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Facebook users drop in the US and Canada

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Re: Facebook users drop in the US and Canada

#41

Post by jarodlam »

Mazy wrote: post #27
jarodlam wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think FB has another 2-3yrs before a newcomer comes along. FB will eventually be the 'old' site and uncool to be there. Speaking of privacy, there's a huge privacy hole on the site right now. Currently if I request to add certain people, their data feed starts to populate my wall before they've even accepted the friend request. I think it's because they're part of a group or network I'm already in.

Facebook pulls in anything a user you've requested to be a friend of shares publicly. It's not because you're part of a group, it's because of the privacy settings on their status updates.

Ahhhh. That explains it. Thanks.

Re: Facebook users drop in the US and Canada

#42

Post by jordan0day »

noarchy wrote: post #14
olihb wrote: post #3

They don't say why or where those users are going. If the users aren't going anywhere else, they just decided that Facebook weren't for them. This might be alright for Facebook because I guess they want committed users that log on the site several times per day, not users that log once in a while.

Where else would they go, at this point? I don't know of any competitors that are live and able to target Facebook refugees. Diaspora is still in Alpha, for example, and I suspect that the buzz on that one has been fading for some time.

Yeah, I'm not sure there's really such a thing as a "Facebook refugee" yet. That is, someone who leaves Facebook and is looking for something better. My guess is that those leaving Facebook are those saying "This whole thing is dumb", and are not looking to continue to engage in online social networking... at least in the way it's been presented so far.

Re: Facebook users drop in the US and Canada

#43

Post by tokenadult »

evgen wrote: post #33
nhangen wrote: post #26

I don't think any single service will kill Facebook. Hell, I don't think you can do anything but diminish them at this point. My bet is that the micro-niche makes a comeback and is what catches on going forward. We dont' care about high school friends we never talked to, or family members that blab about their dinner. What we care about are the things that interest us...HN is a great example. As more people move to a…

Unless of course Facebook figures out a useful and effective way to provide the same focused view of a niche community within the larger Facebook expanse. At some point they may come up with a way to easily and intuitively allow users to expose different facets of their interests and persona to different groups; if they figure this out the niche sites (even HN) are toast.

Unless of course Facebook figures out a useful and effective way to provide the same focused view of a niche community within the larger Facebook expanse.

Facebook private groups

https://www.facebook.com/groups

are working quite well among my circle of friends to provide a focused view of one or another niche community that forms a natural subset of my friends. There is a particular Facebook secret group that I visit absolutely every time I'm on Facebook, which is several times a day. That's a practical place for me to ask focused informational questions, and also a place where I can share a lot of camaraderie with dear friends who have had similar--and yet very diverse--life experiences. Because of the stronger filtering abilities of Facebook, I can indeed see how it could supplant many niche sites. (Thus far, HN gets the second share of my attention after Facebook, among all websites, and it will be interesting to see what the consensus here is about the overall community experience in the next year or so.)

Re: Facebook users drop in the US and Canada

#44

Post by jimbokun »

nhangen wrote: post #26

I don't think any single service will kill Facebook. Hell, I don't think you can do anything but diminish them at this point. My bet is that the micro-niche makes a comeback and is what catches on going forward. We dont' care about high school friends we never talked to, or family members that blab about their dinner. What we care about are the things that interest us...HN is a great example. As more people move to a…

Strangely enough, could it be time to attack Facebook the same way they attacked MySpace? Facebook bootstrapped a user base by initially restricting to people with harvard.edu email, which made them more comfortable sharing. Then they expanded to other universities, but only allowed visibility to people within the same .edu.

Now that everyone has been socially obligated to friend their Mom, maybe it's time to attack Facebook with .edu specific sites again? What other natural community boundaries would make sense to target with exclusive sites?

Re: Facebook users drop in the US and Canada

#45

Post by cheez »

Twitter for me. One of the things I wanted out of Facebook is to talk to people I knew regarding various topics. I found out that most people just play Farmville, post happy birthday notes and pictures of their kids. While catching up with old flames was fun, the interest is gone.

On Twitter, I can search the entire world for people who have the same interests as me, read their thoughts and correspond with them.

So basically I left Facebook because I really wanted to connect with people on an intellectual level. Turns out, I don't know anyone who I can correspond with in that manner.

By left, I mean I deleted the account, whatever that means in FB land.

Re: Facebook users drop in the US and Canada

#46

Post by aheilbut »

jimbokun wrote: post #44
nhangen wrote: post #26

I don't think any single service will kill Facebook. Hell, I don't think you can do anything but diminish them at this point. My bet is that the micro-niche makes a comeback and is what catches on going forward. We dont' care about high school friends we never talked to, or family members that blab about their dinner. What we care about are the things that interest us...HN is a great example. As more people move to a…

Strangely enough, could it be time to attack Facebook the same way they attacked MySpace? Facebook bootstrapped a user base by initially restricting to people with harvard.edu email, which made them more comfortable sharing. Then they expanded to other universities, but only allowed visibility to people within the same .edu. Now that everyone has been socially obligated to friend their Mom, maybe it's time to attack…

datemyschool seems to be killing it so far...

Re: Facebook users drop in the US and Canada

#47

Post by zenspunk »

jordan0day wrote: post #42
noarchy wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where else would they go, at this point? I don't know of any competitors that are live and able to target Facebook refugees. Diaspora is still in Alpha, for example, and I suspect that the buzz on that one has been fading for some time.

Yeah, I'm not sure there's really such a thing as a "Facebook refugee" yet. That is, someone who leaves Facebook and is looking for something better. My guess is that those leaving Facebook are those saying "This whole thing is dumb", and are not looking to continue to engage in online social networking... at least in the way it's been presented so far.

Anecdotal: yes, that's exactly the thinking of my friends and I who have given up Facebook. It's turned us off the very concept.

Re: Facebook users drop in the US and Canada

#48

Post by grandalf »

Suppose you're in a room with 5 close friends having a conversation. You're comfortable, animated, energetic, outgoing. In the midst of this engrossing conversation 400 other acquaintances silently enter the room. Suddenly you notice them and realize they can all hear every word you're saying.

Most people find this scenario a bit socially uncomfortable and clam right up.

Facebook's growth has created this scenario for a lot of people. The basic currency of Facebook (voyeurism) relies upon a loose security model that prevents a person from walling off his/her 5-10 closest friends and using FB for the bulk of their online socializing. Eavesdropping is essential to the business model. The problem is, thusfar most FB users are not really aware just how intricately engineered this voyeurism is and how publicly their lives are being broadcast.

Re: Facebook users drop in the US and Canada

#49

Post by btilly »

In related news for the first time ever, LinkedIn trumped Facebook in a survey about which social networks people care about.

http://www.bnet.com/blog/business-research/linkedin-trumps-f...

Apparently helping get you sucked in to Farmville is not as valuable to people as helping you get a job and stay connected with what is happening with old co-workers. Go figure.

Re: Facebook users drop in the US and Canada

#50

Post by jamesteow »

nrao123 wrote: post #32

I have long believed that Facebook/MySpace is like a TV show. Once the "content" becomes less interesting, people will slowly tune out. I am personally seeing fewer and less interesting updates from my friends. In fact, the general theory of mine is that any business whose key metric is "time spent per user", is basically a time sink AND in the media business and needs to keep up with new ways to entertain people. Th…

'Once the "content" becomes less interesting, people will slowly tune out. I am personally seeing fewer and less interesting updates from my friends.'

Same here. Most of my friends who have something interesting to say will contact me via IM/e-mail or I'll read it via Twitter.

So I'm left with a lot of status updates that... really don't resonate (except from a handful of key people).

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