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The Death of Facebook?

I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts that Facebook’s popularity amongst kids and teens has been on a decline. Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has even noted that this is the first time that there has been a decrease in daily teenage users since the social network was launched a decade ago. Even though Facebook has over a billion active users, this recent decline has made some people believe that the death of Facebook, at least as the supreme reigning social network, might not be too far away.

A recent study done by researchers at Princeton University compared the growth and potential decline of Facebook to that of an epidemic disease. When comparing the spread of the social network’s popularity to the way diseases like the bubonic plague were once spread, the researchers were able to predict that the site’s user count will drop by 80 percent before the year 2017. The reason behind the study was that ideas have often been shown to spread infectiously before dying out, not unlike diseases. Losing interest in an idea can be compared to developing an immunity to a disease.

The researchers viewed the number of Google searches for Facebook and noticed that there had been a peak in December 2012. They were able to compare this to a similar peak in searches for MySpace in 2008, right before it began to head towards its eventual decline. Though the researchers did not insinuate what the successor to Facebook might be, it’s not impossible that their findings could be accurate, considering how MySpace was once at the height of popularity and now is not even close in popularity to many of its competitors.

One interesting report has stated that even President Obama is aware that Facebook is losing its ‘cool factor.’ Obama was quoted as saying, during a meeting regarding the 18-34 year old demographic, that “It seems like they don’t use Facebook anymore,” which shows that Facebook’s decline is something quite noticeable. With many teenagers and twenty-somethings turning to Instagram and Snapchat, it’s entirely plausible that Facebook’s user base may not be such a powerhouse in a few years.

The New Myspace: A Flailing Attempt at Resuscitating a Dead Social Network

In the beginnings of 2011, the users that remained on MySpace generally were people who had forgotten to delete their accounts after switching to Facebook or indie bands trying to promote themselves to the few niche users that remained. 2011 was a harsh time for MySpace, to the point where it was generally believed that the website didn’t have much of a future. In fact, in February 2011 alone, MySpace lost a devastating ten million users, after losing fifty million users over the course of the previous year. It seemed that MySpace, as it once was known, was dead in the water.

Then, in June 2011, singer-songwriter turned actor Justin Timberlake purchased MySpace for $35 million, alongside a company called Specific Media Group. Since that time, Timberlake and other representatives of the company have repeatedly stated that MySpace would be going under major renovations to reestablish the dying social network as a superpower website like it was in its heyday. Now, a year and half after the purchase, MySpace has been transformed into Myspace (without the capital ‘S’) and has gone live.

The new Myspace appears to be appropriating a lot of ideas from other social networks into its revival, with a focus on the music aspect that was the primary remaining force on Myspace in its later years, hence Timberlake being the new face of the organization. The new Myspace is intended to operate like the music industry’s own version of LinkedIn, while integrating the celebrity-user personal interactions available to Twitter, as well as featuring streaming music like Spotify. Mix these features in with a layout similar to Pinterest and a few remnants here and there of the old MySpace and you have what one would imagine to be a new, interesting social network.

Unfortunately, the new Myspace is off to a rough start. For starters, and perhaps most importantly, there is no functional mobile application (or even mobile functionality at all) for the social network, which is something that has become pivotal for all social networks in recent years. Considering there are 604 million monthly active users that use the mobile Facebook app (as of September 2012), leaving out a mobile app is a bizarre and enormous first mistake for Myspace.

The ‘revamped’ social network suffers from other problems as well; a very large cover photo (1024×768 pixels) is required to complete the look of one’s profile, sharing links lacks the dynamic functions of Facebook and Google Plus, the layout often lacks intuition, and some are saying there is too much focus on the music of Justin Timberlake and his collaborators. With the enormous blunder of not releasing a mobile app at launch, the clock is certainly ticking for the new Myspace to be officially seen as a resounding failure; considering how much Myspace’s target audience embraces instant gratification, it isn’t likely that the company has much time before their social network is once again forgotten in lieu of other, better websites.

Consumers Favor Companies Linked With Social Media

In their latest study The Center for Client Retention, found that consumers are more likely to favor companies that not only are on social media sites but those who engage with clients as well.  During the the study 55% of consumers said they felt positive about the company while a small 5% acted negative towards companies having social media.  The remaining 40% felt neutral. 

That’s significant that only 5% feel negative against the use of social media.  22 companies involved with the Fortune 500 provided the survey with critical information on their social media policies to find the difference of consumer expectation.  Nearly 27,000 consumers gave the survey feed back on their experiences with social media. (more…)

iePlexus Social Media News Brief: February 12, 2010

MySpace’s CEO stepped down this week, while many Olympians are wondering if they can use social media during the games. Find out the details in today’s Social Media News Brief… (more…)

Social Media In The New Decade

10 years ago at this moment, the world was relieved that nothing that they had feared about, regarding Y2K actually happened.  People were now placing their money back into the bank, while others had an endless supply of food they had stocked up on just in case.  It’s crazy to think that if someone would have said “Facebook”, “YouTube”, “Digg”, or just the words “social media,” we most likely would have given them a funny and strange look. 

It was in 2004 when social media was created.  Linkdin & MySpace took to the web and since then there has been explosion of “social media” & “social networking” sites.  When I graduated high school in 2005, if had ever wanted to share a video with the class for a certain project, I’d have to visit the library, maybe a video store, and rent the video, while worrying about some return date.  Today, my brother who is in his sophomore year of high school is able to use YouTube to share a video with just the click of a mouse.  Our world has advanced so much in the past decade, and social media has played a significant role! (more…)

Social Media Plays Role In Policy Making

After yesterday’s blog post about the GOP using social media to educate the American public on the Health Care Reform Act, StrategyOne & Edelman, PR firms based out of Washington DC, released a the results of a survey which suggests that social media may play an integral part in policy making. 

Of the 396 senior staff members from both the U.S. and Europe whom were surveyed, 96 percent said they often use online resources for public policy research.  Fifty-four percent of the staffers had also reported learning of policy issues online for the very first time, while nearly one in five actually changed a policy position based on what they had learned online. (more…)

MySpace’s Slow Traffic May Cost News Corp. $100 Million

It’s not exactly news that MySpace is losing users, but a serious drop-off in visitors could put the company in jeopardy of losing nearly $100 million.  News Corp., owners of MySpace, made a $900 million deal back in 2006 with Google, to let the world most’s popular search engine be the exclusive search advertiser on MySpace, which at the time was the most used social networking site.  The site is coming dangerously close to  maintaining the minimum traffic level, which could break the deal with Google, and leave MySpace without the $100 million. 

According to Alexa.com, in the past 3 months MySpace’s page-views have dropped 22.75%.  The site is losing its high ranking. While last week the site was the 11th most visited site on the web, however has since dropped to number 12.  At this time last year, MySpace was the 6th most viewed site on the web, but the site has been progressively making its way farther and farther from the top ranks.

“We’re still losing traffic,” said Chase Carey, chief operating officer of News Corp. He added, “We’re not trying to beat Facebook. We’re not trying to beat Twitter.”

MySpace has been making some big news lately, as they are in talks about teaming up with Facebook in order to share video and music content, which would hope to drive users back to the site.  MySpace is also in talks with MSN about sharing entertainment content.  No deals of any kind have been made and it is still not to late yet for MySpace to earn the $100 million, but they will need to do something drastic, fast, to get their hands on the money.

This Week In Social Media – November 6, 2009

This Week in Social Media – Nov 6, 2009 iePlexus from iePlexus on Vimeo.

This Week in Social Media – Nov 6, 2009 iePlexus from iePlexus on Vimeo.

Here’s a look at some of what happened this week in the world of social media and elsewhere on the Web.

-It should be no shock that MySpace is losing users, but now the company is in jeopardy of losing nearly $100 million.  In 2006, MySpace made a $900 million deal with Google that would allow the search engine to be the exclusive search advertiser on MySpace, which at the time was the most used social networking site.  The site is coming dangerously close to maintaining a minimum traffic level, which could break the deal with Google. In the past three months, MySpace’s page views have dropped 22.75 percent.  (more…)

This Week In Social Media: October 30, 2009

This Week In Social Media: iePlexus Oct. 30, 2009 from iePlexus on Vimeo.

This Week In Social Media: iePlexus Oct. 30, 2009 from iePlexus on Vimeo.

This week, several new virus’ have been making their rounds attacking the social networking sites Facebook & Twitter. Facebook has been hit the hardest.  The virus known as Bredolab, hit Facebook earlier this week, which sends an e-mail to users, asking them to confirm a password reset and a file is attached which contains a Trojan horse, which could severely destroy a computer. Facebook is also reporting 2 more virus’ which are working their way through e-mails asking you to do some sort of activity to your account.  Facebook has told users that Facebook would not send any attachment in an e-mail, and to check out the company’s Security Page for more tips.  Twitter’s virus comes through a direct messages containing the phase, “Hi, this you on here?” followed by a link.  Twitter warns users not to click links from users you don’t know and if you accidentally do, to change your password immediately.  (more…)