The future of social networks?

It is obvious that social networking has been/still is massive. But what does the future hold for social networks?
Both twitter and facebook are the kings, but are users becoming disillusioned with them? It is obvious that facebook is losing users at an alarming rate, twitter seems to be holding its own (for now).
However, I feel that because of the massive generalisation of both sites, are niche specific social networks the thing users will look towards?
Thoughts?

 

Niche specific networks will definitely become more popular but I don't think that it will affect popularity of major networks such as twitter and facebook. Although facebook may be loosing their users temporarily the total number of users has been growing all the time. I'm not big fan of either of them and do hope that there will be more alternative social platforms but that's just me.

 

Facebook will last and grow,even it's messenger app is now used to IM with friends on smartphones.

 

In my opinion, FB is loosing its positions. Twitter, linkedin, pinterest and google+ I think wil be more and more popular.

 

I think Facebook will be shut down in the future. People seeing friends lose their interest in facebook en start losing it themselves. It happened to a local (National-scale) social network from the Netherlands: Hyves.

Soon, another social network will come up, similiar to Facebook, but maybe more handy, with a new coat. Everyone will join it and slowly it will have the problem as Facebook has.

Another thing you can see a lot is that Facebook is getting on the nerves of people. They want to know all your information, where you've been, who you talked to, where you work, what you eat for dinner etc etc. These profiles Facebook makes of you (what for it was created in first placed) are getting expanded and more and more people start to dislike that.

Conferences are held for that problem. Weekly, there's a documentary about how dangerous social media is and how it violates your privacy. People are getting in action. But also the commons undertake things, like pasting stickers on their webcam, being scared of Apple taping their activities.

Now this isn't only a problem for Facebook, also - like I said - Apple and Google are having this problem. Criticism appears everywhere. Google makes a profile of everything you search and do on Google Chrome. Apple's iCloud does the same.

Maybe it's all a bit overstated by critics, but it will cause a huge problem for those parties. Look how many WhatsApp users have switched to Telegram, just because Facebook took over? 40 million it is now?

Google+ won't make it as far as FB and Twitter did. Facebook is a general social network for all smaller ones (Vine, SoundCloud, StumbleUpon, Pinterest etc) to share everything with all your friends, because almost everyone has got Facebook. Every smaller network can be connected to Facebook.

Twitter, by the way, doesn't have this 'privacy problem' as they don't make a profile that specifically. Because they can't make it that easy nor use it.

Social networks will always exist (except from Turkey), but will be refreshed with some new ones from time to time (To mention MySpace, that is not as popular as it was used to be).

Ivo Nissink - Acutae

 

I think niche social networks would not do so well. Only because it lacks worldwide appeal and communication between users. If you noticed social media evolved from that already, it always gets broader. If your 80 yo grandmother has a Facebook that tells you it wil be here for many years to come. No other social network has done that. It has so much money it can easily change it's site, it will not be another MySpace. That appealed to more teenagers looking to date. People get bored of dating sites. Not keeping up with everyday life of all of their friends and families and businesses.

 

Off shore, where no government can ask for anything, that should be the future!

 

I think the number of social networks will continue to grow and people will continue to use Facebook and Twitter to keep in touch with friends and family.

 

I don't see Facebook dying off anytime soon BUT once the new FB comes along it will just like Myspace. FB has a strong hold so it will survive, just how long until we have a new FB is the question.

 

Whatever happening to Facebook right now is just a phase, same goes to other social media. Every businesses does.

 

Interesting news story on the possible decline of facebook: http://news.sky.com/story/1199647/facebook-could-lose-80-percent-of-users-by-2017

 

I think as we become a much more mobile world and a huge proportion of people connect with social media via their smartphone or tablet then new social apps will play a huge role. We've seen how quickly new mobile only apps such as Instagram, Snapchat and Vine have all gained huge popularity in such a short space of time. It makes more sense really that we prefer to connect in this way, a quick update here or there as we go about our business, on the go. So I believe the future of social media to be mobile apps and I think we'll see plenty more on the scene soon.

 

Facebook seems to be doing its best to make its own use very complicated. I guess they've moved their tactic from "everybody can use us for marketing" to "we don't care if it's not everybody, as long as the people who use it pay". That's a little disappointing. I read an article recently titled something like "the free marketing gravy train of Facebook is over" and I couldn't agree more with what was said in that article. Views of posts drop from 15% to under 3%. I mean, I guess that makes sense if you think about it. There's over 1000 posts a day in everyone's "expanded" timeline, and facebook has to cut that down to 300 posts a day. Obviously it's the useless marketing/promotion that's going to get cut down.
So now, more than ever, audience engagement plays a huge role on facebook.
It's all much simpler with twitter. There's less "engagement" there, but at least you know that if you tweet something, everyone will see it. Will they read it? That's a different question.
I've stopped using Facebook altogether for the company I'm working with. So I'm putting my money on Twitter.

Niche social networks are the future. If you're doing anything teens are interested in — tumblr is the place to go. The clothing brand I'm working with gets a lot of its customers from posts on tumblr.

 

Social networks have great future as most of people are getting connected our social medium. Still some creative ways needs to created so that it can help people make use of it.

 

I completely agree with @YJunK on this one. I only recently replied to another thread using the same stats. It's very disappointing to see what's happening with Facebook right now.
Twitter is the way to go. And, well, I guess if you're in a niche that could make it work — tumblr, pinterest, instagram.

The "one method for ALL purposes" type of social-networking is done. You need to stick to what works best in your niche, even if that means brick and mortar stores, and promoting your product via billboards and flyers. ahahah

 

Facebook and LinkedIn will remain... As LinkedIn is growing and people are using it professionally, Facebook is at its peak people are socializing day and night it will go on....

 

According to my research social media have a great future. In 2014 if some do Seo with Smm they are running business successfully.

 

Facebook will be around for a long time. I know they are losing all the newer kids, but for most part they seem to be retaining the older generation quite nicely. What facebook has, (that most other sites lack) is the facebook connect feature. That means that any new site, forum, social thing, will usually make use of the facebook connect. It also means that for most people, they will keep their facebook account open, if only to login to other sites. So in 10 years time, yes, facebook might be a wasteland, but I would still expect alot of people to still keep their accounts open, to make use of facebook connect feature.

I personally dont use facebook (never really plan to either) but I do use facebook connect to login to this forum, and a whole stack of other websites and forums.

 

I believe social media will probably be long lasting. Numerous new social media sites are coming to levels of competition together with present social media sites. These kinds of levels of competition will build a pertinent result which is to be best for most of us.

 

Facebook is as big as Google on the internet. So, i guess, when Google Search will die, so will Facebook. Maybe there is a little drop on Facebook but i think will remain there for as long as Google will. They have money, they have users/content, they purchased biggest social networking apps and the stock value is growing. The only social networking that matters, beside Facebook ( When i say facebook i mean : Facebook+Instagram+Whatsapp) is LinkedIn that is targeting other type of relationships. Rest of the social networking sites/apps are just like other search engines are for Google Search that is currently losing users ( about 0.01% per year that equals to serveral millions ).
Social Networks are here to say because people are very used to it, because of smartphones, and because for newcomers on internet social networks are equal to internet.
What i do believe that Facebook is not what it will be in 2-3 years. It will change ALOT !