RSSIs Facebook in need of a Facelift?
Jul 07
Facebook, SEO Facebook, facebook users, Social Media, social networking 10 Comments
Is Facebook in need of a Facelift?What is happening to Facebook?
Recent studies are showing that Facebook is beginning to lose it’s college student crowd, but only to be gaining a much older crowd in replace of them. Last month alone…users between the ages of 18-25 decreased by nearly 600,000 (3%) while their parents and even grandparents have been hitting record numbers…WOW!
Why is this happening? What is Facebook doing to drive their target audience away…or not doing for them to stay?
Is Facebook in need of a Facelift?
Within the last month…the number for Facebook users between the ages of 35-65 has grown tremendously…close to 5 million new users. Is Facebook losing the interest of it’s younger population to the middle and older ages?
I’ve been doing research myself on this topic to find out what Facebook is lacking and why so many users are beginning to lose interest. I’ve asked users what features for Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace are missing that they would like to see implemented in either the current social networks or possibly a new social network? Many of the responses were pretty interesting:
“I want to be able to have private chats and group chats with my friends online”
“I wish you could personalize your page a bit more”
“Being able to have a personal blog would be nice”
“I hate those dumb quizzes they’ve come out with”
“I just wanna see something new”
A lot of people were saying the same things…in terms of what they would like to see from the current social networks…or in some cases…a new one.
What do you think?
Jul 07, 2009 @ 05:32:14
This is a very informational post. I’ve been reading your posts in the past and I like your writing style. It’s unbelievable how many Facebook users have dropped lately. I’m one of them. LOL
Jul 07, 2009 @ 13:02:26
Just read another similar article about Facebook here http://mashable.com/2009/07/07/facebook-users-older/. What is happening to Facebook? Is it dying out?
Jul 07, 2009 @ 14:38:26
This is awesome I also like your writing style, you always post the latest information I’ll be returning. Keep up the good work lol Im one of the older people that joined!
Jul 07, 2009 @ 14:51:29
This is something that I’m finding very true. The extra curricular activities such as the games and quizzes and such have to have permission from the person attempting to use them to publish certain information about your profile. Even if you wanted to use them you wouldn’t know what information is being disclosed. Facebook uses a generic statement to notify you that this is taking place. With identity theft on the rise you can’t help but to wonder… What profile information? disclosed to whom…You also have to be very careful setting up your security settings. Over the last 12 years that I’ve had in the IT security realm I have found that the average user is aware of this threat. The user base shift…is it a good or bad thing?
Jul 07, 2009 @ 18:42:40
I came over from Mashable. The apps. thing is a big deal. I don’t mind one or two, but it has pretty much become a plague. The catch of having to give permission and install yet another app. to see whatever virtual gift/coffee/flower your friend sent you is an annoyance to say the least. The sad thing is that your friend likely does it with very good intentions, but I end up ignoring whatever they sent because I don’t want yet another app.
And then, there is the privacy control. Like someone else remarked, it would be nice to have those nice chats with your friends or family privately. Other than having “conversations” on the inbox composing messages, there is not a lot of option on that (FB chat is extremely unreliable and unstable). And better granular control for who sees what would be nice. There are things I want family to see I don’t want my boss to see, and short of just completely blocking my boss from the profile, this is not easy to do.
So at the end, my guess is, for young people, once the old goats invade the space, so to speak, they leave or move on leaving it to the older folks. But also FB could be doing a lot of things better that they are not doing since they are just thinking how to make a buck. Nothing wrong with that, but in that process, they seem to be losing start of where they came from and who put them on top.
Best, and keep on blogging.
Jul 07, 2009 @ 18:54:44
@Angel
You have made some very valid points. Most of them I’ve heard from current or past users of Facebook. People are just getting tired of some of the dumb things that Facebook has implemented just to make a buck…like you said. They are catering to advertisers more so than their target audience.
Very good comment. Thank you!
Jul 08, 2009 @ 16:05:32
This is a good post. Funny you wrote about this cuz I just saw on Twitter that there is a new Social Network coming out in about a month that is supposed to beat out Facebook & Twitter. The article is here: http://www.pressreleasepoint.com/new-social-network-catchy-tagline-quotbetter-just-nicequot
Jul 13, 2009 @ 21:43:23
At the end of the day, you have to accept and even appreciate the fact that companies cannot provide free services like Facebbook without funding, as much as we’d like a Facebook free of advertising and marketing. It’s actually incredibly smart for companies like Facebook and Twitter to introduce the product first and introduce the advertising later. People who want something free from Facebook without a willingness to compromise so that the company can continue to develop and support the product have a selfish pirate mentality.
Sep 13, 2009 @ 22:07:28
I completely disagree. Everyone I know who has left facebook did so BECAUSE facebook kept changing so much. All these applications are sooooo annoying. That’s the one big drawback in my opinion. I really hope facebook doesn’t go down the tubes like myspace did because I want to be able to see those pictures that other people have posted from times in my life forever. And I want to be able to keep in touch with people. If facebook keeps changing, pretty soon everyone in the younger generation will leave…and maybe the older generation too.