3 ms·

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 alri

by olihb 15y ago

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.

noarchy 15y ago
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.
- jordan0day 15y ago
  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.
  - zenspunk 15y ago
    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.
- WiseWeasel 15y ago
  Flickr and meetup, or similar services. Sharing photos and organizing events are pretty much the only real uses for FB in any case.
SwellJoe 15y ago
The "social graph" is more valuable when it has everybody in it. One of the reasons facebook has such a tremendously high valuation is that social graph concept; the notion that the way people are connected and the way they interact is valuable information. I'm not sure that the revenue they've begun to generate (which is reportedly sizable) is actually coming from that magical "social graph" rather than just plain old advertising (and quite spammy advertising at that), but that was the premise for huge valuations in the past. So, facebook gets value from occasional users, and having occasional users go away does hurt them in the long run, since I guess the long bet with facebook is still the "social graph". Regardless of that, negative growth in their most lucrative markets is a horrible sign for a company like facebook. Slow growth is one thing...but losing people by the millions? That indicates significant breakage. I don't know enough to know what kind of breakage, as I'm not really a facebook user (I login maybe once a month).
zmmmmm 15y ago
> If the users aren't going anywhere else, they just decided that Facebook weren't for them. This is what I would guess. I suspect that one of Facebook's problems is that people naturally overshoot with their social network and at some point you end up with "too many" friends and logging into Facebook reveals less interesting content and more noise. I know this has certainly happened to me. 80% of the content I see upon logging in is information from people that I couldn't care less about. Facebook has encouraged this from the start by avoiding support for stratifying friends into separate groups. It's worked well for them by simplifying things, but I think they'll begin to experience some natural attrition from it as time goes by - social networks just naturally grow and grow because you very rarely "unfriend" someone. At some point it becomes burdensome to check it instead of fun and then it's all over.
jamesteow 15y ago
Anecdotal 'evidence': I'd say 10-15% of my friends list (age 24-28) have left Facebook. Some users just focused on websites catering to specific communities. Some just focused most of their time on Twitter/Tumblr. And some just realized they got by day-to-day without a social network and elected to get out of the game altogether.

by olihb 15y ago

noarchy 15y ago

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.

jordan0day 15y ago
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.
- zenspunk 15y ago
  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.
WiseWeasel 15y ago
Flickr and meetup, or similar services. Sharing photos and organizing events are pretty much the only real uses for FB in any case.

SwellJoe 15y ago

The "social graph" is more valuable when it has everybody in it. One of the reasons facebook has such a tremendously high valuation is that social graph concept; the notion that the way people are connected and the way they interact is valuable information. I'm not sure that the revenue they've begun to generate (which is reportedly sizable) is actually coming from that magical "social graph" rather than just plain old advertising (and quite spammy advertising at that), but that was the premise for huge valuations in the past. So, facebook gets value from occasional users, and having occasional users go away does hurt them in the long run, since I guess the long bet with facebook is still the "social graph". Regardless of that, negative growth in their most lucrative markets is a horrible sign for a company like facebook. Slow growth is one thing...but losing people by the millions? That indicates significant breakage. I don't know enough to know what kind of breakage, as I'm not really a facebook user (I login maybe once a month).

zmmmmm 15y ago

> If the users aren't going anywhere else, they just decided that Facebook weren't for them. This is what I would guess. I suspect that one of Facebook's problems is that people naturally overshoot with their social network and at some point you end up with "too many" friends and logging into Facebook reveals less interesting content and more noise. I know this has certainly happened to me. 80% of the content I see upon logging in is information from people that I couldn't care less about. Facebook has encouraged this from the start by avoiding support for stratifying friends into separate groups. It's worked well for them by simplifying things, but I think they'll begin to experience some natural attrition from it as time goes by - social networks just naturally grow and grow because you very rarely "unfriend" someone. At some point it becomes burdensome to check it instead of fun and then it's all over.

jamesteow 15y ago

Anecdotal 'evidence': I'd say 10-15% of my friends list (age 24-28) have left Facebook. Some users just focused on websites catering to specific communities. Some just focused most of their time on Twitter/Tumblr. And some just realized they got by day-to-day without a social network and elected to get out of the game altogether.