Facebook Is Dead!

So folks, here is my absolutely contrarian prediction. 

Facebook Is Dead!

Who in their right mind would say something like that?

Facebook has 2 billions users! 

Well I am one of those users.

But even though I use it. 

I recognize that it is essentially useless and a waste of time. 

Yes, there are cute videos and messages and photos on there. 

But basically if you’re honest, it’s mostly a lot of garbage and time sink!

Twitter has a newsfeed purpose. 

Instagram has a photo sharing purpose. 

LinkedIn has a professional networking purpose. 

But Facebook is a glorious made-up fad!

I believe that people are getting tired of the:

– Meaningless, mind-numbing posts of what they had for breakfast today (and every other fart, literally). 

– Phony self-branding veneer as if everything is always perfect in their lives (look I’m on another vacation skydiving!)

– Virtual relationships rather than genuine friendships and real connections (I’m fiends with over 3,000 people!)

– The millions of empty slogans, political statements, and impersonal wishes to everyone for every occasion (have a really happy birthday!)

Frankly, I think that people are reaching the point of realization where they want more from the time they spend online.

– More depth of feelings

– More substance of thought

– More reality than superficiality. 

Yes, we all need some downtime too to mellow and just laugh a little, but I am fairly certain that the time people are putting into Facebook is not really meeting their true social networking needs. 

In the end, we will find out that Facebook is the epitome of the greatest fool theory–where everyone dumps their shit from the day, hoping that there is some greater fool who will superficially lopping it all up. 😉

(Source Graphic: Andy Blumenthal)

Twitter’s Vine Is DOA

So I tried out Twitter’s new Vine App–and it is a thoroughly mind-numbing experience.

There is an old saying that “wine is fine, but liquor is quicker,” in this case the only thing that will put you under the table more quickly than Vine is some hard liquor.

You hold your finger to your screen and take 3 short video clips and Vine splices it together sequentially into a 6-second video that loops over and over again.

As you scroll your feed in your Vine, every time you come to the next video, it comes alive in these short meaningless bursts, and then goes into its crazy loop until you scroll down to the next annoying video clip.

When Twitter decided to put an end to its blog, Posterous, that it purchased just a year earlier, I thought that they had gone off the rails.

Now that I see they have replaced any semblance of thinking and sharing through blogs with loop-the-loop 6-second video feeds of babies crying and dogs asking to be taken for a walk, I know someone at Twitter must seriously be on the bottle.

There is a 6 second video for Twitter that says you’ve lost your minds. 😉

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Robert Michalove)