BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here

More From Forbes

Edit Story

Facebook Joins The Uncool, Say Reports. Why That's Cool

This article is more than 10 years old.

Not cool: Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

"When did Facebook become so uncool?" CNN asked the other day. And after an entertaining intro, the author John D. Sutter took some guesses:

Maybe it was when users realized how much data Facebook was collecting about them. Maybe it was when CEO Zuckerberg started to seem less like that geeky, counterculture college kid and more like a run-of-the-mill billionaire.

Totally legitimate possibilities, but I have another theory: Facebook lost some cool the day I joined. It became even less cool the day my mother joined.

I know a lot of people who still use Yahoo! You remember Yahoo!, the fourth largest website in the world, according to Alexa. And there are people who still use Microsoft Windows OS. That uncool brand, by the way, has 85.5 percent of the market share, according to NetMarketShare. And, believe it or not, there are still people who think Google is pretty cool. I don't mean just use Gmail, Google Docs, Google Voice, Google Calendar, YouTube, Android, but actually think the products are cool. Biggest website in the world. Whatever.

More from Sutter:

As a technological juggernaut, Facebook is more Microsoft than Tumblr. To use a musical analogy employed on Twitter, it's the Nickelback to Instagram's Bon Iver.

But let's look at that in another light: Which of those have been the more successful brands thus far? I'm talking ubiquity and profits, just for a moment. Microsoft vs. Tumblr? Nickelback vs. Bon Iver? It's not a cool question, I know.

So people don't like that Facebook bought Instagram. "Some Instagram users said they were downloading all of their photos and then deleting them from the app just so Facebook couldn't get its hands on them." My my. I could see why that grainy shot of you at your favorite tapas bar is too sacred to land on Facebook. How uncool of Instagram to grab a $1 billion check. That sepia vibe that's so seamless to share just lost its glow.

Facebook used to be hip, back when it had just thousands of users and that Harvard-educated countercultural geek was packing for California with Justin Timberlake. But now the Westchester County child of a dentist and psychiatrist has lost his mojo to a $17+ billion personal wealth portfolio. He'll go to no mojo with the IPO. He's almost like a businessman.

My mom cannot get enough of Facebook these days. I, on the other hand, spend more and more time on Twitter. So look out, Twitter, you might have to clear out some of that cool you had back in 2009. Otherwise, there's not going to be any room to put all the cash.