Facebook Is Losing Teens • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook Is Losing Teens

#81

Post by cookiecaper » Sun, Oct 20, 2013, 5:39 PM UTC

Silhouette wrote: post #79

wavesounds wrote: post #11

Facebooks is priced at 240X Price to Earnings. If they start losing users or even stop growing its hard to imagine how that PE ratio continues to makes any sense. Even with an increase in mobile revenue its still less then desktop revenue and users are certainly flocking to mobile too which is a double wammy. So facebook has to transition to making more money per user if its user base stops growing. Otherwise you're…

Facebooks is priced at 240X Price to Earnings. If they start losing users or even stop growing its hard to imagine how that PE ratio continues to makes any sense. Does a 240x P/E ever make sense? Maybe if you just patented a fix for global warming or a cure for a common cancer or something of that sort of magnitude, but for a non-essential technology company? I know only a few very successful investors, both professi…

>At 240x, they'd be seriously considering shorting the stock.

I have associates involved in the management of a hedge fund, and they inform me that shorts are so highly demanded for the web IPOs of 2011 and 2012 that they've actually had trouble getting them.

Most professional investors aren't buying the hype this time around, I think. Even Facebook's IPO last year vastly underperformed. The consequences of the inevitable fold of Facebook will be very interesting.

Re: Facebook Is Losing Teens

#82

Post by cookiecaper » Sun, Oct 20, 2013, 5:44 PM UTC

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #33

gohrt wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know Facebook's details, but in theory another possibility to lower P/E: "Stop pouring money into expansion, to lower expenses and increase bottom-line earnings." For example, Amazon could certainly do that, since they spend heavily on expansion

That is an important aspect, but let's consider the P/S (price/sales) ratio to gauge that savings potential: Facebook: 22.3 Google: 5.9 Amazon: 2.3 (source: money.msn.com) Of course, comparing to Amazon doesn't make sense. Retailers are always going to have very low margins and low P/S ratios. But comparing to Google does make sense. Assuming Facebook's potential margins are similar to Google's, Facebook would have t…

Of course, the simple solution is to charge users a small annual fee for advanced features if not even for basic account maintenance. Your FB profile would become read-only if you don't pay an annual fee.

It's always so intriguing to me that people cling so hard to the ad-supported models even though it's shown that they simply don't work except in anomalous cases, not even for Facebook, which surely receives humongous portions of all net users' attention. It's not a good starting strategy for anyone, and it appears that it's not a good long-term strategy even for the lottery winners that have actually "made money" from it heretofore.

Re: Facebook Is Losing Teens

#83

Post by moinnadeem » Sun, Oct 20, 2013, 5:48 PM UTC

As a teenager, Twitter is what everyone is using currently. Don't complicate it, teens just want to be on what their friends are on, and their parents are not on.

Twitter just fits the need.

Re: Facebook Is Losing Teens

#84

Post by Silhouette » Sun, Oct 20, 2013, 6:35 PM UTC

cookiecaper wrote: post #81

Silhouette wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebooks is priced at 240X Price to Earnings. If they start losing users or even stop growing its hard to imagine how that PE ratio continues to makes any sense. Does a 240x P/E ever make sense? Maybe if you just patented a fix for global warming or a cure for a common cancer or something of that sort of magnitude, but for a non-essential technology company? I know only a few very successful investors, both professi…

>At 240x, they'd be seriously considering shorting the stock. I have associates involved in the management of a hedge fund, and they inform me that shorts are so highly demanded for the web IPOs of 2011 and 2012 that they've actually had trouble getting them. Most professional investors aren't buying the hype this time around, I think. Even Facebook's IPO last year vastly underperformed. The consequences of the inevi…

I have associates involved in the management of a hedge fund, and they inform me that shorts are so highly demanded for the web IPOs of 2011 and 2012 that they've actually had trouble getting them.

Interesting anecdote. I'm not surprised that this is the case, but I'm surprised that it's the first time I've seen anyone mention it in a discussion.

Re: Facebook Is Losing Teens

#85

Post by ta_24278 » Sun, Oct 20, 2013, 7:07 PM UTC

They've been losing teens for a while now, and once you start losing teens, a so-called "social networking" website is dead, it doesn't know it yet because the agony may take a while.

Due to its unusual size for facebook it might take a longer while, but it's on the path to irrelevance that many others have walked before: friendster, myspace, msn, etc.

it's funy that the 10-13 years demographics adoption will make or kill an online website.

Re: Facebook Is Losing Teens

#86

Post by VLM » Sun, Oct 20, 2013, 8:18 PM UTC

rietta wrote: post #76

VLM wrote: post #72

At the peak of the CB "bubble" around 1978, roughly 10% of all cars had a CB radio installed in them as a lower bound, although claims were it was higher, like 15% to 20%. That percentage has dropped somewhat since then... There is no particular reason to assume the peaking and decline of a socializing technology must result in its similar competitors growth in a nearly identical field. It could be home video confere…

I never played with CB other than low power walkie talkies from radio shack. I did get into amateur radio in 2003 and do have a radio that can be mounted in the car. There seems to be quite a lot of activity on the air where I live. It's still a fun hobby in 2013 and is a nice break from the daily grind of the internet startup scene. It's funny how different various subcultures are - even among technical people.

Even just within ham radio the subcultures are pretty wide, there's the HF guys, the digital mode guys, the contesters, the microwave builder/experimenters, the public service volunteer guys, the dxpedition ops, the antenna system designers, the satellite/moonbounce ops... The good news is it only takes several decades experience (and $$$$$$) to try everything by which time someone's gone and invented something new.

Re: Facebook Is Losing Teens

#87

Post by klipt » Sun, Oct 20, 2013, 8:30 PM UTC

laichzeit0 wrote: post #51

yeukhon wrote: post #14

Teens are attracted to Twitter, Instagram and Vine. They like these mini social network where they could gain followers by posing interesting tweets or photos or videos. Youtube's top celerity usually started their channels when they were teen (high school, freshman). Certainly getting your channel popular now is harder, so the best way to get attention is either by posting photos or posting a 6-second videos. Vine a…

I noticed this as well. Personally I feel that twitter/instagram/vine is more informal and disposable. Facebook and its albums, status, friend lists, etc., it's all so formal to the point of being old-fashioned. It feels like the current zeitgeist is not to give a crap about anything older than a few hours. Instagram feels like it's only about about making "now" look cool, hash-tagging it and then forgetting about it…

> It's disposable social media.

Or so they think ... until one of those kids grows up, runs for office, and the press digs through their twitter archive to dig up evidence of teenage bad decisions.

Re: Facebook Is Losing Teens

#88

Post by pirateking » Sun, Oct 20, 2013, 8:40 PM UTC

vdaniuk wrote: post #68

pirateking wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is bad in the sense that it is an alternative, and growingly a replacement, to using our biological escape from Reality - the Imagination. Actively engaging the Imagination has a much greater potential to cross over into Reality and affect it in such a way that escape is no longer necessary. Escaping from Reality by relying on external input feeds and output sinks only passively engages the Imagination and does no…

Right. First someone says that isolation is good for adolescencents citing a comedian, you are arguing that mix of external and internal escapism is probably the best as the comic explains. I am not a subject matter expert, but comics are not an authority on psychology for me.

The argument you mention is mine, I was not directly attributing it to the comic. I mentioned the comic because I think it has many great examples of the subject being discussed (see Calvin's relationship with watching TV, in contrast to his relationship with his cardboard box and stuffed tiger).

I don't know what exactly constitutes an "authority" on psychology. If it is a degree in the subject - I have one and its weight is negligible. If it is amount of material published regarding the human condition - Bill Watterson is an authority in the eyes of the many who regularly cite his work, as are many other comedians, artists and writers.

However, last I checked, there is no prevailing general model of the human psyche (nor one for the biomechanism of the brain). Appeals to authority may be taking a while.

Re: Facebook Is Losing Teens

#89

Post by vdaniuk » Sun, Oct 20, 2013, 9:21 PM UTC

pirateking wrote: post #88

vdaniuk wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. First someone says that isolation is good for adolescencents citing a comedian, you are arguing that mix of external and internal escapism is probably the best as the comic explains. I am not a subject matter expert, but comics are not an authority on psychology for me.

The argument you mention is mine, I was not directly attributing it to the comic. I mentioned the comic because I think it has many great examples of the subject being discussed (see Calvin's relationship with watching TV, in contrast to his relationship with his cardboard box and stuffed tiger). I don't know what exactly constitutes an "authority" on psychology. If it is a degree in the subject - I have one and its…

Published papers in psychology journals are authoritative sources for information. I tried googling for information related to Bill Watterson and psychology and couldn't find any links to the relevant information. I am sure that comedy has a lot of insights to offer scientists who study human mind, but I really dont understand why psychologists and/or psychiatrists cite his work. I would like to be proven wrong, could you direct me to the relevant interesting bits of information?

Re: Facebook Is Losing Teens

#90

Post by vdaniuk » Sun, Oct 20, 2013, 9:26 PM UTC

VLM wrote: post #74

vdaniuk wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. First someone says that isolation is good for adolescencents citing a comedian, you are arguing that mix of external and internal escapism is probably the best as the comic explains. I am not a subject matter expert, but comics are not an authority on psychology for me.

Authoritarianism is not much of an argument. None the less, I'll see your making fun of comedians (and who is better to comment on the human condition than a comedian?) and raise the stakes to Zen Buddhism. "And Buddha said, the eightfold path to enlightenment begins with posting to your facebook wall and ends with spend lots of time making your linkedin profile look pretty" Oh no wait maybe I misquoted. I have obser…

I hugely respect Buddhist philosphy but quoting eight fold path in a discussion about addiction to our gadgets is a non sequitur. Do you know who is better to comment on the human condition? Actual scientists who study human mind. And while psychology doesn't conform to some principles of scientific rigor it produces useful models for improving human condition. They often fail, but it is much better than intuition, comedian's intuition included.