

Facebook Will Lose 80% Of Its Users By 2017  - pmcpinto
http://www.fastcompany.com/3025273/fast-feed/study-facebook-will-lose-80-of-its-users-by-2017

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declan
Um, folks, this is a non-peer reviewed paper written by some Princeton
students. It's not, contrary to what at least three news organizations
suggested, the considered opinion of the faculty of "Princeton's Department of
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering."

Now, the paper's conclusions may or may not be correct; I'm expressing no
opinion here. My point is really about standards of journalism -- would it
really kill reporters to include the word "student" somewhere in the text of
an article trumpeting a paper written by students?

Vocativ (which I generally like, BTW) did this as well with this amazingly
declarative headline yesterday: "Facebook Will Lose 80% of Its User Base by
2017" No question mark! Not even attribution. I noted this on Twitter and
their reporter replied by saying: "So?"
[https://twitter.com/declanm/status/425699497092460545](https://twitter.com/declanm/status/425699497092460545)

For those of you who may not have been online in the early 1990s, Time
magazine did this to CMU undergrad Marty Rimm's paper in its "Cyberporn" cover
story. A U.S. senator subsequently waved it around on the floor of the Senate
to justify an Internet censorship law:
[http://w2.eff.org/Misc/Publications/Declan_McCullagh/www/rim...](http://w2.eff.org/Misc/Publications/Declan_McCullagh/www/rimm/time.html)

That was the good Sen. Chuck Grassley, in June 1995: "Mr. President,
Georgetown University Law School has released a remarkable study conducted by
researchers at Carnegie Mellon University. This study raises important
questions about the availability and the nature of cyberporn."

The Communications Decency Act became law some six months later.

~~~
declan
Update three hours later: An editor at Fast Company responded and said they'll
add a note to the story.
[https://twitter.com/JessHullinger/status/426050602984935424](https://twitter.com/JessHullinger/status/426050602984935424)

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wikwocket
They're using Google Trends to gauge how many people are using Facebook. Since
90% of this is people typing in "facebook" on their homepage to get to the FB
login page, this might actually be a surprisingly good metric to track
facebook usage.

Then again, the recent dip in searches could just mean that people are finally
learning to use bookmarks, or click on Facebook directly now that most
browsers show you your favorite sites when they start up.

~~~
jstalin
Or more are just using mobile apps to use facebook.

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RafiqM
The study was not peer reviewed, and is nothing more than an interesting
experiment, not deserving of the factual assertion of the headline.

~~~
mooism2
Although at least it's a testable prediction.

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noonespecial
They vastly underestimate the number of old folks that want to keep up with
their grandchildren. This is how I and my children use it now. It is the
easiest platform to put on an iPad to send the old folks updates.

~~~
retube
Is it really easier than email?

~~~
IgorPartola
Yes. I can post a single picture of my kids and all my relatives see it at
once. Sure, Instagram would be more to the point, but most of my family is on
Facebook. Consider that email means I have to type up everyone's address and
not forget anyone. Facebook lets me just post and people may choose to view or
not view what I post.

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awa
The prediction is based on how pathogens evolve over time with no basis on how
this apply to social network adoption.

A comparison with Myspace doesn't help either since Myspace decline started
when FB started growing rapidly, and currently apart from G+ (which isn't
growing that rapidly) there's really no competition out there.

~~~
sharemywin
with pathogens carriers either die or adapter either way they stop infecting
after a period of time. a better analogy would be telephones or the internet
itself.

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epmatsw
Unsurprising if true. Out of several hundred friends, I'm down to perhaps 10
that post to Facebook on a regular basis, and they'd probably be better served
by moving their activities to Twitter.

~~~
dave5104
Are those 10 people really the only regular posters? Or are those 10 friends
that Facebook has decided to spotlight on your news feed? I never feel like
I'm getting everybody's updates because Facebook is trying to only show me
"important" updates.

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dankoss
How do infectious diseases have anything in common with social media?

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ori_b
Both spread by social contact and network effects. If you don't interact with
anyone that has the flu, you won't get the flu. If you don't interact with
anyone that has facebook, you won't get facebook.

I have no idea if their spread followed similar models, but it wouldn't
surprise me.

~~~
dankoss
I can see the correlation in adoption rate, but social media users don't get
purged from networks like infectious diseases do from our bodies.

The reasons people use and/or leave social networks are completely different
from the reasons diseases leave the body, which is the correlation needed for
this study to make sense. It just seems like linkbait to me.

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drpgq
So going forward Facebook endless buys companies to try and prop up its user
base?

I suppose that could work to some extent, since Facebook knows how to
monetize.

