Will Facebook end up like the rest?

This week in my New Media class we learned about Social Networking Sites (SNS). As many of you know, these sites are a great way to connect with people you know to share pictures and update them with information about you and your everyday life. Since I started using the internet regularly, I’ve had an account on Xanga, Myspace, and Facebook. By using these websites over the years, I’ve noticed that they are comparable to a popular toy I had when I was a kid, the Furby. It was really awesome when it first came out; then I got it and it was kind of fun; then it wouldn’t shut-up and it got really annoying, so i took the batteries out. As time went on it got old and boring, and then something better came out, so I forgot all about it. When I got Xanga, I only used it for a year or two before MySpace came out, so I have only a vague memory of what it was like. I really enjoyed MySpace my first few years of high school. I was able to change the entire look of my page how I wanted it to be and I would spent hours doing this and talking back and forth with my friends. When I first heard about Facebook I thought it looked stupid because you couldn’t personalize it as much as MySpace. After using the site, I realized that it was much easier to find my friends since they were using their actual name and not a made up username. Eventually I started using Facebook more and more, and so did everyone else. Now, not a single one of my friends, or myself use MySpace. With this being said, I start to wonder if Facebook is just a fad like the other two websites were. I’ve noticed over the last year that the amount of my friends that regularly post on Facebook has drastically decreased. Even when I go on now, I rarely update my status. I only occasionally post pictures, but I don’t share entire albums like I did previously. I went from going on and posting everyday, to going on once a week just to scroll through my newsfeed to see if anyone posted cool pictures. I find it to be unassuming and a waste of my time. I think it’ll be interesting to see how long the excitement of Facebook actually lasts, or if it will become another addition to the SNS graveyard.

Image from: deepspacemarketing.com