The Internet is all ga-ga (not Lady Gaga) over the fact that Facebook is getting ready to make another announcement today. The crazies on CNN.com (the fans, not the reporters) are now getting into a huge argument over what the announcement is, but not surprisingly the biggest parts of that thread cover two areas:
1. Should Facebook create a “dislike” button?
2. What will be the next Facebook to follow Facebook?
The first question is kind of funny because it’s basically a “I hate the features of Facebook, but I am too absorbed by Facebook to stop using Facebook” complaint. In other words, people want a way of controlling what messages they receive, but in reality the messages they receive are set by the type of friends that they have, so the easy way to fix that is to change the types of friends you have, and well, that doesn’t happen so easily.
What Facebook probably could use, rather than a “dislike” button, is a “I don’t care” button, so that when someone sends you a message about how many farm animals they’ve found on their imaginary farm, you could click, “I don’t care” and hopefully NEVER receive another message of that type again. I say this realizing someone is probably reading this post thinking, “man, I wish there was an “I don’t care” button RIGHT NOW.” But I digress….
The second thing is more significant because Facebook is slowly reaching it zenith of useability, meaning that there’s only so much more you can do with it before someone builds a better mousetrap, and we all go somewhere else. It’s what happened to Myspace (remember that dinosaur from SO LONG AGO?), and it’s probaby what’s going to happen to Twitter once people realize that following someone’s 120 character (or whatever) post is really not all that interesting.
But that means people will start gravitating towards something else. Most likely, the kids are already using it, but the rest of us haven’t discovered it because we’re all not as cool as the kids. By kids, I don’t even mean the college kids, so most of you in college reading this thinking I’m talking about you, I’m not. Sure, you’re cool. Cooler than me, obviously, but we’re talking about a demographic that is generally not in our midsts. Which is what cool is all about anyway because “cool” is always that area of the Internet just out of our reach, and once we reach it, it’s not cool anymore.
That’s what happened to Myspace. And that’s what’s going to happen to Facebook because everyone already uses it, and CNN is talking about. Remember Gundrum’s Law: If CNN is talking about it, it stopped being cool a long time ago.
So, what’s next? I don’t know myself because I’m not cool, and I won’t find out about it until it’s a few months away from not being used anymore. So, when I get around to telling you what’s cool, remember that it’s time to jump ship because I’m only a few hours ahead of CNN, and that doesn’t really say much.