I know the title will be a little controversial, but these questions have to be asked.

I can imagine lots of people reaching for their keyboards to comment. They might be saying, “The 500 million active users on Facebook can’t all be wrong.” My question to such commenters would be. “Wrong about what?”

Facebook says there are 23½ million users in the UK – that’s almost the same as every single person between 15 and 45.

Facebook says the average user spends more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook – does that include the 10 -12 hours a day Facebook is open in a browser tab on my PC?

The trouble with statistics, no one ever says on what basis they are measured or calculated – statistics can be manipulated (remember the old adage, “There are lies, damn lies, and statistics”?)

Why do people use Facebook? Here are some reasons …

• People – to communicate with other people – good
• Young people – peer pressure – bad
• Businesses – because their clients are there – no option

Are people happy with what Facebook offers (or delivers)? We hear comments like …

• “Its never going to be less popular.” – umm … never is a long time!
• “What you will find given a few years is that there will be 3rd party applications that will give you the experience your after.” – admission that Facebook isn’t expected to deliver for some time to come.
• “When I post something, I never know where it’s going to appear” – from a structural and workflow perspective, Facebook is a mess
• “Facebook: re-inventing the applications we’ve been using for decades in a more crap way” – from an IT professional’s perspective.
• “It confuses the life out of me” – and it’s constantly changing.
• “Not ideal but you can use the Notes app to leave longer updates” – said about the 420-character limit in some places (but it doesn’t tell you untill too late), by a Social Media Manager
• “The new group functionality is different than what we see here (old style group) but unfortunately there’s no migration path” – Social Media Manager in answer to the non-appearance of some groups

All these comments come from people who, like us, use Facebook every day for business as well as personal reasons.

Predictions about companies and technologies are notoriously wide of the mark, or even just plain wrong. Who, 30 years ago could have predicted the trouble General Motors had in the last few years (bankrupcy), or the demise and disappearance of British Leyland, Woolworths, MFI, Waterford and Wedgwood. IBM didn’t originally take the PC seriously, giving Bill gates his first opportunity. According to Tomorrow’s World, I should in 2011 have a little robot which automatically vacuums my house.

Most of these didn’t fail because their product or service was poor.

Facebook may evolve into something really good. But it has limited time to do this. How long? I have no idea.

Will one of the better products out there take over? Don’t know, and yes, there are better products than Facebook.

Will it be something completely new? More than likely.

Do I eat sliced bread? Wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole.