I think if you take a deep look at some of these companies, their declines make a whole lot of business sense. Consider Yahoo. Terry Semel made some critical errors in the last few years of his reign, then Jerry Yang took over. Jerry Yang is a great entrepreneur, but his term as CEO was full of strategic blunders (ie – he didn’t cut costs quickly enough and he was very slow to react to a softening ad market).

Or there is Digg. I used to love Digg, but the service itself was marred with some serious problems. Ultra conservative groups were banding together to censor Digg and keep liberal articles from hitting the front page. They really should have caught that with an algorithm (it would be very, very easy to write). After that news broke, Kevin Rose had a choice. He could either redesign the service from scratch, or he could implement an algorithm to keep articles from being gamed. He chose to redesign the service and, as often happens, the magic was lost and users (myself included) ran away.

Finally, consider the ‘decline’ of AOL. AOL hit its peak when the consumer friendly web was in its infancy. People needed a highly simplified simplified, curated experience and AOL stepped in to fill that void. Thing is, consumers quickly came up to speed, and other technology (ie – broadband access) became popular.

These three companies ultimately provide a case study on why technology companies can go from heroes to zeroes. Yahoo fell victim to hubris – its leadership seemed to buy into the Yahoo legend and poor decisions began to flow. As a product, Digg had some serious problems and when these problems came to light, the product imploded and users found a better offering. Finally, AOL declined because its customers (and technology) changed.

If you look at the other companies on this list, they all fall into these categories. MySpace wasn’t a very good product and so its users embraced an alternative. AltaVista was great…until Google came along and showed just how bad their search results were. Delicious and Flickr (which used to be great services) fell into the vortex that we call Yahoo.

I can go on, but I think that the point is clear – companies usually decline for fairly predictable reasons. Facebook’s real challenge will be weathering these failure points. For example, I still don’t think they are terribly good at mobile. As mobile becomes a bigger part of peoples’ lives, Facebook could decline if a competitor provides a better mobile experience. Or, there is the problem of scale. What happens if all that fresh IPO cash turns into a buying frenzy? Will Facebook become another Yahoo, with products like Delicious, Flickr (and on and on) being both stagnant yet incredibly expensive and inefficient? Or, what happens if people suddenly decide, ‘hmmmm, I don’t like giving my information away for free.’??

Just thinking about the time where someone gives you a link to his blog, and it is a detailed look into his perspectives on his faith. You may decide to not hire based on different reasons, but now you have been exposed to info on a ground that could cause some concern.

But my lawyer card means that I am required to worry for a living.

Don’t want to detract from interview though…this may be one of my fave of the 15.

1 – Yes he’s smitten. He’s already proposed to me TWICE.

2 – More on the Top Employer comp with KPMG can be found here: http://jillianwalker.wordpress.com/2010/11/14/what-makes-a-top-employer-part-4-success/

3 – I feel like we could have talked about hours on this topic. My point was that rather than have companies run away from social media because they’re worried about making a mistake, they should get educated on what they are allowed to do. This is echoed by Jeph’s comment about not knowing what is allowed/prohibited. I’ve always lived by never dig deep, skim of info only — and don’t go anywhere near the protected grounds. I find that more and more applicants are applying with LinkedIn profiles, blogs and electronic portfolios of their work. They are proud of what they put online.

PS – Jeph, you should write a post on it. Tons of cases online about employees being fired for social media oopsie daisies, as well as, employers making the wrong call when utilizing the info. I wrote a post for Elevated last year, but can’t seem to find it. Another thing to bring up is perhaps European/Asian norm to apply for jobs with their picture on the resume and/or potential employer discrimination re: candidate names or communities they live in.
Jillian Walker´s last [type] ..Podcasting with Jeph Maystruck

1 – No I am not smitting, she’s just that intimidating.

2 – Agreed

3 – I’m not sure if she meant to dismiss the human rights issue of hiring people with the access to information we have now. I think she meant that people are going to search for you inevitably, so it’s your duty to ensure your online footprint stays positive. And to put more onus on management to show best practices and encourage smarter usage of online platforms.

Though I think you bring up a very important topic that I should’ve asked her about (or possibly a blog post), the human rights side of what you can and can’t use in regards to hiring or not, after finding something negative online. I’m curious to know what people are allowed/prohibited to use when doing research on a potential candidate.

Have you seen more legal cases involving discrimination or illegal actions involving social media? I’d be curious to know….

(1) Jeph, she kicked your ass. Amazing to see someone match your energy, and then some. Is it fair to guess that you might have been a little disarmed because you are smitten?

(2) Amazing level of drive. Her self confidence in business was impressive. Loved the KPMG/TO segment.

(3) My lawyer side came out when listening to her thoughts on hiring and social media. I was a little surprised about dismissing the concern about human rights issues when harvesting info on social media.