Is it me, or do all portal-type services seem to go through the same curve, since CompuServe to Facebook? Unified interface and handy tools excite early adopters, interest scales in sigmoid fashion, plateaus, and diminishing returns set in as the signal-to-noise ratio declines, followed by profitability.
It seems to happen over and over again, like waves on the seashore. Many people clearly want a 'home' on the net with a structured community...much the same way people like suburban tract housing with homeowner's associations. Every few years someone makes fat money by finding a new way to cater to these people, few of whom want to maintain their own domain or pages. Numerous me-too sites grab a small slice of this (like facespace.com...really). 5 years later, it's like that nightclub down the street that used to be so cool.
What you describe sounds like the restaurant (hospitality) life cycle.
It's like any entertainment, if it gets stale, people move on. I also think of all those post WW2 neighborhood restaurants and bars that slowly sunk into oblivion.
Here's just one opinion piece on the restaurant topic that lists the following:
Stage 1: Grand Opening & Awesome Service
Stage 2: Building Towards Peak Crowds
Stage 3: Staff and/or Owner Turnover
Stage 4: Sinking Towards Shit Ass Service
Stage 5: Disaster!!!
If you're an industry social media analyst, then you're one sloppy SOB and you need to tidy up your essays.
but,
If you're not paid full time to do social media research, or if you're not doing a PhD on the subject, then please accept my humble "WTF", for you are one smart SOB. What you have produced is the meeting of the American Mathematical Society and 4Chan: an epic lore of the interwebs and a testament to your eternal pwning of intellectual rigor. You the (wo?)man, Sensei!
Is it me, or do all portal-type services seem to go through the same curve, since CompuServe to Facebook? Unified interface and handy tools excite early adopters, interest scales in sigmoid fashion, plateaus, and diminishing returns set in as the signal-to-noise ratio declines, followed by profitability.
It seems to happen over and over again, like waves on the seashore. Many people clearly want a 'home' on the net with a structured community...much the same way people like suburban tract housing with homeowner's associations. Every few years someone makes fat money by finding a new way to cater to these people, few of whom want to maintain their own domain or pages. Numerous me-too sites grab a small slice of this (like facespace.com...really). 5 years later, it's like that nightclub down the street that used to be so cool.