I don't know if early adopters are leaving or not and my data doesn't really suggest something one way or another.
What is happening, though, is that developers are finding it harder to succeed. Coupled with Facebook's newfound distance from the community it's not hard to see why *developers* are less engaged.
With respect to the average Facebook user a few things might be happening. One, the early adopters were big drivers of the platform and they're now tired of it.
Two, applications have more-or-less saturated the Facebook userbase. This is what I think, personally, and it also aligns well with the new Facebook policies. If users have lots of apps then any new app invites are going to be more likely to viewed as "spam." As people complain about spam Facebook has to react by restricting developers.
Developers now have a doubly-hard time of succeeding. Users are rejecting certain kinds of apps and Facebook is implementing policies that restrict what applications can do.
Just some food for thought. I don't have any data on this one way or another.
Cheers, Jesse
Jared
· 1 year ago
Facebook jumped the shark with the infectious applications as well as their rate limiter gone amok. I write a friend Happy Birthday on their wall yesterday and they say I'm spamming, apparently because two weeks before I wrote another friend Happy Birthday. I'm not sure who's running that ship but they are starting to go off course.
Joey
· 1 year ago
They went to Twitter.. duh. The interface is better due it's focus on one thing, quick snaps of meaningful, personal and constant communication!
Anonymous
· 1 year ago
It's like reality television. It was exciting at first to see what real people were like in different situations, but at some point you realize that people are boring.
Morten Skogly
· 1 year ago
The Facebook apps are a real pain, and I have started to remove, block or turn off email alerts on all of them. But I still love Facebook for the fact that it put me in touch of all the people I know/knew in my home town, people who are not necessarily supernerds and "early adopters", and is far from creating an accound on twitter. Twitter also lacks the tools for connecting people in groups or events, so I doubt that Twitter will be anything close to have the user mass as facebook. Last time I checked facebook had over 1 million Norwegian users, and Twitter had just over 500 Norwegian users, so I guess Twitter has some SERIOUS catching up to do.
I do believe that facebook needs to do something drastic about the third party apps though, like turning off email alerts for all of them (and letting whomever wants it to turn it back on manually) to avaid Facebook fatique, and I also hope people themselves will turn down the spam volume a bit (raise your hands those who hate Funwall), and write direct IM messages instead.
My feelings towards facebook is fairly cold right now, but I actually feel some ... confort ... knowing that if I wanted to, I could easily reach people I went to school with (we are actually using Facebook to organice a highschool reunion right now).
Twitter is fun and all, but it seems like 90% of what people write about are ads for their own stuff, and I'll take cute kitten video spam on my funwall any day over that.
Aprille
· 1 year ago
Facebook makes my head hurt - there's too much going on on a page,and since I just want to see quick updates, scan for new friends/ emails, and leave - it is way too cluttered. It seems to me that people started having fun, developers went nuts creating something for every personality possible, and now it's just drowning in too much stuff.
Sarah
· 1 year ago
I use a lot of Facebook applications to keep my account current without having to log in. I use a Twitter application to keep my status up-to-date, a feed application to post my Shared Google Reader items, and the Notes tool to import my blog feed. I also subscribe to my Friends' Status updates, so I don't have to log in to see what they're doing. Pretty much, I only log in to write something on someone's wall or to send a message if I don't have a friend's email address.
Leon Westbrook
· 1 year ago
I'm still a heavily active facebook user since my school got access 4 years ago. While I'll admit its not like it used to be, it is still shades better than myspace.
User need to learn how to use their privacy functions and just block the annoying applications. Also don't just add every person you know. I'm tired of people whining about how their profiles is not safe. You CAN lock down your profile and restrict certain parts of it from being seen.
Will
· 1 year ago
To whom exactly does "early adopters" refer to?
The article concentrated on the state of the Facebook platform, but that is ultimately very different than the state of Facebook itself. As a college senior, I have seen Facebook grow from an exclusive network for Ivy League students to meet each other my freshman year to the Web 2.0-leading, social networking phenomenon it is today. To talk about early adopters, one has to recognize the original purpose of Facebook and see that for many college students, that has never changed.
For most college students, Facebook's main functionality lies in the Wall/Messaging system, Groups, the Photo application, and the Profile Data. All of the new Applications that have developed since the API was released helped generate a lot of hype and bring a ton of new users but for the earliest users of Facebook they are still bells and whistles that are rarely used. Very few of my friends use Facebook to share posted items, boost productivity, or etc. Those features attract a very specific Web 2.0-savvy crowd, but for college students, it is still the primary way to simply communicate with friends.
Ranee
· 1 year ago
I wanted to throw up when Facebook opened up to high school students, and when Facebook opened up to everyone, I wanted to stab myself in the eye.
The exclusivity, for many early adopters, has lost its luster. It's no longer a "personal" entity that can be shared ONLY with their friends or people like them. Faculty, parents, coworkers, enemies, etc. are able to view their profiles. And if a stalker is psychotic enough, there are ways to view someone's profile even if they have full-blown privacy options in check (no hacking needed). The feeling now is that there are too many weirdos on Facebook, there are people who jump on the bandwagon and have turned it into retarded MySpace, too many stupid features, too many useless apps, too much irrelevance.
Where have they moved on to? Early adopters have gotten older, have graduated and found jobs, have social network fatigue and finally learned to communicate in a really old-fashioned way: the phone.
On a personal level, getting in touch with people I used to know is not as important as getting in touch with people I DO know. It's communicating with the people in the "right here right now" that matter most---and you can see this on your own Facebook page as well. Go to your wall, and check out how many wall posts you have from people you used to know vs. people you know now. The most active posts will be from your current group of friends, and people you interact with NOW.
Also, have you ever noticed how many stupid app invites you've received from that chiq you knew in 3rd grade? She knows the invites are annoying, but she really wants the app and can't get around inviting people to use it. She sent you an invite because you're not that close of a friend anyway, and knows that you'll just delete it without bitching her out about it later.
P.S. A feature that I really find annoying is "People You Might Know". There are TONS of people who are friends of my friends who I do NOT want to get in contact with. What makes it worse is that everytime I log into my account, I see their ugly faces on my homepage.
((end of rant))
E-tech Computers
· 1 year ago
Hi, I don't believe Facebook is really slowing down at all.
A lot of people are saying they don't "depend on facebook" but are still regular users.
I think Facebook is still being effective to keep users active. Especially after they have added their instant messaging system.
will
· 1 year ago
Yep, i think early adopters have left for twitter! p.s where's the voting option for 'i was on facebook but i left due to boredom/applications/concerns for my privacy/something better...?
Mike Germano
· 1 year ago
The big problem is how you view Early Adopters. You think early adopters are the people who got on facebook when it was open to non college students. That is not the real early adopters. As a True Early Adopters Sr year of College Facebook first came out I still find myself very active. People are not leaving facebook because there is no where else to go. Twitter is nice for quick chats and meeting new people but facebook is the utility that keeps any important connection/friend.
twitter.com/mikegermano
mattyschreck
· 1 year ago
Stan, I was a little puzzled when I read through the original report by 20bits. I'm certainly not an expert in this matter, but the original report discussed DEVELOPERS exclusively, not early-adopters. I am not sure what you base your assumption on that these are also early adopters. The Facebook developers I know certainly aren't. I mean, some of them joined Facebook early, yes, but others didn't, and they are programming for it now because, well, they are programmers.
We've just done quite an exhaustive body of research in this area, and we didn't see any indication that early adopters were leaving Facebook at all. I know that a lot of people would LIKE to see them leaving, because then there would be a new hype, and new things to report on.
There is of course always the possibility that I am misinterpreting your post, but if what I think is correct, it might just be a piece of very badly research journalism.
john piercy
· 1 year ago
I got rid of facebook .I was interested to see how quick my account could be actually deleted. Not suspended. Once I found the correct email address to contact Facebook ,it was rather quick. Here is the address to delete your facebook. privacy@facebook.com
It feels good not to get poked all day.
mrshl
· 1 year ago
Normal people are using the site. A lot. Just like normal people are still using Myspace. A lot.
Normal people use Facebook just like Twitter. They don't care about Twitter.
Normal people do not read this blog.
Lisa
· 1 year ago
Just for the record, I'm normal. I use Facebook. I read this blog. I even follow mashable on Twitter. Just sayin'. ;-)
davejenk1ns
· 1 year ago
I wrote this a while ago:
Someone I know is writing a book titled So You're on Facebook, Now What? From what I can tell, it centers on how to build a commercial profile on facebook, and how to increase your visibility. Hmmm... I admit to having some doubts about this. We all make money on the stupid Intarweb in some way or another, but it seems to me that the social networks are like parties that progress through stages:
* stage 1: not many people - this might be lame * stage 2: okay, some people are showing up - let's stick around and see what happens * stage 3: wow-- there's some cool people here, and i'm a little drunk. Fun! * stage 4: rager! holy shit! look how many people are here! We can do anything! (let's steal ketchup from the fridge and throw it into the street!!!) * stage 5: waaay too many people. The cops are gonna show up, and people are pushing and shoving, and i can't hear anything you're saying right now. This is lame.
MySpace progressed through to stage 5 rather quickly. Facebook is somewhere in stage 4. The problem I have with this book is the purposeful, driven, crass commercial intention of it. Just like that party, imagine the college friend of yours who comes through the crowds and pushes the Red Bull stickers and is trying to get you to buy pre-paid long distance cards. Meh-- dork alert. Once the businesses are actively pushing their agendas on the crowd, the sponteneity, the fun interaction, the conversation, the party, begins it's messy end. The cool kids head for a different darker smokey club, and the only ones left are the hucksters all trying to sell each other something.
I've already started to kill all the goofy apps from my facebook. I only check the thing once every 4 days or so now (down from my temp addiction of 2x/day last month). It's nice to keep a line out to my old friends, and the moment I let it get past that, it's no better than reality TV or mindless webtrash.
My advice? Be very very careful how you sell your shit on facebook-- you may do more damage to your brand than you think. If the social network angle makes sense (some sort of friend interaction like wish lists or music tastes), maybe. If you're just blabbing to the masses, get out.
Lisa
· 1 year ago
I say let the kids have their fun with the zombies, vampires and such. I can, do and will continue to block the apps that waste my time. I don't invite my friends to use apps. I don't use apps which require inviting. Etc. I hate those. BUT, I do still like Facebook because of the very fact that I can tailor it to be exactly what *I* want it to be. And if I can't find what I want/need, I can create it and let everyone else use it too... That's just plain awesome in my book, Face or otherwise.
Bart
· 1 year ago
Facebook is still the number one social network where most of my friends and colleagues are present. I'm currently connected to +300 people and I enjoy seeing their pictures and reading their notes on a daily base. The most valuable tool is the "event" tool. I get informed about new events and I can subscribe right away. Even better, I can see which other friends will be present. There is no other social network (at least not in Belgium) that offers all these features and that hosts that many people. So, I’m not thinking about leaving it. The stream of application invites are over too. Now and then I get an invite from a newbie friend, but I don’t bother. They just have to be educated a bit :)
Alex Christoforou
· 1 year ago
Facebook certainly has enjoyed tremendous growth, but was this because Facebook was cool or was it just a major press and media blitz orchestrated by the Silicon Valley hype machine? After all Facebook abandoned its nice, strong university student niche, for the "greener pastures" of the masses.
Facebook's business model, overnight, turned from colleges and focused social networking to an everyone, everything portal, with a business model that reads something like..."if your friends are in then I have to be in", so let’s pack in as many users in as little time as possible, keep them engaged with useless stuff, never let them cancel their account, and revenue will somehow take care of itself (Beacon was not a good start).
At the end of the day, Facebook is indeed a house of cards, because the only reason to be part of Facebook is because your core group of friends are users. The minute they leave you really have nothing to do on the site - all the games, apps and features are catered to being used by a circle of close friends. Flirting and meeting new people are weak features of Facebook, especially compared to the free, flirty, open browsing that MySpace offers.
What makes a site cool is without a doubt cool features and applications. Facebook is now more SPAM than anything else, and SPAM requires maintenance, time and personal overhead. The internet will most certainly spring up with new technologies, platforms and environments that will break down these annoyances and walled gardens, opening things up, streamlining processes, and making our time better spent.
So will Facebook collapse, probably not, in the end it will be another place to hang out, play games, and pass your time. And this is good enough to keep Facebook as a top 20 site.
Does Facebook serve a purpose or make our lives easier, as technology should? Not really. Not many useful apps, cost saving innovations, media/entertainment tools or different approaches to the Social Stream (think Twitter) inherently built in to Facebook.
The future of the Web and Wed 3.0 is all about the tools, innovations and services social networking sites deliver and not as much about size and scale or even where your friends are!
Initiatives are already under way to allow users to take their profile and friends with them from network to network. This means that walled gardens like Facebook will have many challenges in defining themselves which to date has been purely on how many sign ups they have had.
When the Social Profile is easily ported from site to site (which will happens sooner or later) then the focus is not about users but about tools, applications and inevitably technology. So we return again to the basics and that means social network focused applications, services and tools win out in the long run because it's not just about where your friends are anymore, this becomes a non-issue.
Facebook is not cool, never was. More sizzle than steak, and now we wait for what the web has to offer next. One thing is certain, as the markets are cloudy, economies less certain, and the Bears on Wall Street are running the show, the days of just building a social networking business based on numbers of users with no business model in place is over. Revenues and profits will be more important than user base. Focus, innovation, and services will win out! Perhaps a great idea would be to create a social network for university and college students, a place where your parents can't join.
Alex Christoforou Wadja
Jeff S
· 1 year ago
Hey check out Virtudex.com it's the best Business Social Network...
JamieWeb3oh
· 1 year ago
How do you keep balance in your apps?
That's the question we are facing right now. I am Director of Marketing for a new social network called ViewMyLife.
Currently all of our applications/widgets have been developed internally, but we are getting close to opening up our API. What we don't want is chaos to ensue and zombies to attack. The current plan is to hand-pick certain partners and have a brief application process for everyone else. Hopefully less clutter and more value and meaninging that simplfies and integrates people's lives.
If interested in checking out the site its www.ViewMyLife.com. Slightly shameless plug, but we love feedback!
mininchico
· 1 year ago
Facebook has waaaayyy too much going on for me...I can't keep up with all the stuff I get sent. I have turned off most of the apps so I don't get inundated with messages. I would rather initiate personal notes to my pals than have an application easily generate a generic one.
nafnosseb
· 1 year ago
Once a person has removed all silly apps, added some apps which sync with your other services, customize your notifications and import feeds from photo-sharing, digg, whatnot which is integrated, I believe it still works as a platform . So many "casual internet users" exclusively use facebook and cant be found elsewhere. No point telling them to use twitter.
All Comments
http://haochen.wordpress.com/2008/05/07/if-micr...
Thanks for the mention.
I don't know if early adopters are leaving or not and my data doesn't really suggest something one way or another.
What is happening, though, is that developers are finding it harder to succeed. Coupled with Facebook's newfound distance from the community it's not hard to see why *developers* are less engaged.
With respect to the average Facebook user a few things might be happening. One, the early adopters were big drivers of the platform and they're now tired of it.
Two, applications have more-or-less saturated the Facebook userbase. This is what I think, personally, and it also aligns well with the new Facebook policies. If users have lots of apps then any new app invites are going to be more likely to viewed as "spam." As people complain about spam Facebook has to react by restricting developers.
Developers now have a doubly-hard time of succeeding. Users are rejecting certain kinds of apps and Facebook is implementing policies that restrict what applications can do.
Just some food for thought. I don't have any data on this one way or another.
Cheers,
Jesse
I do believe that facebook needs to do something drastic about the third party apps though, like turning off email alerts for all of them (and letting whomever wants it to turn it back on manually) to avaid Facebook fatique, and I also hope people themselves will turn down the spam volume a bit (raise your hands those who hate Funwall), and write direct IM messages instead.
My feelings towards facebook is fairly cold right now, but I actually feel some ... confort ... knowing that if I wanted to, I could easily reach people I went to school with (we are actually using Facebook to organice a highschool reunion right now).
Twitter is fun and all, but it seems like 90% of what people write about are ads for their own stuff, and I'll take cute kitten video spam on my funwall any day over that.
User need to learn how to use their privacy functions and just block the annoying applications. Also don't just add every person you know. I'm tired of people whining about how their profiles is not safe. You CAN lock down your profile and restrict certain parts of it from being seen.
The article concentrated on the state of the Facebook platform, but that is ultimately very different than the state of Facebook itself. As a college senior, I have seen Facebook grow from an exclusive network for Ivy League students to meet each other my freshman year to the Web 2.0-leading, social networking phenomenon it is today. To talk about early adopters, one has to recognize the original purpose of Facebook and see that for many college students, that has never changed.
For most college students, Facebook's main functionality lies in the Wall/Messaging system, Groups, the Photo application, and the Profile Data. All of the new Applications that have developed since the API was released helped generate a lot of hype and bring a ton of new users but for the earliest users of Facebook they are still bells and whistles that are rarely used. Very few of my friends use Facebook to share posted items, boost productivity, or etc. Those features attract a very specific Web 2.0-savvy crowd, but for college students, it is still the primary way to simply communicate with friends.
The exclusivity, for many early adopters, has lost its luster. It's no longer a "personal" entity that can be shared ONLY with their friends or people like them. Faculty, parents, coworkers, enemies, etc. are able to view their profiles. And if a stalker is psychotic enough, there are ways to view someone's profile even if they have full-blown privacy options in check (no hacking needed). The feeling now is that there are too many weirdos on Facebook, there are people who jump on the bandwagon and have turned it into retarded MySpace, too many stupid features, too many useless apps, too much irrelevance.
Where have they moved on to? Early adopters have gotten older, have graduated and found jobs, have social network fatigue and finally learned to communicate in a really old-fashioned way: the phone.
On a personal level, getting in touch with people I used to know is not as important as getting in touch with people I DO know. It's communicating with the people in the "right here right now" that matter most---and you can see this on your own Facebook page as well. Go to your wall, and check out how many wall posts you have from people you used to know vs. people you know now. The most active posts will be from your current group of friends, and people you interact with NOW.
Also, have you ever noticed how many stupid app invites you've received from that chiq you knew in 3rd grade? She knows the invites are annoying, but she really wants the app and can't get around inviting people to use it. She sent you an invite because you're not that close of a friend anyway, and knows that you'll just delete it without bitching her out about it later.
P.S. A feature that I really find annoying is "People You Might Know". There are TONS of people who are friends of my friends who I do NOT want to get in contact with. What makes it worse is that everytime I log into my account, I see their ugly faces on my homepage.
((end of rant))
A lot of people are saying they don't "depend on facebook" but are still regular users.
I think Facebook is still being effective to keep users active. Especially after they have added their instant messaging system.
twitter.com/mikegermano
We've just done quite an exhaustive body of research in this area, and we didn't see any indication that early adopters were leaving Facebook at all. I know that a lot of people would LIKE to see them leaving, because then there would be a new hype, and new things to report on.
There is of course always the possibility that I am misinterpreting your post, but if what I think is correct, it might just be a piece of very badly research journalism.
Once I found the correct email address to contact Facebook ,it was rather quick.
Here is the address to delete your facebook.
privacy@facebook.com
It feels good not to get poked all day.
Normal people use Facebook just like Twitter. They don't care about Twitter.
Normal people do not read this blog.
Someone I know is writing a book titled So You're on Facebook, Now What? From what I can tell, it centers on how to build a commercial profile on facebook, and how to increase your visibility. Hmmm... I admit to having some doubts about this. We all make money on the stupid Intarweb in some way or another, but it seems to me that the social networks are like parties that progress through stages:
* stage 1: not many people - this might be lame
* stage 2: okay, some people are showing up - let's stick around and see what happens
* stage 3: wow-- there's some cool people here, and i'm a little drunk. Fun!
* stage 4: rager! holy shit! look how many people are here! We can do anything! (let's steal ketchup from the fridge and throw it into the street!!!)
* stage 5: waaay too many people. The cops are gonna show up, and people are pushing and shoving, and i can't hear anything you're saying right now. This is lame.
MySpace progressed through to stage 5 rather quickly. Facebook is somewhere in stage 4. The problem I have with this book is the purposeful, driven, crass commercial intention of it. Just like that party, imagine the college friend of yours who comes through the crowds and pushes the Red Bull stickers and is trying to get you to buy pre-paid long distance cards. Meh-- dork alert. Once the businesses are actively pushing their agendas on the crowd, the sponteneity, the fun interaction, the conversation, the party, begins it's messy end. The cool kids head for a different darker smokey club, and the only ones left are the hucksters all trying to sell each other something.
I've already started to kill all the goofy apps from my facebook. I only check the thing once every 4 days or so now (down from my temp addiction of 2x/day last month). It's nice to keep a line out to my old friends, and the moment I let it get past that, it's no better than reality TV or mindless webtrash.
My advice? Be very very careful how you sell your shit on facebook-- you may do more damage to your brand than you think. If the social network angle makes sense (some sort of friend interaction like wish lists or music tastes), maybe. If you're just blabbing to the masses, get out.
Facebook's business model, overnight, turned from colleges and focused social networking to an everyone, everything portal, with a business model that reads something like..."if your friends are in then I have to be in", so let’s pack in as many users in as little time as possible, keep them engaged with useless stuff, never let them cancel their account, and revenue will somehow take care of itself (Beacon was not a good start).
At the end of the day, Facebook is indeed a house of cards, because the only reason to be part of Facebook is because your core group of friends are users. The minute they leave you really have nothing to do on the site - all the games, apps and features are catered to being used by a circle of close friends. Flirting and meeting new people are weak features of Facebook, especially compared to the free, flirty, open browsing that MySpace offers.
What makes a site cool is without a doubt cool features and applications. Facebook is now more SPAM than anything else, and SPAM requires maintenance, time and personal overhead. The internet will most certainly spring up with new technologies, platforms and environments that will break down these annoyances and walled gardens, opening things up, streamlining processes, and making our time better spent.
So will Facebook collapse, probably not, in the end it will be another place to hang out, play games, and pass your time. And this is good enough to keep Facebook as a top 20 site.
Does Facebook serve a purpose or make our lives easier, as technology should? Not really. Not many useful apps, cost saving innovations, media/entertainment tools or different approaches to the Social Stream (think Twitter) inherently built in to Facebook.
The future of the Web and Wed 3.0 is all about the tools, innovations and services social networking sites deliver and not as much about size and scale or even where your friends are!
Initiatives are already under way to allow users to take their profile and friends with them from network to network. This means that walled gardens like Facebook will have many challenges in defining themselves which to date has been purely on how many sign ups they have had.
When the Social Profile is easily ported from site to site (which will happens sooner or later) then the focus is not about users but about tools, applications and inevitably technology. So we return again to the basics and that means social network focused applications, services and tools win out in the long run because it's not just about where your friends are anymore, this becomes a non-issue.
Facebook is not cool, never was. More sizzle than steak, and now we wait for what the web has to offer next. One thing is certain, as the markets are cloudy, economies less certain, and the Bears on Wall Street are running the show, the days of just building a social networking business based on numbers of users with no business model in place is over. Revenues and profits will be more important than user base. Focus, innovation, and services will win out! Perhaps a great idea would be to create a social network for university and college students, a place where your parents can't join.
Alex Christoforou
Wadja
That's the question we are facing right now. I am Director of Marketing for a new social network called ViewMyLife.
Currently all of our applications/widgets have been developed internally, but we are getting close to opening up our API. What we don't want is chaos to ensue and zombies to attack. The current plan is to hand-pick certain partners and have a brief application process for everyone else. Hopefully less clutter and more value and meaninging that simplfies and integrates people's lives.
If interested in checking out the site its www.ViewMyLife.com. Slightly shameless plug, but we love feedback!