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It's always the same. When the automobile was first being manufactured, many companies jumped in and they are mostly gone now. When the Internet first started, many websites sprung up to do similar tasks, then the market consolidated around a few winners. That is ALWAYS what happens.
The latest craze is Social Networking. Lots of sites have sprung up... Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and many others. Which one will win?
If you put all your energies into the one that fails, you will have wasted time and be behind. If you grasp onto the correct one, that wins and grows, your efforts will be hugely rewarded.
So, which one will win?
Let's look at the big ones.
YouTube
Google bought YouTube and regrets their decision. Google invests a shocking $1 million a day into buying servers and memory just for YouTube because YouTube gobbles up more memory and bandwidth than any other non-profitable service on the web. YouTube is currently losing about a half-billion dollars a year! This cannot last. You may contend: but it is so much fun and so valuable to exchange videos! That's true, but it's losing too much money. Starbucks could dramatically increase their traffic if every single product they offered were free. Their number of customers would skyrocket. Their name and reputation would rise. And, then they'd fail because they would be losing money. Why is it easy to see with Starbucks yet tougher to see with Social Networking? YouTube will not survive.
This site began as a digital online version of the book which Harvard University published every year. To this day, it is mostly for the younger generation. And, they won't pay for services and Facebook will unlikely migrate up to the business crowd which will pay. Sure there are businesses on Facebook, but that is really not their sweet spot. Also, Facebook is very complicated. Groups, Friends, Fan Pages. Considerable work is required to keep this going. Facebook will not survive.
LinkedIn and all the other Facebook take-offs
They are already failing or are too small to be considered as contenders. They are already not surviving.
So, which one will win? No one now really knows, but here is my best forecast...
TWITTER!
Twitter will be the winner. Twitter grew from half-million in early 2008 to 7 million in early 2009 to an expected 100 million in early 2010. That's faster and higher than any site has ever grown ever. Further, Twitter is really easy to do with very little effort, no training, a few very simple rules and tiny messages of only 140 characters. Just like are society these days, just like fast-action movies these days, Twitter is exactly like these. Fast. Easy. Fun. Twitter will be the winner.
I personally am considering dropping my interest in Facebook and focusing entirely on Twitter. I am personally focusing on considerably increasing my Twitter followership. That's where I see the future. Join me.
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