If you believe the doomsayers, the golden era of social media is coming to an end for the current crop of services.
For some time now, people have been predicting the end of Facebook’s dominance, as younger users shun the social network in favour of services like Snapchat. Despite the 1.28 billion active monthly users that have signed up for the service, experts are lining up to forecast its death as it becomes (they say) increasingly irrelevant.
In February, Twitter revealed its user numbers were falling and it had failed to keep up with projected targets.
Instead of 400 million monthly active users by the end of 2013 as it expected, the service had only reached 255 million by the end of March this year. That’s still a 25 per cent increase year on year, but nowhere near the dizzy heights the company had expected.
Google+, meanwhile, is being described as a dead end for the company, a doomed project that is simply begging to have the plug pulled.
While it hasn't quite unseated Facebook from its social networking throne, at the last count in October 2013, it had 540 million active users using at least one Google+ service, with 300 million users active in "the stream".
The service suffered a blow last month when Vic Gundotra, the man behind Google+, said he was stepping down, sparking speculation about the future of the project.
However, don’t expect Twitter or Facebook to go anywhere soon. Unlike some of these services, the firms are still increasing their user numbers, despite predictions of their demise.
Google Wave
A service that may have been a bit ahead of its time, Google Wave was billed as a new communications platform. While it had its fans, Wave left the average user more than a little confused.
It mixed elements of email with collaborative tools so you could work on projects, share messages and send photos and videos to friends.
You could even add polls. There was live typing, so you could see what your collaborators were adding as they were doing it. It seemed like a great idea.
The only problem was that no one really got it. Maybe it was too complex, but only one million people were using it so the inevitable happened: Wave got shut down in 2010 and people tend to forget it ever existed.
Google Buzz
Which brings us nicely along to Google Buzz. (What is it about Google and failed social projects?)
It began in 2010, billed as a new way to start conversations about things that interested you, before fizzling out more than a year later.
It didn’t get off to a great start. The very things that Google thought would appeal to users were actually the most criticised.
The tight integration with Gmail accounts, the ability to share anything easily and Google’s decision to automatically set up Gmail users to follow posts from users that they interacted with over email caused an immediate backlash from users who were worried about their privacy.
And rightly so; it emerged that less- than-stringent privacy settings had accidentally revealed the locations of users, including one case where a woman’s abusive ex was alerted to her location.
It was a bit of a PR minefield for the tech giant. Google Buzz died off officially in December 2011 as the company switched its focus to Google+.
Friends Reunited
Before Facebook became a commonly cited factor in divorces, there was Friends Reunited.
Not only was the site responsible for reuniting childhood friends who had lost touch over the years, but apparently it was also blamed for a surge in relationship breakdowns as first loves met up again. ITV paid £170 million for the site in 2005.
Friends Reunited is still alive and kicking, albeit with a bit of restructuring announced last year. Facebook and other competition hasn’t managed to kill it off yet. In fact, there is a Friends Reunited app for Facebook.
Bebo
At one time, Bebo was the social network of choice for Irish teenagers (and wannabe teenagers). Everyone was on it. Founded by Michael and Xochi Birch in 2005, it was the top social network in Ireland, Britain and New Zealand, and third most popular in the US.
The company was sold to AOL for $850 million in 2008, when it had more than 34 million registered users and was racking up seven billion page views every month. Facebook was already making its mark, though; by December 2007, it had passed 58 million users worldwide.
Bebo hasn’t gone away, though; in 2013, its founders bought it back for a bargain $1 million and have been working on ways to rejuvenate the platform. So far, the strategy seems to be the promise of three new apps coming this year.
MySpace
Launched in August 2003, MySpace was once the place to be. At the height of its popularity, it even overtook Google as the most visited website in the US, and enjoyed a spell – from 2005 to 2008 – as the top social network.
Its limitations however eventually became its downfall. Users wanted more from their pages and with other sites – we’re looking at you, Facebook – offering an increasing range of services, its membership drifted to alternative services, and their friends followed suit.
In 2008, Facebook overtook MySpace in terms of user numbers, and it was a slow decline from there. That was probably bad news for News Corp, which paid $580 million for the site in 2005.
These days, MySpace is more of a music promotion network than a way for friends to keep in touch.
It is even owned by Justin Timberlake, who bought it in 2011 with Specific Media Group for $35 million – but how the mighty have fallen. The latest statistics show MySpace was ranked 982 in the world by total web traffic, and was languishing in 392nd place in the US.
Friendster
Before Facebook was even an argument in a Harvard dorm room, Friendster was paving the way for social networking. Founded in 2002, the service allowed users to get in touch with each other, share videos and videos, leave each other messages and swap details on events.
These days, Friendster has shut up shop as a social networking site and has reinvented itself as a social gaming platform. It even links in with Facebook to allow you to brag about your game achievements to your 981 online friends.
