Like it happens with every novel idea or service, Hitting a Road Block of Creativity. This time its our loved Social Network FACEBOOK. Facebook is largely perceived as the next big thing on Internet or the NEXT Internet, weaving the fabric of Social Connectivity and Communication. This falls on the lines of unifying mission statement As Facebook passed 500 million users, then a billion, it seemed to be coming true. With more users joining in and host of Add on services popping up on the grid every day , Facebook has gone a little bit away from its Vision Statement.
Starting as profile site or online Face Book, then incorporating photo sharing, now headed towards a dominant “content” provider. Its been a totally different perspective in which Facebook has focused on, which became more striking by IPO roll out. Dring initial offering Zuckerberg made a note to investors :
We make decisions at Facebook not optimizing for what’s going to happen in the next year, but to set us up to really be in this world where every product experience you have is social, and that’s all powered by Facebook.
IPO was a huge success and so is been every new roll out or idea from Facebook since then, which have grown swiftly. It blatantly ripped off Snapchat with Poke, which was a flop. It followed kill the competition policy and came up with a messaging app of its own, appreciated by it huge userbase.
Bought Instagram after trying to compete with a similar photo sharing platform. And now comes the next big step by founder of Instagram about recent changes in his App. The invitation to the event says, “A small team has been working on a big idea.” an app, which largely resembles Twitter’s suddenly popular Vine.
The differences are bit of technicality though with Videos longer, added filters, and image stabilization feature.
In a public statement, Systrom claimed that they are excited because “130 million people on day one are going to have access to video in the way that they have access to pictures,” which explains why Facebook leads the industry with a large audience. But this huge user base doesn’t turn someone else’s idea into a bigidea, and it certainly doesn’t make it yours.
This brings us to the growing problem of Facebook’s loss of creativity and venturing on every budding service by including it in their bandwagon. Like Home, which tries to capture users’ data leaving them with only option to stay. This doesn’t drive out from the Facebook issue of being out of ideas. Today every idea isn’t a big idea until it gets on Facebook.
Instagram video can be a success due to much anticipation by current user base of Instagram.
For the user, the facebook is not just a social network now, its growing out to become a real internet supplement.