Unlike previous leaders of Social Networking such as Friendster and MySpace, Facebook is fast and easy to use.  It has an image problem though, and projects arrogance, often due to abrasive remarks of its founder & CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.  To its credit, the company responds to criticism quickly and recently unveiled a set of user-friendly privacy settings to alleviate a growing uneasiness among its users.  Despite the naysayers, Facebook will not go away anytime soon.

Most people do not like change. Facebook has effectively done what the author Geffory Moore described as “Crossing the Chasm,” and moved from the realm of early adapters (teenagers & young adults) to mainstream (moms, pops, and grandparents). It’s simply too inconvenient for 500 million users to move to a new social network, when Facebook is “good enough” to connect with your friends & family.

Previous social networks lost their leads because of explicit pains such as slow load time, and horrible user interface. Facebook’s shortcomings are subtle.  For better or for worse, it has become a fundamental part of the Internet Experience, and will be with us for a very long time.