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And the fact that they still promote MAUs as a growth metric makes me believe the number even less. They could hit 1.5 billion tomorrow if a group of hackers g

And the fact that they still promote MAUs as a growth metric makes me believe the number even less. They could hit 1.5 billion tomorrow if a group of hackers got ambitious. The number is practically meaningless. Unique individual numbers are far lower.

samstave 14y ago
Wouldn't it be great if there were an MAU attack against Facebook where a group built a system to create billions of active accounts to the point where the MAU number was greater than the computing population of earth?
- stephengillie 14y ago
  You're asking how long it would take for a hacking group to expand FB to 12 billion accounts?
  - samstave 14y ago
    Not 12 billion - the number just needs to greater than the number of computer/internet users on earth.
    - stephengillie 14y ago
      If it's close (8 billion), people will likely ignore it as either a rounding/math/counting error, or as "those people who have a 2nd account for their dog".
      - samstave 14y ago
        There are 7 billion people on earth, there are 2.3 billion with Internet access as of 2011 - FB claims that 40-ish% of Internet users are monthly actives, which is clearly BS, so you don't need to get it anywhere near 8 billion. You simply need to get it near or above actual Internet access capable people.
        stephengillie 14y ago
        So more like 4 billion.
libber 14y ago
Your declarative statements unencumbered by any research are fascinating. What would be a better metric in your mind than MAU? Contrast facebooks MAU to google pluses "has a google account" metric. The facebook prospectus also has daily active users of which at last count there were 483mil.
- tatsuke95 14y ago
  >"Your declarative statements unencumbered by any research are fascinating" Worked for a social gaming company, investigated this exact problem ("How many of our DAUs are multiple accounts?"). For our game, which had mechanics that encouraged player-to-player commerce, the number of these fake accounts was huge: around 40% on DAUs of ~150k. It was clear to me and my co-workers that this was a big issue, everywhere. But everyone in the space benefits from saying "1 BILLION USERS!" when you are selling ad reach. Except for those actually buying ads. Oops. Moved on to different things, shorted ZNGA in April after the OMGPOP acquisition, having been privy to this scheme. Have made a decent return, covering at ~$5, but missed the last two big drops. I'm not particularly concerned what you choose to believe, because my view has worked out pretty well for me.
deleted 14y ago
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samstave 14y ago

Wouldn't it be great if there were an MAU attack against Facebook where a group built a system to create billions of active accounts to the point where the MAU number was greater than the computing population of earth?

stephengillie 14y ago
You're asking how long it would take for a hacking group to expand FB to 12 billion accounts?
- samstave 14y ago
  Not 12 billion - the number just needs to greater than the number of computer/internet users on earth.
  - stephengillie 14y ago
    If it's close (8 billion), people will likely ignore it as either a rounding/math/counting error, or as "those people who have a 2nd account for their dog".
    - samstave 14y ago
      There are 7 billion people on earth, there are 2.3 billion with Internet access as of 2011 - FB claims that 40-ish% of Internet users are monthly actives, which is clearly BS, so you don't need to get it anywhere near 8 billion. You simply need to get it near or above actual Internet access capable people.
      - stephengillie 14y ago
        So more like 4 billion.

libber 14y ago

Your declarative statements unencumbered by any research are fascinating. What would be a better metric in your mind than MAU? Contrast facebooks MAU to google pluses "has a google account" metric. The facebook prospectus also has daily active users of which at last count there were 483mil.

tatsuke95 14y ago
>"Your declarative statements unencumbered by any research are fascinating" Worked for a social gaming company, investigated this exact problem ("How many of our DAUs are multiple accounts?"). For our game, which had mechanics that encouraged player-to-player commerce, the number of these fake accounts was huge: around 40% on DAUs of ~150k. It was clear to me and my co-workers that this was a big issue, everywhere. But everyone in the space benefits from saying "1 BILLION USERS!" when you are selling ad reach. Except for those actually buying ads. Oops. Moved on to different things, shorted ZNGA in April after the OMGPOP acquisition, having been privy to this scheme. Have made a decent return, covering at ~$5, but missed the last two big drops. I'm not particularly concerned what you choose to believe, because my view has worked out pretty well for me.

deleted 14y ago

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