Here's Why Google and Facebook Might Completely Disappear in the Next 5 Years

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2012/04/30/heres-why-google-and-facebook-might-completely-disappear-in-the-next-5-years/

by snambi • 14 years ago

80 74 14 years ago

forbes.com

tmcw• 14 years ago

You know what might disappear in the next 5 years? Forbes.

chamanbuga• 14 years ago

So eloquently yet so powerful

ExpiredLink• 14 years ago

At least journalism 1.0 (telling something noteworthy and meaningful) will be extinct.

saraid2162• 14 years ago

The sad part is that this isn't Journalism 1.0. Journalism 1.0 was pennysheets. Remember those?

nilium• 14 years ago

When I consider the way their articles seem to consist mainly of link bait without substance, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see them disappear within that timeframe. I could swear I remember a time when folks would point to Forbes as a good publication, but I'm not so sure now. Probably a symptom of focusing on ad revenue rather than editorial quality and journalistic integrity.

tedsuo• 14 years ago

Yeah, the amount of linkbait that comes out of there makes me feel like they have intentionally targeted HN. After clicking on a forbes link, only to discover it was literally Quora wrapped in an iframe, I stopped clicking. I now just check to comments to see if any interesting discussion actually occurred.

cheald2• 14 years ago

I watched Jimmy Kimmel's routine at the 2012 White House Correspondents' Dinner this morning, and he had a great relevant line:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=D...

alexgartrell• 14 years ago

"What's black and white and re[a]d all over? Nothing anymore"

vijayr• 14 years ago

"might" or "will"? From this fluff piece, I am leaning towards "will"

muyuu• 14 years ago

I was also thinking about the irony of having Forbes, a dinosaur of the old press, talking about the impossibility of adapting to new paradigms.

nthitz• 14 years ago

Ah I doubt that will happen.

icegreentea• 14 years ago

"We will never have Web 3.0, because the Web’s dead."

I think that sums up this article.

da_n• 14 years ago

I stopped reading at that point. Pointless link-bait.

slantyyz• 14 years ago

And that's coming from a publication that doesn't quite realize print is dead.

akarambir• 14 years ago

that was amusing in some sense. they are predicting for Web but can't clearly look at their print media...

webjprgm6• 14 years ago

I just ignored this line. It seems unsubstantiated at best. It's probably there just for some sloppy sensational journalism without any thought for accuracy.

The rest of the article was mildly interesting even if they are Forbes and even if they are wrong that Google will completely disappear. I don't think Google will. But I still think it's interesting to watch history unfold as we see the evolution of the internet and all related technologies, so I like to hear people's opinions on it. Thus I kept reading.

nextparadigms• 14 years ago

Facebook, probably, but I doubt Google. They are no Apple when it comes to building new business models and money-making products, but I don't see anything that could kill Google in the next 5 years.

Facebook on the other hand - I'm noticing a (slow) trend of people getting bored with it. I don't think people are bored with Google searches. Plus, as a company Facebook is much more vulnerable - a lot less money, a one-hit product with nothing else outside the social network to show for themselves. Yes, both use advertising, but that's a business model, not a product/service. It's like arguing Apple only makes money from selling hardware. Google has multiple products/services that use advertising. Facebook has one.

k-mcgrady3• 14 years ago

I actually think the opposite. Google still relies very heavily on search related revenue and with more and more people choosing apps over the web, plus with the advancement of things like Siri the importance of Google for search could be vastly reduced.

Facebook has massive growth potential. Smartphone usage is continuing to increase and people are using Facebook on smartphones to communicate (free text messaging essentially). Also with their purchase of instagram photo sharing on Facebook will continue to increase further.

Personally I think both will still be around in 5 years (although they will probably look very different) but I think Google carries the most risk.

drivebyacct2• 14 years ago

What? How do "apps" answer "search"? (What do you think powers Siri, and keep in mind that a Google competitor to Siri is expected within 2012).

Further, if "free texting" and "Instagram" are what is going to keep Facebook afloat... well I hope for their sake, you're wrong. I can tell you from the app and mobile web experience alone, no one I know has ever used Facebook messaging as a replacement for SMS. Plus there are a dozen dedicated services that fill that role better (Google Voice included no less).

vibrunazo• 14 years ago

You do understand "things like Siri" needs search to function; and not only google is aware of it's importance, but they built a competitor much before it launched?

JunkDNA• 14 years ago

Google does lack a sufficient "moat". If someone were to have a demonstrably better take on finding answers to what people are looking for on the Internet (be it traditional search, or something else), Google might not be able to pivot quickly enough. Competition is only a URL away so switching costs are low for end users. Google's real customers (advertisers) will follow quickly if users leave.

hello_asdf• 14 years ago

Personally I've moved away almost entirely from Google searches, and have gone over to DuckDuckGo.

fragsworth• 14 years ago

Being a URL away is a pretty big thing. Their moat includes being the default search engine for Chrome and Android devices. They've also made deals with everyone except Microsoft to be the default search engine on every browser/platform/device you can imagine.

yashchandra• 14 years ago

A great example of "how to get 10000 hits in 10 mins". I loved Forbes btw.

Karunamon2• 14 years ago

Thoughts before reading the article: "Hah! Notta chance."

Thoughts after reading the article: "Hah! Notta chance."

Perhaps a bit of "Hmm, that's pretty interesting coming from a dead tree magazine.." /s

njharman• 14 years ago

Yahoo, Myspace, Further back AltaVista, AOL. Tech and every non-subsidized "too big to fail" industry is littered with dead or no longer relevant "notta chances".

And you should really work on not letting your biases against the messenger influence your opinion of the message.

Karunamon2• 14 years ago

If you notice in my comment, I said that I had read the article in an attempt to disabuse myself of any preconceived notions.

The article failed to do that. In short, I don't see either of those two companies failing barring some horrendous unexpected event.

As for the messenger, I just find it kind of funny (in a sad way) that one of the last bastions of a dying industry is predicting the imminent death of one that's alive and kicking.. more so one that has an issue with quality control and FUD-filled headlines.

It's like the buggy whip manufacturers saying these newfangled steam buggies will never go anywhere.

option_greek• 14 years ago

I'm yet to read the article but before that, let me award this the best link bait headline award -- off to scratch the itch

mindstab• 14 years ago

They mentioned amazon as kinda fading into the background as a web 1.0 company not even being able to capitalize on social, but they missed they part where amazon is one of the biggest cloud companies out there, single handedly powering, what, 1% of the internet now all by themselves? They are crazy huge in infrastructure and I can't see them going anywhere anytime soon

mtjl79• 14 years ago

Remember, this is Forbes.

SpaceDragon• 14 years ago

The same magazine that name übersatanic corp Monsanto 2009's company of the year.

ralfd• 14 years ago

I don't get Forbes.com. I know "Forbes" from their "rich people" list and my understanding was they are a US based print magazine. But the website is nothing like the website of a magazine! It looks like a giant blob of blog posts and fluff opinion pieces of myriads of different authors ("contributors").

gee_totes• 14 years ago

I was also surprised by that point re:social [Quote]: Why has Amazon done so little in social?

What does capitalizing, or doing well with social even _mean_? I think Amazon has done quite well in social, and here's why: If I'm looking to gauge the quality of a product, I'll probably look it up on Amazon and read the customer reviews.

The value of that social aspect (i.e. getting the opinions of fellow people) of Amazon is much higher than any amount of likes, re-tweets, or an imaginary Amazon+ social network thingie.

Social is only valuable to a business if you can leverage it in some way. And looking at Amazon's review system, I would say that they have done quite well in social.

steventruong• 14 years ago

Agreed but I also think that getting input from those you know or know of in addition to total stranger review is stronger. The more of people you trust reviewing something, the more you're more inclined to trust those reviews. I think having both systems in place is better. BTW, this comment is separate from the article's argument of social.

sliverstorm3• 14 years ago

"Fading into the background" is exactly what Amazon wants, I think. That is to say, people are no longer especially excited about them because they are everywhere, in everything, and we just take them for granted like Safeway.

moreorless2• 14 years ago

I don't think they want to be like Safeway. Safeway is not exactly in good shape right now. They are in quite a fight with their competitors and the rough economy has taken quite a heavy toll on them.

wavephorm4• 14 years ago

Amazon's tablet now holds > 50% of the Android tablet market, which makes them a major mobile player too. The article was written around a headline, instead of around facts, and actual statistics and trends.

jwblackwell2• 14 years ago

I read this and thought the exact same thing. I'd be willing to bet the author has absolutely no idea about the size of Amazons web infrastructure business.

qq66• 14 years ago

Even ignoring their Web infrastructure business, Amazon is the 800 pound gorilla of e-commerce. It's true that their profit margins are quite low but that's part of being a distributor, and helps them fend off competitors as they keep growing.

http://chart.googleapis.com/chart?cht=bvg&chs=323x200...

islon• 14 years ago

"Google has done so little in social". What? Google has the leading smartphone OS and Android app store is growing by the hour...

Macha• 14 years ago

I presume you mean mobile, not social there?

wavephorm4• 14 years ago

  We will never have Web 3.0, because the Web’s dead.

Yawn. The person writing this is clearly clueless. The web is not going die. Anyone who says things like this is clearly an iPhone junkie and not really paying attention to the larger picture, and the fact that web apps are quickly catching up to iPhone app experiences, and are quickly going to overtake them. Native mobile apps are a short term fad. They're toast in the long run, because they go against the natural order of things -- network-based software is the future regardless of how cool a silly game you just downloaded is. Data is moving to the cloud, therefore software will move the cloud (not your mobile device), and nothing can change this trend... not even Apple.

rimantas• 14 years ago

  >  web apps are quickly catching up to iPhone app
  > experiences

They are not.

  > and are quickly going to overtake them.

They are not.

  > Native mobile apps are a short term fad.

They are not.

  > network-based software is the future

True. Have you noticed, how many native apps get their data from network.

  > Data is moving to the cloud,

True.

  > therefore software will
  > move the cloud (not your mobile device), and nothing can 
  > change this trend... not even Apple.

Have you heard of iCloud? Apple is already there. You are just confusing networked apps, data in the cloud and web apps. Native apps can have all that and still offer superior user experience. They will always have that advantage—no matter how fast the browsers get they will still be a middle man.

wavephorm4• 14 years ago

It's all about software delivery. Native apps, whether they be desktop or mobile based, will always pale in comparison to the simple act of clicking on a link, and immediately running the software - no downloads, no install, no headaches. Mobile natives apps can never provide this level of pain-free software experience. This is especially true if every app that can exist in the future needs to be moderated by a central authority (Apple). Mobile apps are not the future, it is the past, in new clothing.

Mobile apps are essentially a re-invention of the CD-ROM software era, in a new slick iPhone interface. Millions of people constantly re-downloading and upgrading the same software millions of times again and again. It's basically Windows freeware/shareware all over again. Some of these apps might have connection to a website, but it's just tacked onto an ancient software paradigm. Whereas when you starting building a web-based app, you already developing for that new hyper-networked paradigm.

In "the future", your web browser becomes the desktop, or the mobile UI, and the internet is the software. I promise you, in the long term, it does not matter how successful Apple, and previously Microsoft, are at deceiving you of this future. It will happen. And it is happening. Everywhere right now, there are millions and millions of developers building HTML5 apps, and every improvement to today's browsers is building our future software paradigm -- and it will not be controlled by Apple or Google.

macspoofing• 14 years ago

>We think of Google and Facebook as Web gorillas. They’ll be around forever.

Who thinks that? Especially about Facebook.

georgieporgie• 14 years ago

I've seen a lot of Forbes articles appear on HN lately. I don't think a single one of them has seemed the least bit insightful or interesting. They mostly seem to write poorly-based opinion pieces that show ignorance of large swaths of tech. They can usually be summed up as, "Web 2.0 ... Web 2.0 ... Web 2.0 ..."

BlackNapoleon• 14 years ago

Pundits gonna pundit

contextfree• 14 years ago

"The tech world" started in 1994?

saraid2162• 14 years ago

Assuming that the article is dead-on about everything (which it certainly isn't), Google won't be MySpace-dead. The interesting thing about Google is that they've gone way beyond mere business models. Google is making AR glasses. Google is making autonomous cars. Google is creating new programming languages. These aren't bottom line things; these are "enhance the world" things.

If Google "disappears", they'll turn into an IBM or a Microsoft. Not even Amazon is quite at that level. And Facebook is absolutely not at that level. Maybe one day, but not yet. Being a Zuckerberg hater, I don't expect it to ever happen.

ckayatek• 14 years ago

I think the idea that something like Siri will end Google is silly. Siri is just an input-output platform for a search. I think the more likely outcome is that the best search engine will power the best Siri-like app. There's no reason why Google would miss out on being that search engine.

It is also worth noting that Google dominates mobile search even more than it does traditional search.

kemiller• 14 years ago

It interrupts their (extremely powerful) brand, though. Right now, the word "google" literally means search to millions of people. If that switches to "let me siri that for you" it opens the door for entrants who today don't even have a chance. If siri can intelligently choose among multiple specialized search services, even more so.

webjprgm6• 14 years ago

Google really does need a way for figuring out the context of my question, so that it can do the specialization part. If they had a better social presence, then they could recognize my interests and habits as part of that context. So knowing I'm a programmer, when I type in "node" they could assume Node.js.

Some context from the question: If they can tell I'm talking about restaurants they can show me just restaurants. If I type in the name of a park, I don't want real estate and insurance companies with coincidentally the same name. Maybe asking a question in a full sentence like you do with Siri gives better context clues? Or maybe Siri just likes to assume a small set of tasks (calendar, looking for a business, making a task) and so is good at guessing those contexts but would be bad at other things. I can't really say much about Siri because I have an iPhone 4 and not a 4S. Oh well.

Google does do a bit of context guessing, like using Geo IP to guess my location, so a business or restaurant name comes up with local businesses.

wei2012• 14 years ago

Here's Why Forbes Might Completely Disappear in the Next 5 Years.

Because we will never have Forbes 2.0

Because I think it will.

LOL

zerostar07• 14 years ago

That's like saying Boeing will disappear because they did not invest in Zynga.

jwblackwell2• 14 years ago

While mobile apps can certainly provide a better user experience for _some_ tasks, people often seem to forget that everyone in offices across the world still sit at desks and use a desktop pcs (or a decent sized laptop).

This isn't going to change. I can't work on an iPad or on my phone. While we all have two arms and two legs people will be working at desks and while people work at desks they will also occasionally browse social sites at their desks.

Mobile is big, but it's not ever going to completely replace web applications designed to be viewed at desks. We haven't even begun to see the start cloud based software, this is all on top of the fact that a huge percentage of the worlds population isn't even on the internet yet.

The web is changing, as ever, but outrageous claims like this are either a product of ignorance or shameless marketing.

webjprgm6• 14 years ago

This reasoning sounds a little lacking, but it's probably a disconnect from my understanding of "mobile" and "cloud" vs. the commenter's intended meaning. Clearly we need different form factors. We have smart phone size and tablet size. We definitely need workstation size. But I see mobile as a natural part of the evolution to the cloud. If data and apps can live in the cloud, then we're not tied to a machine at a desk. We can carry devices with us. And then when we get to a desk, we can keep doing what we've been doing, just on the larger machine. That's what cloud computing keeps talking about. But mobile computing is a piece in the cloud puzzle. Who cares about keeping data in sync between all your computers if you only have one desktop machine? I only care if I have a machines for each form factor and/or location in which I may want to do work.

Also, one possible technological scenario is that our smartphone acts as our central profile repository and when we get to a desktop machine the smartphone talks to it to connect to data, apps, and log you in. In that way the desktop becomes a seamless part of the mobile experience, providing the larger form factor as needed.

So you can actually implement this as all mobile and no cloud, or all cloud and no mobile, but the two are rather synergistic when combined, since mobile devices talk to the cloud and download software from the cloud. Whether the desktop gets my user data from a phone or the ethernet port doesn't matter, but I suspect it could very well do both, using the phone to handle recognizing it's me and logging me in, then using the internet connection to download my desktop apps and larger data. Dropbox can sync data between devices on the same LAN or the internet as needed, so we can do the same for desktop-phone synchronization too.

gaisturiz• 14 years ago

I love that he ends his tirade on the impending irrelevance of current internet companies with [Long YHOO.] I think the major flaw in Mr. Jackson’s line of thought is that Web 1.0, Web 2.0, mobile tech companies and whatever comes next are mutually exclusive of one another. When we talk about the stalwart companies of the Web 1.0’s, Web 2.0’s, etc. we’re talking about very different companies which fulfill different types of needs. We see that they’re not mutually exclusive but rather that they begin to form an intricate symbiotic web in which each player has an important role. Each new ‘phase’ and the companies which fill them are only niches which were previously empty (of which there may be an unknown number.)

I would argue that risks come from companies which through ingenuity can deliver a better option to an existing one (search, social, etc.) And while mobile seems to be growing force, I see it as a complement rather than a competitor to the web; certainly not one that will render the ‘Web dead.’

sakopov• 14 years ago

I think the author is unaware that Amazon is powering a good chunk of internet businessed.

drucken• 14 years ago

Typical Forbes link bait:

- Web is dead

- Amazon is not social

- Google the same as Facebook and obsolete ...

This is HN. Please stop posting and up voting this stuff, thanks.

jinushaun• 14 years ago

I don't know what revisionist history people lived in where they actually thought MySpace was a good idea with staying power and that News Corp's purchase was a smart bet. I remember distinctly how bad MySpace was and how ripe it was for disruption by a better alternative. People didn't use MySpace because it was good. People used it because everyone was currently on there. I also distinctly remember that News Corp bought MySpace right when all my friends were moving to Facebook. Anecdotally, no one I knew talked about MySpace positively and couldn't wait to switch to Facebook. No more ugly profile pages with animated GIFs and obnoxious music? No more slow unreliable website that seemed to be down all the time? No more ads? No more awkward user experience? Didn't take a PhD to see where the market was heading.

Which is why I'm stupefied that people nowadays continue to use MySpace as an example of "it could happen to you" bogeyman story for startups. It was destined to fail or be replaced. There is no lesson there except don't make a product that sucks and hope that people don't notice. They noticed. They found Facebook.

Here's Why Google and Facebook Might Completely Disappear in the Next 5 Years

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