructure.