Mornings are the most difficult times in my life.

It’s waking up that gets me. It’s that rush of cold as I roll out from under the covers and remember that a world exists outside of my eyelids. If not for my alarm, and a nagging feeling of personal responsibility, I would probably be fighting back the cold well into mid-afternoon.

In the tech world, Facebook has always been that dream that comes before daybreak. No one really understood it, they weren’t even absolutely certain why they liked it,but the thought that it could be reality helped to hold back the inevitable dawn for just a little while.

Unfortunately for some, like all good dreams, it’s just about time to wake up.

Rolling Out Of Bed

Facebook is not dead or dying. BBC News points out that Facebook lost users for the first time, and questions whether it’s the adults or the kids who happen to be jumping ship. One month of flagging users does not spell doom for any network.

Facebook is not running out of steam. Even though Compete (love it or leave it) will tell you that the traffic for this month has dropped by about 3.3%. There does come a point where user attention saturates, it’s ludicrous to expect constant growth.

The problem isn’t with Facebook at all.

It is, in fact, the same problem we all face in those moments after waking up, when we look back at a dream and wonder how we could have ever believed it was true.

The problem is that Facebook was never, could never be the Social Network for everyone. It could not, no matter how much the tech blogosphere would have liked to believe otherwise.

With Beacon having soured them, and this news seemingly sealing the deal, everyone is just beginning to see that there isn’t any magic behind the idea of Facebook.

No one cares about the Social Graph except Marketers.

The backbone of Facebook is still the college market, not the 30 something crowd who signed on to Facebook for the same reason they pick up books from Oprah’s Book Club.

Facebook will continue to have its place in the sun, until someone more clever than Mark and his team turn out something that returns the focus to the things that the student base really cares about. Mostly the photo albums and the friend stalking.

Facebook is, in short, exactly what it has always been, an evolution and not the savior of the Social space that the tech world seemed ready to believe.

Web 2.0 Roundup

So, as you read about the end of the age, the decline of the space, and the impending death of the dream take some solace in the fact that no matter how many mornings you have to drag yourself through when night comes again, so does the chance to dream again.

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