I once discussed with some of my colleagues here at REM that Facebook in many ways reminded me of AOL in that it was trying to create a "walled garden" that it controlled for it users.
Today in news headlines I caught an interesting reminder of that discussion.
Out of interest sake, and because I realize that few ideas (including my own) are ever really original I did a quick Google search for "Facebook is AOL".
I stumbled on a well articulated version of my discussion that summarizes my sentiments and brings some useful information to the mix.
And to my surprise, even more people have been discussing these ideas than I would have thought.
I believe that most of us will grow tired of being "social" on platforms such as Facebook and I believe that the 5 year horizon is accurate. If for no other reason than because I believe the trouble with us humans is that we get bored with the status quo and yern for something new.
What do you think? Is Facebook following the same lifecycle as AOL and therefor entering it's decline to obsolescence?