Facebook is dying

[Demolition Squid]

I discussed this a little at the amsterdam conference I went to. I wish I was still in the job that paid me to look into trends, but it sounds like a similar cycle found in BBs and early online gaming (MUs etc).

Essentially, the new thing flourishes for a while, people play around with the format of the tool, bend its purpose a bit, and form into cliques. These then gradually fall victim to all the usual issues of group dynamics, become 'crusading' or 'fluffy', and people realize it is no longer fun. Then The New Hotness takes over to do the same thing, and a hard core is left behind in the old place.

I doubt TNH is going to be Twitter, though. Last time I was paying attention Twitter was on the decline. Its toolset is specifically designed against indepth discussion. No idea what TNH is gonna be, though. Maybe I'm wrong.

[Reginald Ret]

One other thing:  Dial up BBSs had a small following.  Then the internet happened, and people became more and more drawn into social interaction accordingly.

So a possibility is that people are just getting sick of being so social.

I know I am.

/grumpy hermit

Oh who am I kidding, that slash is a lie. I never stop being a grumpy hermit.

[Faust]

I doubt TNH is going to be Twitter, though. Last time I was paying attention Twitter was on the decline. Its toolset is specifically designed against indepth discussion. No idea what TNH is gonna be, though. Maybe I'm wrong.

the largest growing userbase with the 15-25 years is snapchat, its a dumb format but it is arguable that they are undercutting the young userbase from facebook.

[EK WAFFLR]

Instagram too is on the rise among teens. Seems to me people don't want to talk anymore.

[Faust]

sharing content is easier than talking to people I guess

[Demolition Squid]

Interesting...

I've been curious about whether this might be related to the increasing polarization in public discourse. It could just be nostalgia, but I don't remember people jumping straight to 'fuck you and everything you stand for' the moment one aspect of something you said didn't jive with their view ten years ago - even on the heavily moderated sites like MysticWicks. That feels like it is new.

I've also stayed the hell away from Tumblr and Reddit, though, and I understand that Tumblr/Reddit is where a lot of the more in-depth discussions take place (for better or for worse), so it could be that there's a split between the kind of people who would want to use Facebook for serious talk - now using those two sites - and the kind of people who would use Facebook for casual stuff - now using Snapchat/Instagram.

I'd be curious to know what the user numbers on all four sites actually are compared with Facebook, and whether the decline in Facebook's traffic has coincided with a rise in theirs.

[Doktor Howl]

Interesting...

I've been curious about whether this might be related to the increasing polarization in public discourse. It could just be nostalgia, but I don't remember people jumping straight to 'fuck you and everything you stand for' the moment one aspect of something you said didn't jive with their view ten years ago - even on the heavily moderated sites like MysticWicks. That feels like it is new.

I've also stayed the hell away from Tumblr and Reddit, though, and I understand that Tumblr/Reddit is where a lot of the more in-depth discussions take place (for better or for worse), so it could be that there's a split between the kind of people who would want to use Facebook for serious talk - now using those two sites - and the kind of people who would use Facebook for casual stuff - now using Snapchat/Instagram.

I'd be curious to know what the user numbers on all four sites actually are compared with Facebook, and whether the decline in Facebook's traffic has coincided with a rise in theirs.

Tumblr in fact invented the FUCK YOU response, long before the political tards got ahold of it.

[EK WAFFLR]

Squid, there's some info in this article, I think. http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2015/01/27/facebook-active-users-decline/

[President Television]

Interesting...

I've been curious about whether this might be related to the increasing polarization in public discourse. It could just be nostalgia, but I don't remember people jumping straight to 'fuck you and everything you stand for' the moment one aspect of something you said didn't jive with their view ten years ago - even on the heavily moderated sites like MysticWicks. That feels like it is new.

I've also stayed the hell away from Tumblr and Reddit, though, and I understand that Tumblr/Reddit is where a lot of the more in-depth discussions take place (for better or for worse), so it could be that there's a split between the kind of people who would want to use Facebook for serious talk - now using those two sites - and the kind of people who would use Facebook for casual stuff - now using Snapchat/Instagram.

I'd be curious to know what the user numbers on all four sites actually are compared with Facebook, and whether the decline in Facebook's traffic has coincided with a rise in theirs.

Tumblr in fact invented the FUCK YOU response, long before the political tards got ahold of it.

I thought it was the political tards on Tumblr. I mean, on the Internet at large, you're permitted to be in one of two camps, politically: Tumblr or the neo-Nazis from /pol/. There is no middle ground.

[Demolition Squid]

Squid, there's some info in this article, I think. http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2015/01/27/facebook-active-users-decline/

I can't seem to get this link to work for me... could you C&P or is it crazy long?

[Junkenstein]

There's no question that Facebook is the world's biggest social network and will probably continue to be for some time.

But the way we use Facebook is changing: gradually, it's becoming a far more passive hub for our online social interactions.

A new comprehensive survey shows that out of the eight biggest social networks, Facebook was the only one to see a decline in the rate of people actively using the site per month over 2014 — a pattern that was consistent in regions across the world — while others like Pinterest and Tumblr saw large jumps in activity.

While Pinterest saw activity increase 97% and Tumblr by 95%, Facebook was the only big network to experience a drop in active usage last year, by 9%, according to GlobalWebIndex (GWI), a research firm that interviews 170,000 internet users in 32 markets and claims to run the largest ongoing study into digital consumption to date.

The slide was most acute in Asia Pacific, where the rate of active Facebook users declined 12%, and social networks like WeChat and Qzone dominate, particularly in China.

Outside of China Facebook is still the leader in social networking with around 81% of adult internet users claiming to be members of the site. And many of them are still logging in regularly; more than half of Facebook's active users were logging in more than once a day in 2014.

But Facebook has become more of a passive hub for underlying social connections than a place to actively share our thoughts. And with so many checking Facebook on their smartphones, they'll often only check in for short periods anyway, leaving little time to do more than browse and maybe "like" a photo or two.   


Around 40% of Facebook users said they had "browsed their newsfeed for updates without posting or commenting on anything" in the last month, according to the GWI survey.

Once again teenagers were the big demographic that often didn't post anything in their Facebook network, and were less likely than others to carry out 17 of the 20 or so different Facebook behaviors tracked in the GWI survey. (That includes clicking a "like" button, commenting on a friend's photo or video and messaging a friend.)

"It's not that Facebook is being abandoned," GWI's head of trends Jason Mander wrote in the latest report. "Rather, it's that people are using Facebook less intensively or actively than before." The causes of this are varied and have been well documented already: the rise of Instagram means people fewer people upload photos to Facebook. The rise of messaging apps like WhatsApp and Kik means people are taking their conversations onto other platforms.

Another is simply the rise of social networking on our smartphones generally. On tiny screens and with limited time we're more likely to swipe down to browse than type out an interesting comment. "This encourages much more passive forms of engagement where people are more likely to simply look at things rather than interact with them," writes Mander.


That's why Facebook's revenues should remain strong: as long as people keep coming to "look at things" on Facebook, ads will get eyeballs too and the profits should keep rolling in.

Smaller platforms like Instagram, which saw a 47% rise in active usage, and LinkedIn (38%) saw healthy increases because people have broadly been opting for a wider range of niche networks, many of which they can connect to via Facebook.

When it comes to mobile, Facebook is still the most popular social app with 41% of adult internet users saying they regularly use the app. But Snapchat was the fastest growing social app in 2014, with active usage growing 57% and more than a third of 16-19 year olds claiming to use the app in the U.S., Britain, Ireland and Sweden.

Internet users of all ages are spending more time overall on social networks – an average 1.72 hours per day, up from 1.61 hours in 2012. Internet users now spend more than 6 hours a day online, with around 30% of that time spent on social networking.

"That's important food-for-thought given how many commentators have been willing to proclaim that the social networking 'bubble' has burst and that the top networks are dying," says Mander in the report. "Rather, we're actually spending more time on networks now than in the earlier part of the decade."

When it comes to website visits, YouTube was the standout winner of all the social networks. Some 82% of all internet users outside of China claim to have visited the video-sharing site in the last month, while 73% can say the same for Facebook.

Invoice is in the post.

[Demolition Squid]

Huuuuuh. Very interesting.

Thanks Junkenstein.