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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

#91

Post by gaius »

oldcynic wrote: post #43
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.

If, as seems to be the case, Instagram is the popular destination to migrate to will Facebook be too bothered by a drop in Facebook numbers? Sure some will go elsewhere, and block enough FB tracking to disappear entirely. Instagram, of course, will allow Facebook to keep tracking and advertising to people just fine. No doubt they've already linked Instagram and FB identities wherever possible. So all that remains is…

Instagram, of course, will allow Facebook to keep tracking and advertising to people just fine

There aren’t many “like/share this in Instagram” buttons around the web.

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

#92

Post by gaius »

omarforgotpwd wrote: post #40

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. F…

Back in ancient Venice, everyone wore masks in public.

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

#93

Post by dazc »

abecedarius wrote: post #77
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 fact that you have a Facebook account allows advertisers to track and target you I use a separate browser profile just for Facebook; I never log in from my main profile. Do they link the separate browsers? There'd be a bunch of clues like the IP address, window size, browser version and OS, related but not identical time of activity, etc. So how hard do they work at linking up data from people who expressly don…

'So how hard do they work at linking up data from people who expressly don't want them to?'

I stopped using Facebook several years ago; I wasn't much a user anyway so never worried about it.

Then, last year, I installed whatsapp. Then I started getting emails about an old colleague's activity on facebook. I don't have any contact details for this person anywhere, especially on my phone. I'd forgotten he even existed.

OK, you can connect the dots since my email hasn't changed and that connects me to facebook, and so on.

Nonetheless, it just made me realise how hard you have to work to protect your privacy these days.

When I deleted my facebook account I couldn't know that one day I'd use another service and facebook would not only acquire that service but then start using it to hook me back in?

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

#94

Post by dazc »

randomsearch wrote: post #24
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…

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…

'What if those two billion accounts are bullshit?'

Nobody thinks they are all bullshit but, if half of them are, it's still a lot of people.

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

#95

Post by dazc »

logicallee wrote: post #87
itronitron wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdote^3 ... none of my personal friends have more than zero facebook accounts :)

>none of my personal friends have more than zero facebook accounts There's no way this is true

It can be true, I think we get used to the idea that most people are connected but if you have friends over the age of, say, 60 it's fairly common for them not have internet access. In the UK, at least?

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

#96

Post by nicktirrell »

scarface74 wrote: post #44
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…

Another perspective, how many users are actually dead? http://www.theloop.ca/dead-facebook-users-will-soon-outnumbe... EDIT: Well they do measure active daily users but I still think the article above is interesting.

fascinating stats here, thanks for the article.

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

#97

Post by gaius »

dang wrote: post #66
zombieprocesses wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't talking about hacker news. I was talking about the bbc. I was asking why the bbc published a non-news story, not why it was here. I was just saying the news industry should publish news rather than conjecture or predictions.

Ah I see! Well, you'd have to take it up with them, but the BBC publishes all kinds of things.

the BBC publishes all kinds of things

Mostly "someone said something on Twitter" and "here are some more personal opinions of Laura Kuenssberg". Their days of being a serious news organisation are long over.

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

#98

Post by pimterry »

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…

> What matters is the fact that they can associate web browsing actions (pages visited etc) with your Facebook account.

And what will kill them is the increasing regulatory pressure (GDPR especially) that will end this soon, for a significant percentage of their most valuable users.

Once GDPR lands Facebook will need every user to explicitly opt-in to tracking their non-FB browsing actions, plus separate opt-in for tracking various elements of their Facebook data itself, and will face very tight constraints of how this can be shared with advertisers even once they have that consent. Sharing WhatsApp/Instagram's data with Facebook would be another separate opt-in there, etc etc. Access to these sites cannot be contingent on you agreeing to give them your data (that's not considered legitimate consent). Effectively the EU is going to forcibly stop them tracking EU users, or using any of their data for advertising, for anybody doesn't explicitly ask them to.

This is going to hurt. They're going to have to persuade every EU Facebook user that they _want_ to have their data tracked for advertising. Right now I can't see them making a convincing case for any significant percentage of their EU user base (though I'm sure they've put a lot of thought into this, so there may well be developments here in the coming months).

The EU is nearly 20% of Facebook's user base (~50% larger than the US), and as a relatively affluent part of the world, it's a particularly valuable segment for advertisers. Before the end of this year they're going to lose their unique advertising advantage for a very large proportion of that group, and I'd expect over the next decade other countries and regions to follow suit.

The model of advertising on the Internet is going to change pretty drastically over the next few years, and Facebook's success fundamentally depends on the current model. The 'crucial moat' you point out is about to disappear overnight, and they're not in a good place to deal with it.

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

#99

Post by utellme »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #80
utellme wrote: post #21

Almost nobody talks about lack of trust, yes there are words about fake news and formal reassurances from FB staff that they will investigate, fix and so on. But trust was already undermined, you just can't restore it to previous level. People were reading news in FB feed and didn't even think it can be fake, now they read and go "outside" for fact checking. Not a good sign for social network which wants you to be en…

Trust is my issue too. I've put almost no personal information on FB since the day I opened my account. But over the last year it's gotten worse: I trust the news sources less, I trust the ads less, I deleted the FB app, and I trust the FB company least of all. That translates to me posting less and spending less time on the website, and never "just using FB" to sign up for another website. And you know what? I'm hap…

Now you weakening your social graph, which means you have impact on many related things.

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

#100

Post by utellme »

zer00eyz wrote: post #26
utellme wrote: post #21

Almost nobody talks about lack of trust, yes there are words about fake news and formal reassurances from FB staff that they will investigate, fix and so on. But trust was already undermined, you just can't restore it to previous level. People were reading news in FB feed and didn't even think it can be fake, now they read and go "outside" for fact checking. Not a good sign for social network which wants you to be en…

> People were reading news in FB feed and didn't even think it can be fake, now they read and go "outside" for fact checking. You know this is an interesting topic in and of itself. Are people looking outside FB for news? I would argue that if FB supports your world view that people aren't looking outside of it. Others have had the same theory: http://lesswrong.com/lw/lr/evaporative_cooling_of_group_beli... The reali…

I won't agree that internet provides you with such level of information. Internet is a service, it can't figure out your desires, but FB and other social networks really try to do it.

The only reason such for fake news being spreaded everywhere are suggests and recommendations from social networks feed. They multiply junk and fakes.

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