by Michael Tarsala
Facebook could “disappear” in five years, said Ironfire Capital founder Eric Jackson, in an attention-grabbing CNBC interview this week.
It begs the question. If that happens, who will take its place in terms of Web relevancy?
Jackson explains that Facebook is going to have a hard time moving to the next-generation of mobile Web technologies, in the same way that early Web companies have struggled to change and adapt to the social media wave.
Yahoo is a first-generation Web company he explains. It was built around aggregating information and search technology. Sure, it’s still around and employs about 13,000 people. But it’s “disappeared” from relevance in the industry, he argues, as it has failed to make a credible move into social media.
To a lesser degree, the same argument can be made for Google. After much trying, it has made some inroads into social media, but probably not enough. And it’s struggling with its move to mobile tech.
Now look at Facebook. It started in social media — the second Web-based technology wave — and has about 900 million global users.
In some ways, it’s already behind. Jackson argues that the next wave of Web technologies are mobile, with technologies that work on phones and tablets. Some do not even have a Web site, he says.
Jackson argues that the move to mobile is where Facebook will struggle. It will not be wiped off the map, mind you. But he thinks it will fail to move to the next Web-based technologies and struggle to be relevant, perhaps in Yahoo-like fashion.
So is there any positive takeaway from the Facebook IPO? By some measures, Facebook is one of the worst IPOs in history.
Yet its high IPO price could have a positive impact on next-generation Web startups, argues Fred Wilson, founder of Union Square Ventures, one of Covestor’s investors.
Perhaps that bodes well for the next round of mobile-focused Web IPOs.
