Earlier today, a few friends and I were discussing the evolution of Facebook over the past couple years. We discussed how Facebook used to be just for certain colleges and evolved in the open network we know of today. One of the appeals of Facebook is that our parent’s generation, for the most part, aren’t on it. Our status updates and newsfeed is for our friends, not our parents (or other older relatives).

What will happen, however, in 10 years from now? When a new generation wants to communicate in their own way free of their parent’s oversight, they’ll flock away from their parent’s communication tool. They’ll flock away from Facebook towards something new. Facebook is going to have to learn to be the social network for this new generation. If I were Facebook, I would be creating a new social network targeting the 8-12 year old crowd. This would hook that generation to their own specific social network. I doubt Facebook would ever do this. Like most companies, they think their brand can be the everything to everyone. Well it can’t. And in 10 years, if not sooner, we’re going to see competitors chipping away at the social network giant.