
‘Facebook is everything to us’: How Little Things grew to 50M users in 3 years - Oatseller
http://digiday.com/publishers/digiday-podcast-little-things/
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arjie
The website itself looks like the magazines you see at the supermarket when
you're in line at the checkout counter. They're very attention catching but in
a different way from "What happened next will surprise you" things: "15-Minute
Meditation Practice To Guarantee A Great Day", "Your Favorite Bathing Suit
Style Reveals Everything About Your Personality", "100-Year-Old Sears House
Gets A Modern Makeover".

I can see why they're successful, but have to say I was surprised by the $50
million revenue. Fascinating.

~~~
increment_i
Not to mention the subtle social engineering I caught on my visit - a little
mail icon on the navbar, made to look like I have (1) new message.

~~~
shortformblog
That's Digiday (which published the article), not Little Things, just an FYI.

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ari_
Article fails to mention that the founders started Azoogle, which became Epic
- one of the biggest companies in the CPA ad space back in the day.

In other words, they know what they're doing.

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1121redblackgo
Facebook is the backbone social network. While other platforms will come and
go, unless they screw it up, Facebook will, for a long time, be the Alamo of
social networks; the fallback, the final rallying point, the basis from which
the branches of knowing 'who's who' extend.

As long as they understand this and don't jeopardize the position Facebook
should be around in this minimum capacity for a long time to come. In the
short term I think they are doing the best they can do to position themselves
for newer and longer technologies.

I wish them all the best and hope to see some real, concrete innovation from
them in the next few years.

~~~
jrbapna
I'm curious as to why you think this is the case. For one, users are fickle
and attention greatly shifts every time some new social network comes out from
complete left field. Facebook got Instagram, but they lost big on Snapchat.

Additionally, Facebook isn't doing so well in emerging markets, which have by
far more volume in terms of number of users and purchasing power.

~~~
1121redblackgo
The event that was Facebook in it's hot phase; that massive net that captured
everyone, EVERYONE, young, young-old, old; that excitement and newness is damn
near impossible to replicate in this day and age at FB scale.

It could be done, but at what cost, at what point in time, and from how do
people buy in.

Facebook spanned generations, spanned social classes, spanned continents, and
mingled everyone in the process. People have deviated from that main network
in the subsequent years, but every now and then, those that 'left' for other
pastures always come back to facebook to see 'whatsup' see 'how's the old
crowd doing' and see 'how is so and so doing'.

No one else can do that, no one else has that power. The social tree always
recurses back to facebook. What that means for markets, new prospects etc, i
don't know. But behaviorally speaking facebook is far, far from out of the
public mind, and as the years grow longer, while it may exist at a lower level
in our day-to-day lives than some hip platforms, it persists as strong as
ever.

~~~
jrbapna
Facebook didn't capture "everyone" until many years after it launched. It was
limited to college campuses, and popular amongst college students.

Whatsapp replicated this growth and captured an even wider net. Especially
outside of the US.

Agree that Facebook is far from irrelevant, but I'd keep an open eye on the
hip new platforms. In the attention marketplace, the past is irrelevant. All
that matters is the present, and the now. The network that captures the
highest level of engagement wins, and amongst certain demographics, Facebook
is certainly losing its relevance.

~~~
dave2000
Facebook isn't exciting, like telephones aren't exciting. They're both
something you use when you need to. It's kind of boring reading about how
Facebook has peaked, or it's over, etc. What's to say? Just because the
trendy/new/shiny phase is over, doesn't mean it's "losing it's relevance".
People still massively use it to arrange events, or talk about them
afterwards, share photos, chat etc.

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tempodox
I wonder how long it will take until young people view FB membership as the
epitome of stuffiness and boredom -- one of those things “our parents found
cool when they were young and didn't know any better”.

~~~
chlee
It's already happening.

Recently, I've asked my high school aged sister and colleged aged brother
about how many of their friends and peers use FB nowadays.

Brother -- He and his friends uses it sometimes. But most of their social
activities are shared on Instagram or Snapchat and occasionally twitter.

Sister -- Barely at all. FB is seen as uncool and old school by her and her
friends. She and most of her friends share their social activities on
instagram and snapchat.

Ironically, my mom (in her 50's) uses FB fairly regularly, both for sharing
updates and checking up on her friends/acquaintance.

~~~
patja
My daughter is a high school senior. She says her class is the last one that
still uses Facebook at all, and even that is mostly to interact with family
not friends. On the other hand, they are all active on Instagram so it isn't
like they have gone far.

~~~
weisser
So all 4 people mentioned (your daughter and the 3 in the parent) all use
Facebook by way of Instagram.

This is why acquisitions happen and why buying Instagram when FB did may go
down as one of the best buys. Missing Snapchat may be one of the biggest
misses.

~~~
smelendez
My guess is that Snapchat will fade, like MySpace, LiveJournal or AIM.

It's great for teens and early adults, with tight knit social circles and the
undivided attention to look at fast-disappearing posts, but that's not much of
the population. Lots of people don't even understand how it works, while
Facebook and Instagram are pretty intuitive.

My bet is the current audience will age out of Snapchat, gradually seeing it
as something for kids, and the next group of kids will use something else
entirely.

Of course, I could be wrong--I wouldn't have predicted Snapchat would get as
big as it has, so more power to them if they can keep it going.

~~~
billmalarky
I've stopped naysaying snapchat the third time they made me feel stupid.

The first time was when I first heard of it, "that'll never take off what a
dumb fad app."

The second time was when they turned down the $40MM offer from facebook.

The third time was when they turned down the $3B offer from facebook.

They're now valued at $16B. I don't bash snapchat anymore.

Turns out snapchat isn't just for messaging anymore, a lot of people watch the
channels on it as if it was any other form of TV, and advertisers absolutely
love it.

I'm sure it will be disrupted at some point, but I've stopped trying to "call
it."

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jgalt212
I am almost never see news articles in my Facebook feed. I mostly see ads and
pictures of my aunt's breakfast and rants about how Wen shampoo doesn't work
as advertised. Am I doing something wrong?

~~~
ape4
Me too. If they have to pay (sponsored content) to get things in front of
eyeballs... that can't be profitable.

