When I was younger, one of the things I really wanted was to get my own Facebook account. I was one of the last people I knew to get an account, and I remember how important it was that I get one. All the “cool kids” had them for a while, and I thought it was so cool to be able to keep in touch with people from school, and know what’s going on.
Once my parents agreed to let me have one, I friend requested almost everyone I knew, joined every game I could get my hands on, and took it upon myself to become as involved as possible.
Flash forward four years, and it’s a rather different story. Facebook just doesn’t have the same “wow” factor that it held years ago. It is still seeing a lot of use, with over 250 million users daily, but more and more people are getting more use out of other social media sites. Twitter, (which originated after Facebook), sees about 100 million using it daily, according to its CEO.
Tumblr, which is even newer, has about 180,000 users daily, according to its creator, David Karp. However, despite the smaller numbers, people are becoming much more entertained with the latter two.
One of the problems with Facebook is the amount of people you are almost considered obligated to friend. If you aren’t friends with your family members, sometimes it may come off as rude, or as if you’re hiding something. This leads to a cluttering of your Facebook friends.
Add in the amount of ads now even more in your face with the change in the picture system, Facebook is feeling more commercial every day.
Twitter and Tumblr however are still feeling as organized as ever, and definitely more so than Facebook. Tumblr is completely ad free, and there is no revenue made from the site. It is totally existent for the enjoyment of users.
You can also follow (on both Twitter and Tumblr) users/pages that you find to be more aligned with your interests, as opposed to pages that you follow on Facebook just because your friends do. This isn’t to say that Facebook is dead. In fact, Facebook is still a big part of mostly everyone’s lives that has an account.
It is very convenient for people to keep in touch with people they don’t see as often, and is very good for organizing an event you need to get out to a lot of people.
However, the changes being made in the format aren’t the changes people want. Twitter revamped its entire home page, and people love the new set up because it is more responsive to the way users experience it.
One of my floor mates just got Twitter updated recently, and is thrilled with the way it organizes everything now. Most of the feedback on the new “Facebook Timeline” is that it is crowded and hard to navigate.
Facebook needs to revamp and recapture its audience if it hopes to keep up with the forms of social media emerging every day.
Dave Padrazo can be contacted at
dpadrazo@ksc.mailcruiser.com