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Reasons to think that, in terms of influence if not wealth, Facebook has peaked

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Reasons to think that, in terms of influence if not wealth, Facebook has peaked

#31

Post by lou1306 »

diegoperini wrote: post #29
rhizome wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a math sense, the signal to noise ratio on FB became much higher over the last decade. At inception, it was a focused way to directly communicate with a close college circle. Now its effectively as open as Myspace, bombards you with ads, and as with all wide networks, the discourse has dropped to meme / quiz bot level I think you mean "much lower" signal to noise ratio.

I'm a non native English speaker. Which one is more suitable for "less quality"?

Lower.

High SNR = Much signal, little noise

Low SNR = Much signal, much noise

Re: Reasons to think that, in terms of influence if not wealth, Facebook has peaked

#32

Post by clay_the_ripper »

utellme wrote: post #23
clay_the_ripper wrote: post #17

I’m no fan of Facebook, but I don’t agree with the premise of the article. The power of Facebook lies in its network effect: something on the order of 2 billion have active Facebook accounts. Whether or not people are spending more or less time on the platform doesn’t matter as much as people seem to think it does. What matters is the fact that they can associate web browsing actions (pages visited etc) with your Fac…

It's correct and incorrect at the same time. Social networks like cars, they give value when it's being used. To sell ads social networks must be sure that someone scrolling feeds. No usage - no gains. Even with huge amount of users data nothing guaranteed. You can't sell same stuff periodically, big data has value only when they are actual.

That’s the point though-they don’t need you to scroll to make money off you. You only need a registered account, and they can track a massive amount about what you do online and then serve you ads across millions of sites and mobile apps. All of this happens off of Facebook owned properties.

Re: Reasons to think that, in terms of influence if not wealth, Facebook has peaked

#33

Post by lou1306 »

bernardino wrote: post #25
namelost wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real world, let's hope.

Yay for the real world! I recently deleted almost all my accounts online, i.e. Github, LinkedIn, Twitter. I only have this account left and few others which are for learning purposes. I don't know for certain why, but I feel this need to be empty in a sort of way and do away with the non-essentials: digitally, physically, and internally, i.e. use the terminal instead of an ide, use technological devices less and do m…

Well, at least an active Github account is a sufficient (but non-necessary) proof that you have at least a basic understanding of Git. But still, there are lots of ways to captivate employers: a good old coding blog can beat many a LinkedIn profile.

Re: Reasons to think that, in terms of influence if not wealth, Facebook has peaked

#34

Post by namrog84 »

clay_the_ripper wrote: post #30
randomsearch wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if those two billion accounts are bullshit? Has anyone actually done a sample of Facebook users (or humans) to check those stats? I do not believe them, based on my personal experience and the very large number of businesses and bots on facebook. Given the massive incentive for Facebook to lie, we’d be naive to take their numbers for granted. If they provided really fine-grained data, we could easily verify thei…

Even if the MAUs are half of what they claim (they claim over 2 billion monthly active) they still have a moat the size of a freakin ocean. I think it’s safe to say they have users “in the billions”.

I believe half is even optimistic. I'd venture a gamble that at most 25% are unique and original people.

Even my non technical friends often have 2-4 accounts. For work, for friends, for forgotten passwords, etc...

And then of course bots and bots and bots.

Of course it depends on how they define a user and an account. If I logon only 1 of my accounts in a given month or 10. Do they count as 1 or 10 in either case?

Re: Reasons to think that, in terms of influence if not wealth, Facebook has peaked

#35

Post by PKop »

diegoperini wrote: post #29
rhizome wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a math sense, the signal to noise ratio on FB became much higher over the last decade. At inception, it was a focused way to directly communicate with a close college circle. Now its effectively as open as Myspace, bombards you with ads, and as with all wide networks, the discourse has dropped to meme / quiz bot level I think you mean "much lower" signal to noise ratio.

I'm a non native English speaker. Which one is more suitable for "less quality"?

It's describing a ratio:

A to B => A ÷ B

Re: Reasons to think that, in terms of influence if not wealth, Facebook has peaked

#36

Post by Chathamization »

clay_the_ripper wrote: post #17

I’m no fan of Facebook, but I don’t agree with the premise of the article. The power of Facebook lies in its network effect: something on the order of 2 billion have active Facebook accounts. Whether or not people are spending more or less time on the platform doesn’t matter as much as people seem to think it does. What matters is the fact that they can associate web browsing actions (pages visited etc) with your Fac…

> The crucial moat that Facebook has is simply the massive nimber of registered users

How well does that moat work in practice? What was the rate of decline in other networks (such as Friendster and MySpace)? I've always gotten the impression that these shifts happen quite quickly.

Re: Reasons to think that, in terms of influence if not wealth, Facebook has peaked

#37

Post by Canada »

clay_the_ripper wrote: post #32
utellme wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's correct and incorrect at the same time. Social networks like cars, they give value when it's being used. To sell ads social networks must be sure that someone scrolling feeds. No usage - no gains. Even with huge amount of users data nothing guaranteed. You can't sell same stuff periodically, big data has value only when they are actual.

That’s the point though-they don’t need you to scroll to make money off you. You only need a registered account, and they can track a massive amount about what you do online and then serve you ads across millions of sites and mobile apps. All of this happens off of Facebook owned properties.

Except for those who block third party trackers, which is something like 25% of desktop users and 15% of mobile users.

Re: Reasons to think that, in terms of influence if not wealth, Facebook has peaked

#38

Post by chestervonwinch »

lou1306 wrote: post #31
diegoperini wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a non native English speaker. Which one is more suitable for "less quality"?

Lower. High SNR = Much signal, little noise Low SNR = Much signal, much noise

> Low SNR = Much signal, much noise

Or, the reason I gave up fb -- little signal, much noise.

Re: Reasons to think that, in terms of influence if not wealth, Facebook has peaked

#39

Post by 534b44a »

Chathamization wrote: post #36
clay_the_ripper wrote: post #17

I’m no fan of Facebook, but I don’t agree with the premise of the article. The power of Facebook lies in its network effect: something on the order of 2 billion have active Facebook accounts. Whether or not people are spending more or less time on the platform doesn’t matter as much as people seem to think it does. What matters is the fact that they can associate web browsing actions (pages visited etc) with your Fac…

> The crucial moat that Facebook has is simply the massive nimber of registered users How well does that moat work in practice? What was the rate of decline in other networks (such as Friendster and MySpace)? I've always gotten the impression that these shifts happen quite quickly.

That shift probably would already have happened if Facebook didn't buy WhatsApp and Instagram.

Re: Reasons to think that, in terms of influence if not wealth, Facebook has peaked

#40

Post by omarforgotpwd »

Facebook is just getting started. Imagine you have a dataset that can identify over a billion people around the world simply by looking at their face. When you walk into McDonalds, cameras analyze you and the people you enter with. Oh, there's John Smith and his friend Tom. He loves the McFlurry. Instantly the digital menus rearrange to feature a large McFlurry, animating and advertising a deal on the largest size. Facebook is just beginning to monetize the value of what they have created.
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