“We think of Google and Facebook as Web gorillas. They’ll be around forever. Yet, with the rate that the tech world is moving these days, there are good reasons to think both might be gone completely in 5 – 8 years,” Eric Jackson writes for Forbes. “Not bankrupt gone, but MySpace gone. And there’s some academic theory to back up that view, along with casual observations from recent history.”

“More and more in tech, it seems that your long-term viability as a company is dependent on when you were born,” Jackson writes. “Think of the differences between generations and when we talk about how the Baby Boomers behave differently from Gen X’ers and additional differences with the Millennials. Each generation is perceived to see the world in a very unique way that translates into their buying decisions and countless other habits.”

Jackson writes, “With each new paradigm shift (first to social, now to mobile, and next to whatever else), the older generations get increasingly out of touch and likely closer to their significant decline. What’s more, the tech world in which we live in seems to be speeding up… Yahoo is already a shell of its 2000 self. There is increasing chatter (including from me) about how Google’s facing a painful multiple contraction, once its desktop search business (still accounting for the vast majority of its revenues and profits) starts to fall off a cliff as users dramatically drop traditional search for new ways of getting information they want in a mobile world… Facebook is also probably facing a tough road ahead as this shift to mobile happens.”

Read more in the full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Piero" for the heads up.]