A provocative concept to say the least but this article by Eric Jackson details the pace of change and how difficult it is for companies to adapt to new paradigms and new disruptors. The prediction he makes is Google and Facebook Gone in 5 Years. Does this mean we won’t need to share socially and search in the somewhat distant future? Well that is the theory or perhaps another way of looking at it is that there will be new ways of sharing and searching in the future and these companies may not be able to hitch their wagons to these new trends quickly enough.

Update: See the accompanying video of me discussing if Facebook and Google will be gone in 5 years.

What is amazing to me however is that Yahoo was the Google of the past and they were also the Facebook of the past along with AOL. In other words we have to remember the current category leaders do not always retain their leads. Having said that, Google is hedging its bets by launching products in virtually every space it can think of from green energy to self-driving cars to laying residential fiber. It remains to be seen if this company won’t be turned into a massive bureaucracy laden with politics because of the sheer size of it all. Facebook on the other hand has been much more focused on social and with all the data they have amassed over the years, it remains to be seen how another company could compete from a page-view perspective.

Again, Yahoo was in the same position and look what happened there.

Whatever happens however, it will certainly be an interesting ride.