For example.. Youtube #1 Video Sharing Google #1 Search Engine Facebook #1 General Social Networking I think it was much easier in the past to get more popular because the internet was growing a lot but now it is so much harder. I see a lot of programmes on TV that advertise their Facebook pages, classrooms use Youtube to show educational videos and everyone uses Google for everything now. I don't think that will ever change, if it does, it'll be rare.
4 years ago you could have replaced "Facebook" in that statement with "Myspace"... how's being number #1 and "untouchable" by the small guys like Facebook working out for them?
Yes, but Facebook is so much more than Myspace though. 1000's of business now use Facebook pages, it is far bigger than Myspace ever was. I mean, not even Google+ made that huge a dent in Facebooks popularity. I guess supply+demand is a big factor but I don't see any changes unless someone can exploit a niche in one of these sectors. I mean, how else can they innovate enough to force millions of users to change? I believe that Google will stay one of the top most influential forces on the web until the day I die, unless they all go bust or some apocolyptic scenario happens
Right... but that's exactly what I'm saying... 4 or 5 years ago, Myspace was untouchable... Facebook was around, but it was really only used by a few techies (much like Google+ now). I'm not saying Google+ will ever be bigger than Facebook, but you would be foolish to assume nothing can beat any of those sites. Facebook already did it to Myspace (which literally was "untouchable" back then). If one of those companies stops innovating or something better comes along that they can't match, users will go elsewhere... Simple as that. I don't use Google search because it's "Google", I use Google's search because it gives me the most relevant results. If some other search engine starts giving me better results, I would use that instead (as would most people).
I understand what you are saying, it just seems at the moment no-one can topple Google and Facebook. I guess in a few years time it'll be interesting to see what does happen, but with the amount of people using them now compared 5 years ago, it'll be hard to shift all those people especially since it's become more ingrained into society Though anything can happen..
It's not impossible... like I said... the second a new search engine pops up that gives better results that Google, everyone will switch. Google is popular not because of their name, they are popular because of the relevancy of their results. It was the same story with Google... Yahoo was the "untouchable" search engine. Google came along started by two kids in college and everyone started using it because it gave better results. Google even tried to sell themselves to Excite for $1M because it was taking too much of their time and cutting into their schoolwork. Excited talked them down to $750,000, but then decided it wasn't worth $750k http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/09/29/excite-passed-up-buying-google-for-750000-in-1999/ Point is that someone just needs to come up with something better... you don't need a huge marketing engine, you only need something better.
Didn't they say the same thing about netscape in 1995? lol You gotta wonder why someone would go to school being as established enough to try to sell anything for $1 million.
The only constant is change. Especially now, especially online. It's funny to see how many web articles like to chronicle the "greatest of all time" when what they mean is the "greatest of right now." It just seems impossible that the giants won't always be at the top. When you live your life hooked up to interactive electronics, the present feels all-encompassing. But it's not. Products go through a life cycle. Introduction --> Growth --> Maturity --> Saturation/Decline. People like to think that the Internet is so revolutionary that marketing knowledge doesn't apply anymore...and those people are usually trying to sell you their book. You never know. Facebook could pull some sort of "because-we-say-so" move that pisses lots of people off.
I agree with Shawn on this statement. Just because Facebook is on top now doesn't mean they will be in 5 years from now. To be honest, I am not a fan of the new updates on Facebook along with millions of others. The market for social media is continue to growing and there are many ideas out there that could change many people's minds. I use Facebook because my friends use it. It would be inconvenient if we all used different websites. My main point here is that, if someone came along and decided to build a social media website that out beat the features or offered me an incentive to join, I would switch in a heartbeat, and I believe others would too until it is a split between the two like it was myspace and facebook for a while. The reason Myspace failed was because Tom didn't look into the interest of the users. He was more focused on the financial part of the site like any other human being would be. The internet has upgrades to come, meaning new websites will grow, old ones will die and some will stay the same. Whatever the situation, the internet will be around for a while.