New numbers that were just released show that at least in the English speaking parts of the world, Facebook is starting to die and not in a very pretty way. For the first time in a very long time, Facebook had a net loss in the US as 6 million people in May decided they no longer wanted to be a part of Facebook. Through all the privacy and all the format changes, Facebook never lost monthly users until now. In Canada, Facebook lost ten percent of their users last month. Ten percent! That is enormous. Similar falls were seen in the UK and Australia.
Hey, but good news, if you live in Asia, Facebook is on the rise and if you need a friend you can add me.
I have been saying this is inevitable. It just is. People get tired of something and they move on. You cannot have 160 million users in one country and expect to keep them all forever. Remember when everyone had AOL for internet? What I have not figured out is where everyone is moving to. Twitter is not going to be it because people need more than 140 words. The owners of that company are going to be really sorry in two years when the bottom drops out that they never capitalized like they could have on the service.
Is there some new site that is going to capture the imagination of the world?
I abhor Facebook..what a crock of egocentric shit.
ReplyDeleteI like Facebook because I find it easy to keep in touch with friends and family overseas or different time zones and I don't have to send huge big e-mails with photos attached. I keep my Friends list to around 50 to keep it manageable and real. It concerns me when I see regular people having 500 or so friends, I find it sad actually. My privacy settings are high so only my real friends can see what neurotic stuff I might post.
ReplyDeleteI think the new "thing" is Tumblr from what I hear. I don't have an account but it took me a long time to get one on Facebook too.
I love facebook, ONLY...and I repeat ONLY because I want to keep in touch with friends, especially the ones in Europe and Canada. It also reminds me of people's bday's and let's me know when there is a special event. I never ever ever ever have updated my status or ever posted anything on mine. I have as minimal info and I never take tests. It's strictly a place for my email and to store pics.
ReplyDeleteWell, of course it is inevitable for Facebook to slowly die out. Look what happened to Myspace. A few years ago it was all the rage, everyone and their mom had to have one and it was an active online community. These days it's a virtual ghost town.
ReplyDeleteThere is always going to be the next big thing coming along.
I have a deep and abiding love/hate relationship with facebook. On the one hand, I love being able to check in with my best friends from childhood. I love seeing pictures of my best friend's adorable kids. And I love the fact that I've had online conversations with a few of my fellow CDANers, too. You know who you are. ;-)
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I hate self-aggrandizing hipsters who do things like "like" their own statuses and post links to their UBER-annoying tumblr accounts -- and I hate the fact that I feel bad about defriending said hipsters.
You know what I REALLY hate, though? The fact that so many employers think they're entitled to peruse your facebook page before they hire you. That, to me, is so flagrantly insulting and such an invasion of privacy. It skeeves me out that *one* website can determine your candidacy as a job applicant. It SUCKS.
^^I agree, Ida. It also annoys me that teens fail to see how it can haunt them in the future.
ReplyDeleteMy company checks FB on employees.
@mikey -- here's a question: my privacy settings are CIA-worthy (hopefully!), and I've got it set up so that strangers who search for my profile won't see it. Do corporations have special hacking software or whatever? I'm serious. I just don't see HOW they can break into an account unless the facebook user hasn't locked down all his/her settings.
ReplyDeleteBottom line: I'm not accessing my account in front of someone who wants to know my relationship status, thoughts on religion, or attitude towards alcohol. None of those things have anything to do with how I would perform a job.
The world has gotten so much nosier, and I blame facebook!
Well that is one reason to have your privacy set really high so people who are not on your friends list can't see anything.
ReplyDeleteI often defriend people, I figure if someone is irritating enough or doesn't communicate with me then why bother having them on my friends list.
I'm no fan of Facebook. I am on to be polite and nothing more. People send me invites so I have a page to accept them but I don't know why they bother since I put nothing about myself on there. I don't want to send updates every five minutes and I don't want to read anyone else's. If you know every aspect about your friends and family, what do you talk about when you get together? Where's the joy in going to lunch and catching up and talking 90 miles a minute because you have so much to say? I would rather have that.
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ReplyDeleteFB is out of control... Cancelled my account last week.. I went back to my blog and twitter... much easier life.. I did JUST FINE without contact with all these people 2 years ago... I'm sure I'll survive the next few years as well.
ReplyDeleteWhat is hilarious is that classmates.com periodically sends me an email offering me GOLD membership status if I pay $whatever. I'm like, "BITCH, facebook made your ass obsolete three years ago!"
ReplyDeleteYou know what weirds ME out? People who post updates IMMEDIATELY after, say, their kids are born.
ReplyDeleteI mean...wouldn't you be a bit preoccupied RIGHT after the birth of your child? It's nice to share your joy and all, but it also makes me think of that couple who tweeted their wedding vows or whatever. Is *anything* sacred anymore?
Privacy is a beautiful thing. Every few weeks, I freak out and delete my account, but then I remember how addicted I am. *sigh* It's better than cigarettes, I guess.
I love FB because of how it has helped keep me in contact with long lost friends, and family that is overseas.
ReplyDeleteWhat I do not like is the folks who think it is their personal show and want to "live" and post everything moment of their lives as if I give a F*&K, lol I tend to remove those folks anyway
I figure if I wanted to be in contact with people I was friends with back in the day, I would be. I'm a bit of an elitist like that.
ReplyDeleteIda, you have to make sure your friends aren't visible to the outside world because if I click on enough of your friends I'm going to find someone who is not well-protected and they may have photos of you or something about you on their wall. It's amazing what people will post of other people and not protect it enough.
ReplyDeleteI do work for a high end security IT company....what they do to find stuff I don't want to know.
I am one of those "sad" people with more than 500 friends on facebook. How did that happen? Well, if you move country every three-four years, it is inevitable that you a whole new set of friends. And I love being able to see what they are doing, and keep in touch with them!
ReplyDeletetumbler?
ReplyDeleteMeh, I love facebook. I love sharing articles with people with whom I share similar interests, and half my family lives in New Zealand, and I can stay in contact with them and my best friends that live in England and Seattle. I play Scrabble on there and have reconnected with old high school friends that I now have great relationships with. Love it, hate it, just please don't take it away from me.
ReplyDeleteHEY! I 'like' my own posts sometimes....
ReplyDeletewhen they're extra funny or awesome
did u just call me a hipster @Ida Blankenship?!
pout pout ; P
(I prefer to just refer to myself as ironic or goober, they alternate)
What's the deal with tumblr? It just seems to me like it's a bunch of people stealing images/thoughts/quotes, etc. from other people. I don't get it.
ReplyDeleteThe Advertising Killed it. What a joke.
ReplyDelete@Jasmine -- based on where you live, I'd say you're a hipster by default. ;-)
ReplyDeleteKIDDING, KIDDING.
No, real hipsters are waaaaay too cool to offer up their own interesting viewpoints. They simply post tumblr links that are, like Treesap-Covered Lady, the Humanist (who, incidentally, has the best CDAN name, IMO) says, the thoughts and observations of OTHER people.
I don't get tumblr, either. And I'm new to Twitter, and I REALLY don't get that -- but it's already more tolerable than facebook.
What Little Miss Smoke and Mirrors said about Classmates.com. . .I get those messages, too. Ridiculous, like I'm going to pay for that.
ReplyDeleteCracked me up when some of my friends gave up FB for Lent. Instead of chocolate.
Ida, I once send a job application per e-mail to the head of the personnel departments e-mail address. Funnily, that person must have created her FB account by using exact e-mail address. If you use gmx there is an option that you can see the person's FB site if they created their account with the e-mail address you're sending whatever e-mail to. She had a profile picture which showed her on the beach in a bikini. That was weird.
ReplyDeleteTo make a long story short, if you apply for a job or use a certain e-mail address to get in contact with possible future bosses, co-workers etc. don't use an e-mail address you're also using to log in to your FB, blog or whatever place that might display private info on you which you don't want them to see and know.
Back then, there were sites or even free programs which showed you all the social community profiles of a person if you typed in their e-mail address. I don't know if they've gotten illegal but I used them myself to look up my stuff or even what friends where doing on the internet (with their knowledge, of course); I can tell you, that was a scary experience.
Too many ads, takes too much time to load now, time eater upper!!
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ReplyDelete@Mina -- THANK YOU a billion times for that tip! I'm gonna create a new gmail account *and* change my facebook user name.
ReplyDeleteMy husband deleted his fb acct and is now on LinkedIn and loves it, I am content with fb, I get to keep up with all my Nieces and Nephews lives.
ReplyDeletesecond post about Facebook dying in a month, Enty....and sorry i have not read anything about it dying out. in fact i have more friends than i ever had.
ReplyDeletedo you really think 500Million people are going to abandon a FREE Soc Med site that connects them to their friends,family,markets to the customers,promotes their events,their music,their art,their lives,now hosts their resto site,hosts their fanpages,hosts their group pages,alerts everyone to birthdays,hosts ALL their pictures since 2007 AND IS ABLE TO BLOCK EX-BOYFRIENDS?
You crazy. never gonna happen.
my bad..the article says closer to 700M. either way...this isn't myspace. Facebook is now part of our culture.
ReplyDeleteI don't know Jax. FB lost 6M users, remember? With only 694,000,000 left I am sure Zuckerberg is sweating like a pig even as he plans Facebook's IPO...
ReplyDeleteHeh.
I joined FB at the urging of a friend in Wisconsin who wanted me to see all the pics of her kids and their outings and I was appalled that I had to use my real name, so I made up a fake personality with a fake pic. Strange men wanted to friend me, despite (or perhaps because of?) the bizarr-o photo I used and I just never got the pull or draw of it all. I finally pulled the plug after a few months.
ReplyDeleteAnother friend of mine works in HR and a lot of the people at her company wanted to friend her on Facebook and she finally had to unfriend them because they would post stuff about being totally hammered and fucked up and she felt uncomfortable seeing that stuff (especially if they called in sick after a night out puking their lungs up).
Bottom line: It's not for me, I just don't get the pull, but it doesn't bother me if anyone else uses it.
I use FB to stay in touch with old friends who have moved away, pals from high school, etc. Otherwise, nothing. No Farmville, no Scrabble, no nothing. Convenience only. It's too big-brotherish for me.
ReplyDeletemy girls tell me that they seldom use Facebook or Twitter
ReplyDeleteThey usually text to their friends. On the computer they use tumblr or LiveJournal to communicate with their friends. They also use TinyChat and Skype.
they are all aliases of one person who must have taken a break from farmville and Mafia Wars last month :)
ReplyDeleteI'm not on Facebook. It's not for me. I'm fascinated by it though. But I don't understand why old friends would want to keep in touch with me over a computer. Pick Up the Damn phone if you want to know about me. Duh.
ReplyDeleteInteresting post/comments!
ReplyDelete@Mina - You have inspired me to fix my account as well!
I have my FB on what i can only assume are fairly high privacy settings. I don't let anybody but ME see pictures where people have posted/tagged me.
I used to have a greater love for Fb than I do now mostly b/c I didn't USED to be friends with so many people that I feel obligated to be friends with. Family, old co-workers, etc. It's not as cool as it used to be "back in the day." But I feel like I can't delete my account b/c it is literally the only way some of my friend and i stay in touch. I have some friends that check Fb messages, etc. more than they check their damn email, so what can I do?
I wonder how this loss of users will affect them going public?
I don't use my real name on facebook, which is against their terms of service. At some point I expect to get "caught" and then I won't be on facebook any more. There is no such thing as privacy on facebook. Every time you change your settings, they find a new "feature" to get around it. This facial recognition crap is so Big Brother it makes me sick. And that's apart from the fact that at least one person had all of their black friends' pictures tagged with one of their black friend's names. WTF racist profiling? Their entire business model is dependent on you not having any privacy.
ReplyDeleteI got on Facebook at the behest of my friend who wanted friends. If I had my time over again I would have stayed firm and said no. Having written that, I do a weekly update on Facebook, make a couple of comments on other people's posts, and that is it. I too do not understand letting people know that you are out of the house and therefore come and burgle it.
ReplyDeleteMy privacy settings are also set to the highest. But, I have nothing on there that worries me, and the photos my friends put up are not a problem either.
I'm so sick of facebook. It seems like every conversation I have with someone contains "well I saw on facebook..." at least once. It grates on my nerves like nothing else.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if it will actually die out though---I deleted mine about six months ago and I still miss the lurking!
One word................. Reddit.
ReplyDelete@Blister -- "It seems like every conversation I have with someone contains "well I saw on facebook..." at least once. It grates on my nerves like nothing else."
ReplyDeleteOh my GOD. THIS.
I feel like a massive dork whenever I bring up facebook in public, which is mostly why I *don't*. Ever.
I set up a Facebook account when Disney was having a contest for "Alice in Wonderland." I have never posted one thing on Facebook (never bothered to figure out how), yet I keep getting friend requests from people I haven't seen or talked to in 25 or 30 years. I doubt anyone would be interested to know what I'm doing anyway.
ReplyDeleteI dont get Facebook. I have tried to use it, but it keeps changing and stuff gets moved and privacy issues change, and the "liking", what is that? If you don't friend someone they freak out, then it's ackward if you do but don't want to. And there's always someone who posts a hundred times a day and I don't want that kind of am update.
ReplyDeleteAfter 4 years, I'm not even sure how to navigate my page......
i miss myspace...it really felt like having a little cyber-space of one's own, you could look people up without having to be "friends" with them, you could have your favorite new songs playing, it wasn't constantly updated...i just like that format much more, it's slower, softer, kinder, gentler...
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ReplyDeleteI live on the other side of the world from my family and most of my friends so I love Facebook to see what they're up to and keep up with their lives. I have my parents on there, and they like that they can see what I'm doing and see that I'm enjoying life and whatever. It makes them feel better about me living this far away. Also, I like that I can have political or topical debates on people's posts or articles or whatever they want to share.
ReplyDeletePlus, having moved to a new country and made all new friends, I felt like it was really easy to get to know them very quickly, and invite lots of people to gatherings and things. I ended up seeing them and hanging out with them mnore than I probably would have if it had been up to me to ring everyone up and invite them out. And so I was able to make new friends faster. And one of those friends became my husband. :-)
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ReplyDeleteI was on FB a brief time and quit it. I did like catching up with the old friends, but I felt invaded. All the updates were a snore. I really lost respect for a few people.
ReplyDeleteGreat news! I deleted my FB account 6 months ago. Best. Decision. Ever.
ReplyDeleteI think tmblr may be next. Livejournal has been around forever and has already had it's chance.
ReplyDeleteWhat killed Myspace was the clampdown on sharing music and the way the ads hijacked all the memory in your computer. Facebook may go the same way if they don't learn.
Myspace was part of our culture too. All things must end. Twitter is too non-linear to catch on. It's great for messages, but crap for building a brand.
What kills a social networking site is monetization. Pure and simple. Sell ads (like myspace), change policies to suit sponsors (like livejournal), you'll soon be hearing crickets.
FB has it's purpose but I prefer the site called "life". I'm living it and it never gets boring...
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