News:

PD.com: You wont believe our bullshit

Main Menu

Facebook is dying

Started by Mesozoic Mister Nigel, June 03, 2015, 05:38:58 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

About six months ago, I noticed something about Facebook: it was slow. I don't mean that I was getting fewer "likes" or that I had less crap in my feed; those things haven't really changed. But conversation in groups has dropped off sharply, and most telling, popular groups that had been gaining new members daily -- sometimes by the hundreds -- started having slower membership gains. Then they plateaued. And now they are declining. Post reach dropped precipitously, I suspect as part of Facebook's efforts to convince group and page owners to pay for visibility. It's funny that after all these years, they still don't understand  how the internet works.

I've seen this before. I saw it with dialup BBSes, and with newsgroups, and with pay-per-month web services, and with free webforums. I've been waiting for it, because frankly, Facebook is a shitty, shitty platform for online discussion, and discussion has always been my main motivation for being online.

I went looking to see what the Web had to say about Facebook's user numbers, and found these:

http://www.fastcompany.com/3025273/fast-feed/study-facebook-will-lose-80-of-its-users-by-2017

http://www.dailydot.com/technology/facebook-teen-stats-fall-2014/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2015/01/27/facebook-active-users-decline/

http://venturebeat.com/2015/02/27/facebooks-active-users-arent-so-active-anymore-says-survey-data/

I can't say I'll be sorry to see it go.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


LMNO

But what will fill the niche?  Most other platforms either try to be Facebook, or are sort of an niche app that expanded beyond it's original vision.

The Johnny


There seemed to be more interaction on facebook...

What i believe fucked themselves in the A was their motherfucking sponsored news articles and ads in the goddamn newsfeed... i want to see what my acquaintances are up to, not the billionth 20 THINGS ABOUT THAT YOU WONT BELIEVE

my newsfeed besides that is filled with updates of pretty alt models... but with people i know we mostly keep it in chat and rarely post anything....

for all we care we might as well be in msn messenger that allows for offline messages to be sent... or could be whatsapp if it wasnt such a bitch to type on a phone...
<<My image in some places, is of a monster of some kind who wants to pull a string and manipulate people. Nothing could be further from the truth. People are manipulated; I just want them to be manipulated more effectively.>>

-B.F. Skinner

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on June 03, 2015, 05:46:03 PM
But what will fill the niche?  Most other platforms either try to be Facebook, or are sort of an niche app that expanded beyond it's original vision.

No idea.

My only guess is that whatever it is will be completely different, and will just sort of bloom onto the scene organically.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Prelate Diogenes Shandor

Praise NHGH! For the tribulation of all sentient beings.


a plague on both your houses -Mercutio


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrTGgpWmdZQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVWd7nPjJH8


It is an unfortunate fact that every man who seeks to disseminate knowledge must contend not only against ignorance itself, but against false instruction as well. No sooner do we deem ourselves free from a particularly gross superstition, than we are confronted by some enemy to learning who would plunge us back into the darkness -H.P.Lovecraft


He who fights with monsters must take care lest he thereby become a monster -Nietzsche


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHhrZgojY1Q


You are a fluke of the universe, and whether you can hear it of not the universe is laughing behind your back -Deteriorata


Don't use the email address in my profile, I lost the password years ago

Cain

Time for a Myspace comeback!

I actually suspect it will be Twitter.

Faust

I found myself over the last year interacting more with the discordians on facebook then anyone else, friends, family etc.

Facebook isn't cool for young people so that will be an ultimate death for the site but not for a few years to come.

Baseless speculation: Facebook goes through periodic Drive-people-away mode ever since the IPO, in a price fixing exercise.

Say you have a load of shares in facebook, you are its ceo, and you control its technology.

You sell a load of your shares at a high price, but you control the product.

You make the product unpleasant to users and drive down revenue from adverts and get some negative press about privacy issues or thought experiments etc, you drive down the share price and buy back some of your initial shares.

You fix the product, people become more active, the revenue stream restores. Your share price goes up and you sell again for a large profit before repeating the cycle.
Sleepless nights at the chateau

Junkenstein

Crazy talk. Utter madness. Such things would never happen.
Nine naked Men just walking down the road will cause a heap of trouble for all concerned.

Reginald Ret

Good.
Fuck facebook.

I'm hoping for some kind of integrated communication platform with various options for both direct and indirect communication. In which the user decides which are direct and which are indirect based on personal preference.
Lord Byron: "Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves."

Nigel saying the wisest words ever uttered: "It's just a suffix."

"The worst forum ever" "The most mediocre forum on the internet" "The dumbest forum on the internet" "The most retarded forum on the internet" "The lamest forum on the internet" "The coolest forum on the internet"

Ben Shapiro

Facebook will add Myspace groups the ones that mimic forums.

Cainad (dec.)

Several of my friends and I use it quite extensively as a communication hub, but I wonder if we fall in a narrow demographic band where Facebook rose to prominence at just the right time in our lives. The Internet will move on and some of us will stay just out of habit.

Doktor Howl

Also gonna say, I've noticed a SHARP drop off in the last 6 months, in groups.

I think I can see why, to a degree.  Same thing happened here.  Put a bunch of people in a room.  The smarter, charismatic ones start seeing it as a competition, and drive each other away.  Eventually, you fall below a threshold where conversations can occur.

(Similarity ends here)

In the meantime, the people that leave make more pages, which go gangbusters for a few days and then die.

And all the people who hang around ANYWHERE post millions of "game" or "joke" threads, and there's the horrible selfie threads, of course.
Molon Lube

Richter

I've noticed a bend away from what people are actually doing, and a shift to what's "Trending"

People stop talking about their lives and doings in favor of the latest funny meme, clickbait article, or point of outrage.  Facebook promotes these, and certainly slants posting order to them, because some make them advertising money.

Hence the plot is lost
Quote from: Eater of Clowns on May 22, 2015, 03:00:53 AM
Anyone ever think about how Richter inhabits the same reality as you and just scream and scream and scream, but in a good way?   :lulz:

Friendly Neighborhood Mentat

The Johnny

Quote from: Richter on June 05, 2015, 01:11:40 AM
I've noticed a bend away from what people are actually doing, and a shift to what's "Trending"

People stop talking about their lives and doings in favor of the latest funny meme, clickbait article, or point of outrage.  Facebook promotes these, and certainly slants posting order to them, because some make them advertising money.

Hence the plot is lost

Yes yes, the newsfeed has been corrupted, in that sense (of many) Myspace was better.
<<My image in some places, is of a monster of some kind who wants to pull a string and manipulate people. Nothing could be further from the truth. People are manipulated; I just want them to be manipulated more effectively.>>

-B.F. Skinner

Doktor Howl

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.
Molon Lube