Has Facebook lost it’s cool factor?

Preeti's take

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Preeti Upadhyaya: Technology Reporter- Silicon Valley Business Journal; Email | Twitter

In 2005, I headed off to my freshman year of college at UC Davis armed with everything a first-year student needs: a laptop, a not-so-smart cell phone, and a brand new Facebook account. In fact, my incoming class was one of the first to sign on to the newly created social network, and I find it impossible to imagine my college years and beyond without Facebook. My entire social history as an adult is documented on the site through pictures, wall posts, messages and friendships. Since then, however, the demographics and footprint of Facebook have dramatically changed.
Two recent studies highlight this shift, which presents both a challenge and opportunity for the social network. First, the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project released a study showing that teens are rapidly migrating to platforms like Twitter and Instagram amid complaints that Facebook has become a website fueled by drama and unwanted details in friends’, or even worse — parents’, posts. Backing this up, a ShareThis and Digitas study shows that moms are three times more social than the average user of a social network, and their posts are 8 percent more influential than the general population. That means they generate almost 10 clicks per piece of shared content, compared to the overall population average of 8.75 percent.
So what does this mean for Facebook? Should it abandon its teenage users and focus entirely on women with kids who share content about parenting or television shows? Not so fast, said Clark Fredricksen, vice president of eMarketer, a digital marketing, media and commerce consulting firm. “Facebook is a proven platform. They’ve shown that even if users aren’t in love with the platform, they still need it and stay on it. There’s a very strong lock in on Facebook,” he said.
Fredricksen said that the buzz around Facebook fatigue is overblown. He explained that Facebook is part of the fabric of the Internet that has become as unavoidable as email. “It’s become more of a utility — a must-have presence — rather than a hip, cool, new service.”