
Teenagers Will, Like, Totally Abandon Facebook for Google+ - Anon84
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/teenagers_like_totally_dislike_the_new_facebook.php
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Robelius
I am interested in seeing how they collected their data. If "25% said they
would be using Google+ more often" then that implies that more than 25% of the
2000 teens surveyed have used Google+. That seems a bit to high for me
considering out of the 1800 people in my high school only two people(twins,
other then myself, have even used Google+. The majority in my school (Yes,
gross over generalization)that uses Facebook don't even like it. The only
reason they use it is because they wan't to socialize with their friends, but
know of no other way to communicate through a network (Sorry MySpace). In
other words, the only reason people use Facebook is because everyone uses
Facebook. I hope you can see the fallacy in that.

I do see Google+ slowly taking away from Facebook's hold on teenagers, but I
cannot see a complete transition from Facebook to Google+ happening. Perhaps a
small group of teens that go into the world of Google+ with an exponential
growth, similar with MySpace and Facebook. I see the beginning process being
similar, but not a complete end of teenagers on Facebook, but rather just a
slightly lower activity level as people use both Google+ and Facebook, or
solely use the former.

P.S. How did 14-17 year olds even get a hold of a Google+ account when you
have to be 18 or older =P

P.S.S. How was this comment. This is my first comment on Hacker News. Hope
this was a quality post.

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chugger
The article is nothing more than Google's anti-Facebook propaganda.

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Sniffnoy
And yet it's very positive about Facebook's upcoming timeline?

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suivix
It is to preserve the plausibility of an unbiased viewpoint.

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btn
Isn't this sentiment true every time Facebook makes changes to their UI?
There's always some user backlash immediately following its release, but after
a few weeks everything settles and returns to the status quo.

I have no doubt that Facebook extensively tests their changes to the UI
features with a focus on _how much more time people spend on Facebook_. For
example, the lightbox photo UI was panned as being confusing and slow, but
brings in an extra billion (+5%) photo views a day [1].

While 48% of teens claim that they try to ignore or see no real value in the
ticker, I bet that a large chunk of them are clicking on it (whether they
consciously want to or not).

[1]: [https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-
engineering/developi...](https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-
engineering/developing-facebooks-new-photo-viewer/499447633919)

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Figs
> For example, the lightbox photo UI was panned as being confusing and slow,
> but brings in an extra billion (+5%) photo views a day [1].

If the interface is confusing, then it sounds like those extra billion image
views a day were probably accidental -- which would simply mean wasted
bandwidth (and money) for Facebook. Unless those extra image views somehow
also produced additional ad impressions for Facebook or something like that,
then I'm not sure why they'd consider having to serve up more images a success
if people were happier using the old system...

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colinwarren
I'm a teenager in a public high school, and I have not seen a single person
use Google+. This is not because Google+ is age limited, or because Google+ is
inferior, but because nobody uses Google+. Already, most people I know
(including non "techies"), use Facebook primarily for chat. The rest of the
Facebook features are just "extra", and used occasionally. Unless Google can
pull something revolutionary out of their hat (or Facebook has a major
blunder) in regards to chat, they aren't going to be able to pull the teenage
community over.

Note that this is from my personal experiences, and has a high probability of
being completely wrong when you look at a broader population.

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darklajid
Now that seems weird. Thanks for sharing, but, really:

    
    
      Unless Google can pull something revolutionary out of their 
      hat (or Facebook has a major blunder) in regards to chat
    

Don't you know about GTalk? Or what would you add to it, to get to FB chat
level? Because it's basically the ~same thing~, based on the same technology
(xmpp).

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sobbybutter
I don't know if others feel this way, but I don't find Google's UI outside of
search very appealing. And that includes Gmail, which is where a good chunk of
GTalk conversations happen. Couple that with email in general not being a
pleasant experience for many, and you have a lot of people who don't want to
hang out on GTalk. Also, keep in mind that chat was "magically" sprung upon
Facebook users when it launched; they didn't have to sign up for yet another
account and most of one's friends were already there. It was as simple as
clicking on a person's name and typing.

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darklajid
Thanks, very interesting.

Regarding GTalk / GMail: I just want to point out that GTalk features a decent
mobile client (at least for Android, WebOS - no idea about the rest), a
desktop client (at least for Windows?) and a widget that you can use not only
in GMail (think google.com/ig for example). Or - connect with a decent 3rd
party IM app on just about every OS.

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Wilduck
Which are all fine if you're using GTalk. However, if all your friends use FB
chat, you're probably not going to switch.

Back when I was in middle/high school, people I knew used AIM, not Yahoo
Messenger, or MSN Messenger because that's where their friends were. The fact
that they were essentially the same just served to enforce the point that AIM
would have had to make a very major blunder for anyone to switch. The same
holds for facebook chat.

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jsz0
This study just completely contradicts what I have observed. The younger
people I know look at FaceBook as something close to a force of nature. If you
listen closely you can even hear it in how they talk. They don't 'post it to
Facebook' they 'post it', they don't 'look at your photos on Facebook' they
'look at your photos' Maybe I'm reading too much into that but it's hard for
me to understand who these people are seeking an alternative to something that
is such a fixture in their lives that they don't even have to refer to it by
name anymore.

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pestaa
I observed the exact opposite. If I hear two teens talking (literally _any_
two), almost every second word I hear is Facebook.

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suivix
That's not the exact opposite because they are still talking about Facebook.

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pestaa
Well, yes, the logical statements are not opposites, but the frequency of the
F-word is.

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suivix
Well fuck, that makes a lot of fucking sense.

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alexwolfe
I think the big difference people are looking past is that when people left
myspace for facebook, facebook was clearly better. With Google+ vs. Facebook
this is not the case. Facebook is still a much better platform with a better
UI, more features, and more mature developer resources. The numbers facebook
puts out clearly contrast all the articles saying how they will be replaced
etc. They're on track to hit a billion users, period.

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conradev
One of the main reasons the teenagers I know are possibly considering using
Google+ over Facebook is because Google+ isn't blocked by our school web
filter yet :P

(They can get around it on their personal devices with proxies, but the
computers owned by the school are pretty well locked down)

I honestly don't think Google+ will ever have more traction than Facebook, at
least with the teenage crowd.

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hyperbovine
One thing to remember is that Facebook's e-mail is an outright flop -- I have
never once corresponded with an @facebook.com address -- whereas tons of teens
use Gmail on a routine basis. Every Gmail user is now (more or less) a Google+
user. Google could probably use that to drive a lot of Google+ adoption.

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william42
Does anyone _have_ a @facebook.com other than Facebook employees?

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clawr
Facebook employees use @fb.com, everyone on facebook has
vanity_username@facebook.com

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hugh3
Do teenagers still say "like" and "totally"?

Come to think of it, is teenage slang far slower-moving than I had always
thought? When not being deliberately driven by Ninja Turtles or Clueless, that
is?

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Jarred
I've heard "like", but rarely if ever "totally".

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shrikant
Probably because "totally" was too long, and is now just shortened to "totes".

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Jarred
You're right. I forgot about that.

People also say "totes muhgotes" (spelled phonetically)

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hugh3
That is hecka totes wack.

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pork
With teenagers, "considering X" is not well correlated with "doing X".

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DavidSJ
Isn't that true for just about all demographic groups?

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pork
Speaking as the parent of two teenagers, I can safely say -- no, I don't think
so :) Teenagers are a whole different category of angsty indecision.

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dmix
What exactly is the facebook news ticker?

I stopped using Facebook a few months ago.

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andrewflnr
I think they're talking about a sidebar on the top right that has a real-time
feed of your friends likes and comments and stuff. I use facebook a bit, but I
have't entirely kept up with the terminology.

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Jarred
When I got a Google Plus invite I invited my entire Facebook friend list to
it, via exporting Yahoo contacts to GMail, and selecting all the emails. Of
the 400+ people I invited, 21 ha e accepted their invitation. Less of my
friends use it than that though, maybe 5.

This is only relevant because I'm a teenager.

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phil
Citation, like, needed or whatever.

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booduh
Where's the sex? No sex, no teenage adoption.

