We think of Google and Facebook as Web gorillas. They’ll be around forever. Yet, with the rate that the tech world is moving these days, there are good reasons to think both might be gone completely in 5 – 8 years. Not bankrupt gone, but MySpace gone. In the Internet world, we’ve really had 3 generations:
- 1994 – 2001- Netscape, Yahoo, AOL, Google, Amazon
- 2002 – 2009- Facebook, LinkedIn, and Groupon
- And now from 2010 – present- It’s ALL MOBILE
Even when it seems painfully obvious to everyone, there just doesn’t seem to be the capacity of these older companies to shift to the new MOBILE paradigm. They assume, over time, people will use their mobile applications almost entirely instead of websites.
The older web companies still seem unsure how to adapt to this new paradigm.
Are companies like Google, Amazon, and Yahoo! obsolete? They’re still growing. They still have enormous audiences. They also have very talented managers.But with each new paradigm shift (first to social, now to mobile, and next to whatever else), the older generations get increasingly out of touch and likely closer to their significant decline. What’s more, the tech world in which we live in seems to be speeding up.
In just 2 years the iPad, has sold 67 million. And to put that in some context, it took us 24 years to sell that many Macs and 5 years for that many iPods and over 3 years for that many iPhones…
Facebook is also probably facing a tough road ahead as this shift to mobile happens.
The bottom line is that the next 5 – 8 years could be incredibly dynamic. It’s possible that both Google and Facebook could be shells of their current selves – or gone entirely.