It actually is one endless loop. Something comes out and nothing like it has ever been seen or heard, or even thought of before. But because it is new and access is limited, it is pricey. Mostly, the rich and wealthy will have them first (or some lucky people who just stumbled upon it), and you are part of the “in” crowd. The masses either don’t know what you have, or they just don’t have the means to have what you have.
Then time takes its course. Through advertising and word-of-mouth, now everybody knows what you know. Soon some brilliant entrepreneur from China made something exactly like it (or just like it) for a quarter of the price, opening the floodgates for the masses to devour. But you insist you got the “first generation” or “knew it first”. But then everybody has it, and you’re just like everybody.
It enters popular culture. Mass media mentions it, celebrities use it, and the masses who idolize their celebrities look for it. Everybody talks about it. There is no exclusivity, only the word everybody.
Then something new comes along.
I mean, in the early 2000′s there was this social networking site called Friendster *shudder*. Everybody wanted to be everybody’s friends. It was pretty exclusive, one needed an internet connection to check it, and you needed some digital equipment to post content in it (camera phone or digicam – pretty expensive those days). Soon, everybody could afford internet in their homes, while phones had cameras by default already. Local cellphone carriers made it easy to check on it, making it accessible to everyone. And soon, it became polluted with what people in the upper strata call “common people” that even the term “Friendster Pic” was somewhat a derogatory term (or in less offensive remarks, a pun).
Then came Facebook.
Of course, in the past 5 years or so, internet trends changed. There was the YouTube boom. Then came the blogging revolution, and still unsatisfied with that, came microblogging. Soon, email capacities became unlimited, and so did repositories for photo album and sharing.
In short, trends were changing faster than how Friendster, High5, Zorpia, Multiply, MySpace and what-have-you social networking sites out there could adapt to it.
In my opinion, Facebook was just at the right place at the right time. Mustering new web technologies out there (the interface does have that snappy, Gmail feel), while combining blogging and microblogging, photo and video albums, instant messaging, and even games in this interweaving network of friends, family, school and business contacts… it does seem like something.
All this brings me to my million-dollar question: Is Facebook a fad, a cross-cultural trend the internet shares… a product of the culture cycle?
Yes, no, and maybe.
Yes, because given the dynamic nature of the internet, some trends will die, and some will blossom, and soon Facebook will face competition with others who have adapted to new styles, and new ways of connecting with each other. It will slowly fade into net obscurity, like the fate of those before it.
No, Facebook is something so revolutionary that even businesses and academic communities use it, and it does give results. It will continue to shape the way people connect with each other, and it only gets better from here on. Think of it as search engines, or web-based mail clients. They’re here to stay.
Maybe. With the internet, nobody really knows. If they are fast enough to adapt, sure. IBM did use to sell accounting machines (and clocks, mind you), and now they are still alive, providing web services and servers across the globe. In the next ten years, we might not even have PC’s in our homes anymore, or something like that.
Whatever it is, I’ll give this current trend a pass. Lets see how long I’ll stay here. Or better yet, lets see how long Facebook stays…