Facebook has more than 83 million 'fake' users • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook has more than 83 million 'fake' users

#91

Post by Kilimanjaro » Thu, Aug 02, 2012, 11:04 PM UTC

tomjakubowski wrote: post #89

Kilimanjaro wrote: post #87

I'll say this, facebook is dying. But the new king is not G+, no. Demographically speaking, FB users like gossip, while G+ users like quality. Mom will never go to G+ and I will never go to FB. So, there is a need for a new facebook and G+ is not the answer. I dare to say something like pinterest, with a river of short messages and pictures, but highly visual, will replace FB. No ads, no apps, no likes, no stupidity…

No ads? Pinterest essentially presents nothing but ads.

Like pinterest, in the visual sense, but about family, friends and celebrities, not ads. Something that floods me with gossip and pics, people talking about people, like a reddit for the family.

I won't use a service like that, like I don't use pinterest, but that is exactly what will take FB's place in the future.

My personal digg, shared with family and friends.

Re: Facebook has more than 83 million 'fake' users

#92

Post by ghshephard » Thu, Aug 02, 2012, 11:11 PM UTC

petitmiam wrote: post #86

ghshephard wrote: post #55

After being a full time-500+friend user of Facebook since the days when you required your university account to sign up, I finally got around to deleting my account on Facebook. Moved my close family, including my five year old niece, and my six "actual" friends over to Path (well, five of six. #6 doesn't have a smart phone, ironic that my five year old niece does (her father's old 3GS)) I realized one of the nice th…

Did you have much trouble convincing your friends to move to Path? I think that's the biggest headache for anyone wanting to move away.

So - Path has a nice feature that lets you post pictures _through_ to Facebook, so for my friends who love Facebook, they can continue to post to Facebook through path. For my friends who have smart phones, but don't like social network, but like smart phones - straight forward - we finally have a reasonably private place for us to share stuff.

I'm not trying to convince more than half a dozen people to move though - so, don't really need the same uptake as Facebook.

Re: Facebook has more than 83 million 'fake' users

#93

Post by petitmiam » Fri, Aug 03, 2012, 1:03 AM UTC

ghshephard wrote: post #92

petitmiam wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you have much trouble convincing your friends to move to Path? I think that's the biggest headache for anyone wanting to move away.

So - Path has a nice feature that lets you post pictures _through_ to Facebook, so for my friends who love Facebook, they can continue to post to Facebook through path. For my friends who have smart phones, but don't like social network, but like smart phones - straight forward - we finally have a reasonably private place for us to share stuff. I'm not trying to convince more than half a dozen people to move though -…

Sounds interesting, I'll give it a shot.

Re: Facebook has more than 83 million 'fake' users

#94

Post by darkarmani » Fri, Aug 03, 2012, 4:34 AM UTC

swombat wrote: post #4

Worth noting that not all these "fakes" are bad, or even inactive or less active. For example, most performers on the Burlesque scene have accounts specifically for their Burlesque personas, with names like "Kitty Cupcake" or "Tabitha Taboo" and the like. These are obviously not their real names, but a consequence of the fact that Burlesque performers don't want the offline attention on their personal or professional…

Doesn't everyone create a fake account to not leak their real information?

Re: Facebook has more than 83 million 'fake' users

#95

Post by freehunter » Fri, Aug 03, 2012, 5:08 AM UTC

zipdog wrote: post #57

conradfr wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notbad.jpg The funny thing is that I NEVER asked anyone from my fish account and he now has friends from all over the world, while his name is "My fish Ploup" in French. About your fake account and its birthday wishes, An experiment could be to put a erroneous birthday date. I guess that day you can get a lot of wishes, even from close friends. We are just lazy I guess.

I tried that experiment, and the first couple of years it was about 50/50, but most recently almost everyone who posted did so on the FB birthday date. I think theyv'e come to rely on the Facebook reminders. It was also interesting to see the cognitive dissonance from some posts: "I'm pretty sure it was your birthday next week, but Facebook says its this week, so Happy Birthday".

Of my friends who are friends but not best friends, I only know one of their birthdays. I only know that because her Xbox Live gamertag has her birth month and day in it (and she was born one year and one month before me, kind of interesting I guess).

Birthdays are a thing that are hard to remember. People used to mark them down on a calendar or just wait for the person to remind them. Both of those functions have been replaced with Facebook now.

Re: Facebook has more than 83 million 'fake' users

#96

Post by epo » Fri, Aug 03, 2012, 10:22 AM UTC

Facebook have to admit they have fake accounts because it would defy credulity to suggest otherwise. They also have to vastly understate the number otherwise their advertisers would sue or flee in droves.

So the only question is to what degree they are lying. I would suggest that from an advertiser's perspective the real number of fake accounts is at least 25%, probably much higher.