I don't think that Facebook per se is a fad, but you're probably right that it will be gone or irrelevant in five years, because the aspects of its service that Facebook is trying to build its revenue model around are almost certainly a fad.
Facebook to me is an enhanced contact list. Most of the people I know treat it the same way. The ability to stay in contact and re-connect with friends, contacts, and acquaintances who you no longer interact with on a daily basis is its main feature.
But the "social" aspect of the games and apps available on Facebook's platform is a novelty, and once that novelty wears off, what's the attraction? Facebook as a layer on top of the open internet to signal what I "like"? What's the point?
I think that Facebook are scrambling now to try to find a viable business model, and trying to establish themselves as a _platform_, broadly defined, because they realize that there are severe limits to how far you can monetize social networks, but they haven't really figured out how to leverage their success as a social network to expand into something that can sustainably generate revenue.
Facebook to me is an enhanced contact list. Most of the people I know treat it the same way. The ability to stay in contact and re-connect with friends, contacts, and acquaintances who you no longer interact with on a daily basis is its main feature.
But the "social" aspect of the games and apps available on Facebook's platform is a novelty, and once that novelty wears off, what's the attraction? Facebook as a layer on top of the open internet to signal what I "like"? What's the point?
I think that Facebook are scrambling now to try to find a viable business model, and trying to establish themselves as a _platform_, broadly defined, because they realize that there are severe limits to how far you can monetize social networks, but they haven't really figured out how to leverage their success as a social network to expand into something that can sustainably generate revenue.