Just a few years ago everyone thought myspace was the undeniable king of social media and there was the time when over 90% of every Irish teen was on the platform. However, in the world of tech, things change in a blink of an eye and soon myspace became old fashioned as Facebook gradually took over the world.
In the last 10 years, Facebook grew to over 2 billion members as it successfully stood against competition from Twitter, Orkut, and Google Plus, all of which failed to make a similar mark.
Facebook keeps evolving the social media scene
In order to stay relevant and exciting, Facebook would keep on changing their design, adding new features and constantly improving UI, which kept every user on their toes, making them feel part of a journey, a relationship and something that young people enjoyed.
However, as Facebook kept expanding its core demographic to include not just young internet users but everyone of all ages and backgrounds, it began to lose its cool factor with the younger generation.
No one wanted to add their parents or grandparents to their social media account since most young people felt that their ‘online’ world was something private to them and their friends. In the same time, smartphones became common and people started spending more time on their phones than on their computers.
In response, a wave of new social media platforms started to emerge to target the smart phone addicted youth who were shunning Facebook. Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram, Whatsapp were part of this new wave and while Pinterest and Tumblr did not become big, Instagram and WhatsApp showed true potential. So much so that Facebook outright spent over $20 billion to buy both of these to deter any competition.
In the last 4 years, It seemed like Facebook really had made the best decision as both platforms grew rapidly to become staple communication platforms, but in the world of tech, the only constant is change and soon another contender came to the scene, SnapChat.
Since it’s inception, snapchat experimented with a new model where all pictures and videos you take are deleted within 24 hours and can only be shared with a select group of friends. Again, privacy was key for young people and it’s cool filters made taking selfies even more fun.
Facebook has yet to counter the growth of snapchat, though it has started to offer Facebook Live and What’s app stories options in a bid to rival Snapchat
