Yahoo set to announce biggest layoffs since the dotcom bubble burst - Social Networks are to blame
A few months ago I blogged about the impact of facebook on traditional print media.
Many promoters had stopped printing flyers and started leveraging the power of the social graph available through facebook in order to reach and promote their events.
As reported by Yahoo last week, Yahoo is poised for hundreds of layoffs this week as advertising revenue has dropped significantly.
Social Media sites have become everything Yahoo used to be - but simpler. And easier. And more open.
Marketers have followed consumers to popular social media sites such as Facebook and MySpace. It would appear that facebook has moved on from eating the print shop’s lunch to eating the lunch of Web 1.0 sites.
Who’s next?
4 comments
I feel obliged to speak (sorry)
When I first signed up to facebook I was on it all day every day, I am ashamed to say it was a life killer… or at least a work killer.
After a few months I was surfing 20 – 30 minutes a day (according to our bacon boy the “Canadian average”)
Now (just shy of a year later), my only access to facebook is the app on my netvibes page, so other than the limited 411 netvibes forwards I never access my facebook account.
I have to wonder if the “hype” over these social sites is being way overblown b/c of the staggering amount new memberships and the overwhelming hours new members spend using facebook. Correct me if I am wrong, but didn’t we see this exact same trend with MySpace??
Let me address Phil’s point directly, I spend WAY more time a day using Google than I do using facebook. I would venture a guess that after people recover from saying hi to all their old high school friends, and posting their pictures, and playing a couple rounds of scrabble, they too will return to reality.
‘who is next?’ facebook is next.
Plus lets face it, everybody loves print
start flame ….
now
David - you raise an interesting point of view. I know others who say the honeymoon is over for them as well on facebook…but like you, they get their facebook email or updates through a news aggregator like netvibes, through SMS updates, or through the mobile version. In all examples, you are still connecting with facebook.
I don’t disagree that facebook may have a limited lifespan in its current form, but nobody really expects them to stand still for very long.
If true data portability happens as blogged on this site, everything can and will change again
Although Yahoo probably has the best webmail out there, Yahoo! has failed in the web 2.0 arena - I think they need a good web 2.0 person to pull this off… Mind you, they could surprise us…
Even if facebook stopped right now, nobody can argue they have a great concept. By the simple act af logging in, you are privy to your friends activities, what movies they watch, what books they read, where they eat. The PERFECT viral marketing tool. But if you aren’t spending 20 minutes a day, then you’re not really getting the full benefit (from a marketers point of view)
The difference between netvibes and an application like facebook, is no phryls (or ads) on netvibes, and that’s what we’re talking about here.
similarly i use Trillian to access my yahoo messenger and my two or three MSN accounts all at the same time and NO ads.
And if I understand data portability correctly (and I’m sure I don’t) the concept would use a forum like netvibes to import (and export) only the data you wanted from (and to) various applications. So once again, no ads and potentially no frills, like “clients favourite”.
This is really fodder for a later blog, but I don’t think it’s the application facebook that is the problem. It’s the way we access that site (and ones like it) The more I think about this, the more I think the hardware needs to come first. Something bigger than a PDA and smaller than a laptop like “ASUS Eee PC”. (windows version coming out later this year ?) 4 trips of 5 minutes on a small device, seems more in line with my leisure computer usage, and that seems more likely with a smaller easier to access device. …
Let me ask this, why do you think the honeymoon over for so many of us?
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