Big mother watch

... Facebook ... will probably go into unlamented terminal decline as the intrusive, stalker-ish changes required to effectively monitor, control and monetise its users become annoying enough to make many of them abandon Facebook and adopt The Next Big Thing, whatever that turns out to be*

* I may be wrong, but don't start calling me a dimwit until Facebook's clocked up another five years of rude health. 

Me, March 2012

With less than three and a half years to go, Facebook's not in intensive care yet, but it's apparently no longer cool enough for a rising generation of users. What I got wrong was the locus of off-putting privacy concerns - teens aren't that worried about sharing every detail of their their lives with advertisers, potential employers, malicious hackers and various arms of the security state, but the idea of being friended by mum and dad is clearly way too intrusive to tolerate.