“It’s being reported that Apple recently spent $4.5 million to acquire the icloud.com domain name, which leads us to believe that a complete revamp of the Apple ecosystem is underway. Sometime in the near future, the greatest innovator of the century (so far), Steve Jobs, will take the stage and reveal to the world how the era of cloud computing will work for the next 10 years,” Jason Schwarz writes for Seeking Alpha. “We think that iCloud could become a viable threat not only to Netflix but, more importantly, to Facebook.”
“In the evolution of the social network sector, Facebook replaced MySpace because MySpace became too edgy/dirty for the masses. When historians look back at the Facebook stage, I believe they will view it as a transitional social platform rather than a defining technology,” Schwarz writes.
Whereas MySpace was, as already mentioned, too edgy, Facebook is too juvenile. Its overall weakness can be summarized in the following four points:
• An uncomfortable amount of voyeurism
• Juvenile communication methods
• A distorted social reality
• The biggest Facebook users are reportedly narcissistic, insecure and have low self-esteem
Schwarz writes, “The next Facebook will solve the problems of voyeurism, juvenile communication, reality distortion, invasion of privacy, and the endless stream of irrelevant information. I think the next Facebook could be iCloud. The Jobs model is to take a successful product, improve it, and turn it into a revolution.The launch of iCloud is Apple’s opportunity to take all the lessons it has learned from the early phases of iTunes, the App Store, and its observations of social networking to create the ultimate ecosystem and turn it into a space where people choose to spend the majority of their digital time.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Viridian” for the heads up.]
But will it have FarmVille??
God I hope not! No Mafia Wars, either!
Lost me at “MySpace too edgy” … huh!??
How will all those good looking well groomed social media experts ( after a two week crash course and heavy mashable reading) work? They will have no place to look all knowing and all powerful Social Media Experts! lol
Myspace wasn’t edgy, it was ugly. My God, most people’s pages would make me wanna puke, looking at them.
+1
Agreed. Myspace was hideous to look at, with all the flashing and tiling going on the background of pages. I also take exception with the idea that big Facebook users are narcissistic and have low self-esteem. I’m sure some of them do, but most people I know on FB like the idea of reconnecting with a lifetime’s worth of friends and family in one easy-to-use format.
If Facebook is to fall, it WON’T be because of anything Apple does, but because their service becomes difficult or uncomfortable or irritating to use. Changing the interface and security set-up, which they seem to do every few months, is one sure way to fall by the wayside.
If FB is to fall it will be because users wont trust it. M$ is falling now because users dont trust it (ie viruses and the like). Will Apple create something that can be trusted? Do you trust Apple? Does Apple have integrity? I know I dont trust FB.
The article actually said it was the BIGGEST users, not just “big” users, who are narcissistic, etc. You may not know anybody like this, but there are some folks who treat FB more like some celebs with Twitter, posting their every thought and deed every freaking day.
I think those are the folks the writer means.
What a day. I just read over at Mac360 about a guy predicting that Chrome OS is going to destroy not only the iPhone and iPad by 2012 but by 2013 it would destroy Win 7, Mac, Nokia, RIM and others. Yeah, he said all that. Now this dude is predicting what Apple is going to do with this iCloud. Poor Facebook will lose all 600 million members. Right. That will be something. Of course Apple has already revolutionized the social scene with Ping. I believe it already has more than 100 members and gets a new one almost everyday. Yes that is one successful project there.
can i have some of the iclouds this guy is smoking?
i agree FB will fall away to something better at some point, but i doubt anyone will be able to predict how/when. It will most likely get started with a younger crowd and expand to where FB is today. .. being friends with your mom.
“voyeurism, juvenile communication, reality distortion, invasion of privacy, and the endless stream of irrelevant information”
I think this defines social media. How can you change the personality of people who are attracted to social media?
+1
..And myspace is the ghetto of the internet now…
Facebook is as he describes only if you allow it to be. The flexibility to block or remove all of his complaints is built in if you take the time to find it.
The fact that you have to “take the time to find it” is part of whats wrong with FaceBook (as he stated in his article). A well designed social media site would be dead simple with all of it’s functions right up front and easy to implement.
Yes! Exactly!
Thank you!
I use FaceBook, but I hate it. And you’ve stated exactly why.
The way they keep changing the security settings drives me crazy. And I know a number of people who’ve already dropped it for the same reason.
Apple should create a social network site that helps you connect with people in your local community. Lots of wonderful networks to be created there.
What Apple MUST do with iCloud, if it is going to create a social networking system, is to keep it about the individual and not let it be overrun by businesses trying to market themselves. Facebook is being heavily hit by that now. Of course, Apple will have to build in some kind of business differentiation, because businesses will flock to something that becomes successful in an effort to reach their customers.
Before you flame me, I’m a small business owner and I appreciate what small and large businesses need to do to market their products. It’s just that Facebook is not designed for such efforts, and it winds up cluttering up the entire thing.
So Ping isn’t enough for Apple?
classic JG. Well done!
I think ping was a limited experiment.
I think Jobs tried his had with social with a little project called Ping… didn’t work out to well… don’t think Facebook is quite ready for a take down just yet… but it will be… Just as AOL was THE place to be online back in the ’90’s, but withered up… FB will do the same… just don’t think the time is quite right yet.
AOL was NEVER the place to be. At one time I even blocked email from anyone with an AOL email account.
it is an intriguing idea that Apple could build a competitor to FB. I don’t use FB now, but I’d be interested in something built with elegance by Apple designers. I often think of that slide Steve shows placing Apple at the intersection of Liberal Arts and Technology. That synthesis could inform a really useful communication form.
Apple doesn’t design products to beat competitors; it designs them to delight customers in an area of massive business opportunity.
Well said.
When we look back at 1950-era public service videos we should all remember that sometimes things change drastically. When we look back at Windows 98 we should remember that sometimes things change quickly. It is highly unlikely that Facebook with even exist in 20 years.
Apple won’t go after Facebook because fb is going after google. Apple will go after flikr.
I’m starting a new social media site. narcissist.com It’s going to be a hit!
As much as I love Apple, I don’t think their culture can ever give rise to a successful peer product. They’re all about elevation and control, not hanging out and being one of the crowd.
somehow iCloud me doesn’t sound as coolnas Facebook me.