What if no one comes back?

One of the things I find so fascinating about social networks is the fact that they are powered entirely by and valued entirely on their users. I wrote about this last year when I was blogging more and I will write about it in the future I'm sure.

Facebook is theoretically valued at $10 billion. Not because of the services it can provide or the goods it sells but because of the people that hang out there. What happens if another product comes along that better suits their needs? What if no one comes back tomorrow? How much is it worth? This goes for all social networks, not just Facebook.

I've noticed lately that very few of my friends update their profiles anymore. It makes me wonder whether users are starting to use Facebook differently than they have previously. I have no data so I don't know, but anecdotally I think they are using it more & more exclusively for posting photos and keeping in touch (via status updates or wall posts)- not so much for the profile aspect that started it all. With the seemingly recent boom of Twitter, I've been thinking a marriage between Flickr & Twitter could provide a killer platform for that with many more features.

Is the next user revolt just around the corner? And is there a challenger waiting in the wings for any of the top sites? Who knows but in the meantime I'll be waiting in anticipation.

A bit more reading for ya...
http://mashable.com/2009/05/16/why-revolts-occur/