Why Facebook is Losing US Users(pcmag.com)
pcmag.com
Why Facebook is Losing US Users
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2386884,00.asp
17 comments
that seems a little confused to me.
there is a certain amount of short-term churn: people who signup and then leave again. if that rate hasn't changed we can ignore them, since the number leaving this month is made up by the number arriving now who will leave next month. it comes out in the wash.
then there's the slower loss of long term users, which needs to be balanced by keeping a few new signups.
so far, the above is more-or-less consistent with what you say. but then you end with a comment that somehow mixes the two, trying to explain a mismatch in the second process with people who "even out" in the first.
it would be better to say that one or both of the following (which describe decline in terms of the two processes outlined above) is happening:
A - the amount of churn is falling off. so the people present for only this month are less than the people who were only there last month.
B - long term uses that drift away aren't being replaced by new users.
because (B) eats into the entire user base, while (A) is relative to the new users per month, only (B) can explain a sustained decline (the first process can't explain a loss of more people than sign up per month).
so we can simply wait and see. if the decline is prolonged then it must be long-term users that are leaving and not being replaced.
there is a certain amount of short-term churn: people who signup and then leave again. if that rate hasn't changed we can ignore them, since the number leaving this month is made up by the number arriving now who will leave next month. it comes out in the wash.
then there's the slower loss of long term users, which needs to be balanced by keeping a few new signups.
so far, the above is more-or-less consistent with what you say. but then you end with a comment that somehow mixes the two, trying to explain a mismatch in the second process with people who "even out" in the first.
it would be better to say that one or both of the following (which describe decline in terms of the two processes outlined above) is happening:
A - the amount of churn is falling off. so the people present for only this month are less than the people who were only there last month.
B - long term uses that drift away aren't being replaced by new users.
because (B) eats into the entire user base, while (A) is relative to the new users per month, only (B) can explain a sustained decline (the first process can't explain a loss of more people than sign up per month).
so we can simply wait and see. if the decline is prolonged then it must be long-term users that are leaving and not being replaced.
as a guess, i would think the short-term churn has increased.
most heavy users of fb that i know are people that signed up a long time ago. it was an important part of their social life and most still use the site.
but recently, i've had a few more (older, less tech-savvy) friends on fb. they 'got around' to joining fb eventually. but because it wasn't as important to their social life to join, and they only bothered doing so after knowing about fb for a few years, they are more likely to drift away.
i don't know if that's true, but it doesn't sound too unreasonable.
most heavy users of fb that i know are people that signed up a long time ago. it was an important part of their social life and most still use the site.
but recently, i've had a few more (older, less tech-savvy) friends on fb. they 'got around' to joining fb eventually. but because it wasn't as important to their social life to join, and they only bothered doing so after knowing about fb for a few years, they are more likely to drift away.
i don't know if that's true, but it doesn't sound too unreasonable.
I think there are lots of factors.
Saturation and Fatigue You can only see so many drunken weekend pics before it gets old.
Everyone's On It Friending your Mom, boss, etc. really makes it suck.
Social Games Pretty much raped the platform. I'm guilty of spamming friends for poker chips.
Too Many Links News feed is flooded with regurgitated links that are supposed to be interesting.
Event Spam If the inbox was a real email inbox, some of those invitations would surely violate some spam law.
It's Everywhere It's hard to find a website that doesn't have like buttons or commenting or widgets (many have them all). It gets to be a bit much.
Saturation and Fatigue You can only see so many drunken weekend pics before it gets old.
Everyone's On It Friending your Mom, boss, etc. really makes it suck.
Social Games Pretty much raped the platform. I'm guilty of spamming friends for poker chips.
Too Many Links News feed is flooded with regurgitated links that are supposed to be interesting.
Event Spam If the inbox was a real email inbox, some of those invitations would surely violate some spam law.
It's Everywhere It's hard to find a website that doesn't have like buttons or commenting or widgets (many have them all). It gets to be a bit much.
Whenever there are Facebook stories, some people talk about how well designed it is. I'm not a user, but whenever I've tried to use my wife's account I've experienced it as a horribly confusing clutterfest. People talk about the clean UI design, but I've found it to be the opposite. Even my wife couldn't explain how to do things without resorting to cargo cult voodoo.
Maybe FB used to be clean and useable, especially compared to MySpace, but is it really still the case? Am I just an idiot?
Also, in what ways has Facebook been technologically innovative? The other thing I hear about FB is that their engineering team is amazing and fast. Again, as a non-user, I really don't know what the feature set is like. I feel like I don't really hear about genuinely interesting features that much, but people always talk about the engineering with reverence. Can someone enlighten me?
Maybe FB used to be clean and useable, especially compared to MySpace, but is it really still the case? Am I just an idiot?
Also, in what ways has Facebook been technologically innovative? The other thing I hear about FB is that their engineering team is amazing and fast. Again, as a non-user, I really don't know what the feature set is like. I feel like I don't really hear about genuinely interesting features that much, but people always talk about the engineering with reverence. Can someone enlighten me?
The thing about design is it's so much easier to design a simple minimalist thing vs a feature rich mammoth site that has hundreds of function. FB succeeds at the latter fairly well. Sure it's not perfect, but they have done and continue to do a great job with it. Remember, Facebook has a huge, actively-engaged userbase, so the design is tailored largely for the experienced user, not the beginner.
Technology-wise the nature of the problem is the impressive thing. They have hundreds of millions of users visiting the site daily, each one seeing a completely customized page view on every load. There's no low-hanging fruit caching wise. What Google does for search or Amazon does for product pages is of negligible benefit. They were essentially the first company to tackle this type of problem successfully. Remember, Friendster failed because of this. MySpace pages loaded at half the speed despite doing only 10% as much. Facebook innovated at every level of the service. Just look at BigPipe (http://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/bigpipe-p...) as an example of how they optimize the page loading experience itself for minimal perceived latency (then load Facebook and observe how fast it feels).
Technology-wise the nature of the problem is the impressive thing. They have hundreds of millions of users visiting the site daily, each one seeing a completely customized page view on every load. There's no low-hanging fruit caching wise. What Google does for search or Amazon does for product pages is of negligible benefit. They were essentially the first company to tackle this type of problem successfully. Remember, Friendster failed because of this. MySpace pages loaded at half the speed despite doing only 10% as much. Facebook innovated at every level of the service. Just look at BigPipe (http://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/bigpipe-p...) as an example of how they optimize the page loading experience itself for minimal perceived latency (then load Facebook and observe how fast it feels).
>then load Facebook and observe how fast it feels
Considering the scale of the problem, you're right--it's impressively responsive. But I'd still hesitate to call it fast--on almost every visit, I'll have pictures that won't load, "like" tooltips that perpetually display "Loading..." instead of "John Doe liked this", newsfeed loading problems, etcetera. It could definitely be much faster.
Considering the scale of the problem, you're right--it's impressively responsive. But I'd still hesitate to call it fast--on almost every visit, I'll have pictures that won't load, "like" tooltips that perpetually display "Loading..." instead of "John Doe liked this", newsfeed loading problems, etcetera. It could definitely be much faster.
Maybe you have latency to their data centers? For me (in Mountain View) it's hard to imagine it being any faster. The page appears within 200ms and all the boxes are completely filled in including images on my main page probably in under a second.
yes, wmeredith hit it right on the nose; it's all relative, so compared to friendster and myspace of the time, fb was a breath of fresh air.
regarding the technology, some of the amazing things that happen unfortunately can't always be seen via a browser. for example, the fact that they're able to store (and retrieve) millions of photos a day is quite an engineering feat. the number of user posts per hour must also be quite astonishing and probably a multiple higher than photos. the scale with which fb is able to launch datacenters and manage thousands upon thousands of servers also makes for quality engineering.
regarding the technology, some of the amazing things that happen unfortunately can't always be seen via a browser. for example, the fact that they're able to store (and retrieve) millions of photos a day is quite an engineering feat. the number of user posts per hour must also be quite astonishing and probably a multiple higher than photos. the scale with which fb is able to launch datacenters and manage thousands upon thousands of servers also makes for quality engineering.
Facebook won on design vs. MySpace. It's a bit aged now, but their reputation for great on design remains as a holdover from that early period.
This is just my experience but the reason I don't use facebook is that the novelty has worn off. After seen status update after status update in my timeline I could care less about, I realize why I don't socialize with my old coworkers and people from high school. We have nothing in common, just like we had nothing in common back then. If facebook wants to continue to grow they have a very tough task ahead. They're going to have to redefine the user experience for people like me who have been on the site for a while, yet retain enough of that user experience to attract new users. I really think they missed the boat letting Linkedin IPO before them. The long slow slide to irrelevancy has begun and that doesn't look good on your S-1.
Why not just add people who you want to associate with, and not people aren't significant in your life any longer?
have you tried explaining to your coworkers, family or casual friends that you don't like them enough to add them on facebook? there's a signifigant peer pressure barrier to not friending people.
Facebook has already reached maturity and has become "too mainstream". Plus, it's a lot less useful than it used to be (more spammy). It's only natural that early adopters want to move to something else now, or simply quit it because they got bored with it.
If there would actually be a competitive and disruptive service to switch to (besides Twitter), Facebook's early adopters would quit it even faster than they are now. But for now we're just seeing those getting bored with it quit.
Looking forward to see if Diaspora, Altly and Incliq will be those "disruptive" services to compete with it (though I'm not sure if either of them will be disruptive or just incremental). Or perhaps something new will appear soon.
If there would actually be a competitive and disruptive service to switch to (besides Twitter), Facebook's early adopters would quit it even faster than they are now. But for now we're just seeing those getting bored with it quit.
Looking forward to see if Diaspora, Altly and Incliq will be those "disruptive" services to compete with it (though I'm not sure if either of them will be disruptive or just incremental). Or perhaps something new will appear soon.
The "next facebook" has to come along eventually. I don't know how it'll distinguish itself from old-facebook, nor how it'll get traction to start with, but I'm sure it'll all seem obvious in retrospect. On the other hand the chances of any individual facebook-replacement taking off are fairly small.
If I were rich I'd set up a YC-equivalent in which I'd sling $30K at anyone who claims to be building the "next facebook". Think you can do it? Think you've got a new approach to the problem? Great, here's $30K, I'll take six percent, see you when you get your first hundred thousand users! One of 'em has to pay off eventually.
If I were rich I'd set up a YC-equivalent in which I'd sling $30K at anyone who claims to be building the "next facebook". Think you can do it? Think you've got a new approach to the problem? Great, here's $30K, I'll take six percent, see you when you get your first hundred thousand users! One of 'em has to pay off eventually.
Are you sure about that? It could take a long time.
Would you have bet on Apple if you were trying to find the next Microsoft? (Would you even consider Apple the next Microsoft?)
What about Google? I don't think there is a "next Google".
Will there be success after Facebook? Of course, but I don't think it will look like Facebook. So I don't think looking for "the next Facebook" is the right course of action.
Would you have bet on Apple if you were trying to find the next Microsoft? (Would you even consider Apple the next Microsoft?)
What about Google? I don't think there is a "next Google".
Will there be success after Facebook? Of course, but I don't think it will look like Facebook. So I don't think looking for "the next Facebook" is the right course of action.
Apple and Google are interesting comparisons. Some significant part of Apple's success lies in becoming identified with "cool": its products are stylish and fashionable in addition to being useful. Google's success, on the other hand, rests very little on that; it started out as pure utility (search), something people used not because they had lots of friends using it or because it was "cool" to use it, but because they tried it and it got them the results they wanted. And even if Google has become known recently as something of a "cool" company, I don't think that its individual products are identified as "cool" in the same way Apple's are.
So it may be worth asking: is Facebook more like Google, or more like Apple? Or in other words: would Facebook survive a demotion from "cool, trendy place to be" to "utility?" Is such a "demotion" happening as we speak?
So it may be worth asking: is Facebook more like Google, or more like Apple? Or in other words: would Facebook survive a demotion from "cool, trendy place to be" to "utility?" Is such a "demotion" happening as we speak?
Actually I'd say facebook is nothing like Apple or Google, which is why it's vulnerable. While both Apple and Google benefit from some network effects, both of 'em have a huge technical lead over the competition in their areas of expertise. Facebook, though, is all about network effects, so they're much more susceptible to being overtaken by the next big thing.
[deleted]
i agree, we need something better, more specific. an example being google, a general web search engine and stackoverflow, a general development search engine. both can be used together to complement each other.
"Its users will slowly lose interest, moving on to other networks and platforms (possibly Twitter, or whatever emerges from Apple's iCloud)."
Facebook is not going to be supplanted by Twitter or iCloud, neither of these serve remotely the same purpose.
Facebook is not going to be supplanted by Twitter or iCloud, neither of these serve remotely the same purpose.
losing interest means exactly that. switching to a social site that serves a different purpose.
> Facebook is not going to be supplanted by Twitter or iCloud...
...and neither will HTML pages supplant desktop applications or brick-and-mortar stores, right? Because neither of these serve remotely the same purpose?
That's exactly the way things often go in technology and business. New wins over incumbents not by attacking them head-on on their home turf, but by creating a new niche with some interesting, unforeseen properties.
At some point commerce realizes world + dog uses it and start providing goods and services -- and the new is thence understood to have supplanted the incumbent.
Facebook is pretty much the landline phone of late XX century. The market's ripe for something like the cellphone to disrupt it.
...and neither will HTML pages supplant desktop applications or brick-and-mortar stores, right? Because neither of these serve remotely the same purpose?
That's exactly the way things often go in technology and business. New wins over incumbents not by attacking them head-on on their home turf, but by creating a new niche with some interesting, unforeseen properties.
At some point commerce realizes world + dog uses it and start providing goods and services -- and the new is thence understood to have supplanted the incumbent.
Facebook is pretty much the landline phone of late XX century. The market's ripe for something like the cellphone to disrupt it.
Twitter? Maybe. iCloud? Not a chance. A proprietary service that you can only access on a limited number of proprietary pieces of hardware (with absolutely zero transparency) is never going to reach a large mass of users, never-mind if you attempted to shoe-horn a proprietary social network on top of it.
I would also agree that I don't see Facebook being supplanted by Twitter or iCloud. What I would like to know, though, is which social network are these people moving to? I haven't really heard of anything new and upcoming that might be pulling in people of those numbers, and I'm sure we would see some article about it on here.
They don't have to switch to anything - they just have to revert to plain-old email / IM and their reliable phone contacts list. Most normal people I know would rather talk about stuff and send important links or announcements through IM, even though they also have Facebook accounts.
The only instance where I thought that Facebook was useful was for getting together for a 10 year high-school reunion, but even then, only half of my old colleagues were on Facebook. What worked was plain word-of-mouth, since somebody always knows someone that is missing from the conversation and can get in contact.
Basically what has the potential to kill Facebook are the old means of communication, channels that are still reliable and still widespread. That's why Facebook does provide IM and even email, as they want to move your Inbox on their servers; but IMHO, that remains to be seen how well it plays out, as people are pretty conservative about their current email and IM accounts (it's like your phone number, you don't want to change it so often).
And I can see why they are afraid of Google - Google has users that rely heavily on their email service, which is state of the art IMHO, it has user profiles that will appear in search results, it has productivity apps that allow for collaboration, it works on social search features as an alternative to Facebook's Like, and if Buzz wouldn't suck so much, they would have been a serious threat by now.
Unfortunately for Google, they can't seem to pull their shit together. Also, judging in this light, Microsoft's acquisition of Skype may not have been so stupid after all.
The only instance where I thought that Facebook was useful was for getting together for a 10 year high-school reunion, but even then, only half of my old colleagues were on Facebook. What worked was plain word-of-mouth, since somebody always knows someone that is missing from the conversation and can get in contact.
Basically what has the potential to kill Facebook are the old means of communication, channels that are still reliable and still widespread. That's why Facebook does provide IM and even email, as they want to move your Inbox on their servers; but IMHO, that remains to be seen how well it plays out, as people are pretty conservative about their current email and IM accounts (it's like your phone number, you don't want to change it so often).
And I can see why they are afraid of Google - Google has users that rely heavily on their email service, which is state of the art IMHO, it has user profiles that will appear in search results, it has productivity apps that allow for collaboration, it works on social search features as an alternative to Facebook's Like, and if Buzz wouldn't suck so much, they would have been a serious threat by now.
Unfortunately for Google, they can't seem to pull their shit together. Also, judging in this light, Microsoft's acquisition of Skype may not have been so stupid after all.
I think the ubiquity of smartphones is a signifigant factor in facebook's decreasing engagement. SMS used to be useful mostly for coordinating once you were at a location/event, or for reminders. Now that you can send links to arbitrary content, it replaces in large part what most people used facebook for, with much faster response times for the most part.
4. they deleted a bunch of spam accounts
i'd bet that 4-5% of ALL accounts on the site are spam/bots/fake profiles. maybe more. you're talking 20-30 Million accounts at that rate.
i believe that the statistics are somewhat inaccurate and therefore misleading. technically there are multiple things that could skew the results, none of which necessarily have to do with users not liking facebook or seeking alternatives, though it makes a catchy title.
1. a user could register for as many fb accounts as he/she has emails. i personally have 2 facebook accounts, the reason is because i forgot that i registered an account, not necessarily because of my alter ego, he's quite passive and doesn't like fb.
2. users that pass away
3. users that move beyond a certain age range
4. pages that don't represent individuals, like brands or groups, those could dissolve.
i don't think this data really says much of anything about the facebook phenomenon other than the fact that there are some adjustments in the total number of accounts, perhaps for the better as the dirty are purged into oblivion.
a more interesting statistic would be how much freaking revenue they're making.
1. a user could register for as many fb accounts as he/she has emails. i personally have 2 facebook accounts, the reason is because i forgot that i registered an account, not necessarily because of my alter ego, he's quite passive and doesn't like fb.
2. users that pass away
3. users that move beyond a certain age range
4. pages that don't represent individuals, like brands or groups, those could dissolve.
i don't think this data really says much of anything about the facebook phenomenon other than the fact that there are some adjustments in the total number of accounts, perhaps for the better as the dirty are purged into oblivion.
a more interesting statistic would be how much freaking revenue they're making.
Another possible reason for the decline is that Facebook recently disabled a bunch of Facebook accounts associated with non-real-life names (e.g. accounts using Second Life account names).
http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2011/05/facebook-deleting-second-li...
http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2011/05/facebook-deleting-second-li...
Just a small data point...
"the most recent hullabaloo over the site's new facial-recognition abilities is small potatoes compared to controversies of the past"
was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. Had an account from before most people had even heard of Facebook, but deleted mine the other day.
"the most recent hullabaloo over the site's new facial-recognition abilities is small potatoes compared to controversies of the past"
was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. Had an account from before most people had even heard of Facebook, but deleted mine the other day.
> Facebook makes some change or introduces a service that appears to make the site less private or secure, everybody makes a big deal about it, and Facebook (typically) goes ahead and does it anyway. Then everyone starts to theorize when users will begin leaving en masse in defiance.
The big deal is from the users who are upset and want to make their opinions known. I don't think anyone seriously expects a mass defection. What might happen is a slow erosion of the site's usefulness due to subtle changes in behavior. Eg people start sanitizing their status updates, making them less interesting and removing incentive for people to log in. Another example might be if they are annoyed clunky and restrictive photo sharing tools they start sharing their pictures somewhere else.
The big deal is from the users who are upset and want to make their opinions known. I don't think anyone seriously expects a mass defection. What might happen is a slow erosion of the site's usefulness due to subtle changes in behavior. Eg people start sanitizing their status updates, making them less interesting and removing incentive for people to log in. Another example might be if they are annoyed clunky and restrictive photo sharing tools they start sharing their pictures somewhere else.
I dropped out of Facebook about a year ago.Too many privacy intrusions with "oh, I'm sorry, we'll never do that again" retractions.
What is notable that when I broadcast my quit on FB, only a few % of my 'friends' cared to inquire regarding keeping up contacts. So I felt really good about quitting: it let me know who cared to keep in contact for real, and who was linked to me via social obligation.
I miss the content that some people only provide via the FB walled garden (the notes-posts, not the Wall feed).
What is notable that when I broadcast my quit on FB, only a few % of my 'friends' cared to inquire regarding keeping up contacts. So I felt really good about quitting: it let me know who cared to keep in contact for real, and who was linked to me via social obligation.
I miss the content that some people only provide via the FB walled garden (the notes-posts, not the Wall feed).
They claim that increased views/user is a good sign for Facebook because people tend to slowly ramp down rather than just cutting it off.
I'm not so sure of that. The biggest complaint that I've seen about Facebook is burnout. In light of that, increased views/user is a sign that they are encouraging people to do things that will lead to more burnout in the future.
I'm not so sure of that. The biggest complaint that I've seen about Facebook is burnout. In light of that, increased views/user is a sign that they are encouraging people to do things that will lead to more burnout in the future.
My 2 cents is that this is a short term trend, if it continues for the next 3 months then I will raise an eyebrow. From people I know I see absolutely no sign of any decline in facebook interest.
Could be: Summer has come, kids are now hanging out physically more than virtually which is what happens when you have homework/school (hs -> college)
Could be: Summer has come, kids are now hanging out physically more than virtually which is what happens when you have homework/school (hs -> college)
It's also summer time and it seems like internet usage dips quite a bit in the summer. People just spend less time sitting in front of the computer and more time out doing things. Kids have fewer papers to write so they spend less time avoiding them on Facebook.
I've seen plenty of seasonal cycles like this in various websites I've managed in the past. It's not exactly a new thing.
Also FB and Twitter got a lot of press for touting HUGE user numbers, but now that they are at hundreds of millions of users, they are obviously killing spam accounts more aggressively. I wouldn't be surprised if as much as 25% of the users on Facebook or Twitter are spam accounts or bots. At its peak MySpace was certainly up there in that range.
I've seen plenty of seasonal cycles like this in various websites I've managed in the past. It's not exactly a new thing.
Also FB and Twitter got a lot of press for touting HUGE user numbers, but now that they are at hundreds of millions of users, they are obviously killing spam accounts more aggressively. I wouldn't be surprised if as much as 25% of the users on Facebook or Twitter are spam accounts or bots. At its peak MySpace was certainly up there in that range.
FWIW FB has denied any decline in the US
http://www.bostonherald.com/business/technology/general/view...
http://www.bostonherald.com/business/technology/general/view...
The thing that made me delete last month was when they reverted the email notification settings to default.It struck me that they were going to change things whenever they wanted and I had no power over my information whatsoever.
I can't say this sort of thing caused 6 million others to delete as well, but as someone who has had a Facebook account since 2004 this was the thing to finally push me over the edge.
I should add that I don't miss it at all.
I can't say this sort of thing caused 6 million others to delete as well, but as someone who has had a Facebook account since 2004 this was the thing to finally push me over the edge.
I should add that I don't miss it at all.
Given the near total saturation in the US, it's not surprising that their monthly actives are starting to show some decay from the quality of installs going down as they grow as well as some seasonal affect.
Basically, the replacement rate of new installs in the US is lower than the number of people who have not been active in the past 30 days. If we had more granular data, I'd be willing to bet the loss is primarily in users who installed recently, not longer-tenure users losing interest or switching services. Like my mom.