I didn't do a good job on the "headline". I had hoped for this to be a general discussion. I picked Candy Crush because of it's high profile as of today.
What I should have centered on was this:
The question is not meant to be only for Candy Crush, but for many, if not most, of the social media based businesses.
The underlying part of "social media" as a business model... that I don't understand, is whether the staying power of social connectivity is real, or a passing fad... albeit a 5 or ten year fad.
I look at my 5 year old neice, and wonder if her life over the next 10 years will involve a 24/7 connection to a social grid... and compare that to my childhood, which was limited to two blocks in the early years, and the nearby community of the schools in the later years.
Right or wrong, Facebook/Email/Online gaming/Texting appears to me to be the current social structure in which a young person develops and maintains his/her ego, and persona. The basic question is... CAN IT LAST?
Will everyone eventually be spending their lives being connected to everyone else, via technology? OR... (My belief only) will this fade, as did the CB rsdio craze in the 1980's. Is gaming here to stay? Will it replace the social interaction that clubs, groups and neighborhood used as a glue for building communities?
Sooo... back to the initial thoughts about the economic stability of the social media as a sustainable business model. Will reality be replaced by "virtuality"?
Sooo... 5years... 10 years from now, social technology a major market player?
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/an-investment-app-for-social-media-stocks-2014-03-03