3 ms·

Which also begs the question, how many of those active users are actual people?

walru 14y ago
I've wondered this for a long time.. Facebook is another one I've wondered about. It was common practice for anyone I knew who was playing Zynga games that they'd create second, third, and fourth FB accounts, as you received perks for having friends playing the game along with you. This wildly skewed those 'accelerated growth' numbers that led to the over evaluation of both FB and ZNGA. I'm curious, once everything shakes out, if all these companies earning extravagant evaluations on the backs of the number of users they have will be audited, or taken to court for gross negligence, as they 'had it within their capability' to find out if people were creating fake accounts. Of course, that would be incredibly hard to prove, but a lot of people have already, and will continue to lose money on these investments as their practices become more well known.
prezjordan 14y ago
Semi-related: What's preventing FB from artificially creating users themselves - to make their network look gigantic. I feel like FB would not be able to continue the growth it has - which begs the question, if they faked it internally, would we know? /tinfoil.
- eru 14y ago
  Faking it internally would probably stray too close to fraud for comfort. They don't want that liability. Not doing anything against users creating duplicate accounts can be gotten away with easier: Just blame it on negligence, or incompetence.
  - stfu 14y ago
    I for once have at least create five to ten Facebook accounts myself, Each time I get into a situation where I am forced to use Facebook I create a new throw away account. As I have a deep distaste for Facebook's approach to privacy and overall business practice these unavoidable logins occur only every few month or so. I think creating and abounding accounts might be the least useful user interaction they can get.
    - eru 14y ago
      Unless they are smart enough to detect that those multiple accounts are really one. Then they can still treat you as one person for their analytics.

walru 14y ago

I've wondered this for a long time.. Facebook is another one I've wondered about. It was common practice for anyone I knew who was playing Zynga games that they'd create second, third, and fourth FB accounts, as you received perks for having friends playing the game along with you. This wildly skewed those 'accelerated growth' numbers that led to the over evaluation of both FB and ZNGA. I'm curious, once everything shakes out, if all these companies earning extravagant evaluations on the backs of the number of users they have will be audited, or taken to court for gross negligence, as they 'had it within their capability' to find out if people were creating fake accounts. Of course, that would be incredibly hard to prove, but a lot of people have already, and will continue to lose money on these investments as their practices become more well known.

prezjordan 14y ago

Semi-related: What's preventing FB from artificially creating users themselves - to make their network look gigantic. I feel like FB would not be able to continue the growth it has - which begs the question, if they faked it internally, would we know? /tinfoil.

eru 14y ago
Faking it internally would probably stray too close to fraud for comfort. They don't want that liability. Not doing anything against users creating duplicate accounts can be gotten away with easier: Just blame it on negligence, or incompetence.
- stfu 14y ago
  I for once have at least create five to ten Facebook accounts myself, Each time I get into a situation where I am forced to use Facebook I create a new throw away account. As I have a deep distaste for Facebook's approach to privacy and overall business practice these unavoidable logins occur only every few month or so. I think creating and abounding accounts might be the least useful user interaction they can get.
  - eru 14y ago
    Unless they are smart enough to detect that those multiple accounts are really one. Then they can still treat you as one person for their analytics.