Facebook traffic declining?

[Reach9]

Is it me, or is there a decrease in Facebook traffic recently? There was a time when my News Feed was seemingly endless.
Now I can look at news feeds from 2 days ago just by scrolling down a little.

I've been looking at some stats, and apparently traffic declined for America, Canada and the UK. And traffic is increasing in India, Brazil and Indonesia.
Why do you think that's happening?

Do you guys use Facebook? What do you think about the IPO?
Do you believe Facebook will become the next MySpace in a few years?

 

[malman89]

Probably depends on the person and probably not the best place to find answers. It generally seems people here are older and more wary of their online presence than the average person.

I use Facebook significantly less than I did a year ago because a year ago I was in college. Even just being 23 with still a decent amount of friends in college, there's just less of a need and desire to use it. I'd dump it entirely if not for too many people still not having gmail for gchat so having to use Facebook chat and then the occasional events. Nothing is easier than a Facebook event.

 

[0dev]

Have you got a source for the traffic declining in America, Canada and the UK? I hope this is true and the trend continues.

 

[einmusiker]

it's because of the new privacy settings. not everyone's everything shows up in your feed now. It's a good thing

 

[Reach9]

Have you got a source for the traffic declining in America, Canada and the UK? I hope this is true and the trend continues.

well this stat was a year ago, but i know that the recent timeline thing has really pissed a lot of people off..

http://www.insidefacebook.com/2011/...nada-as-it-nears-700-million-users-worldwide/

 

[Liquorpuki]

I use Facebook. All my relatives are on it and it's annoying because I get spammed with bible verses nonstop. Other than that it's the same 10 people responsible for 90% of the news feed.

I can't prove it but I have a feeling these social networks are short-lived by nature. First Friendster, then Myspace, then Facebook and I think something new will eventually come out and knock Facebook off its throne. I thought it would be Google Plus but it seems like Google doesn't really care competing in that space because they just let all the momentum die.

FB is a huge platform for ads so I can see how it merits an IPO. Unless FB expanded into other markets though, I wouldn't invest long term. Actually I'm curious what their plan for long-term profitability is because I have no clue what they expect to happen once they go public.

 

[senseless]

Bible verses, ha. I bite my tongue at every cute baby or cat video, too. They're always really shaky and dark.

 

[Zombie Acorn]

Theres nothing to keep me going to facebook, the only reason I have it is because of relatives and old friends. I find twitter to be much more informative because I just follow organizations I care about.

 

[0dev]

well this stat was a year ago, but i know that the recent timeline thing has really pissed a lot of people off..

http://www.insidefacebook.com/2011/...nada-as-it-nears-700-million-users-worldwide/

Yeah a lot of the new "improvements" piss people off but they seem to just get used to them eventually and give up complaining. If people actually start moving from Facebook over these issues it'd be excellent.

I use Facebook. All my relatives are on it and it's annoying because I get spammed with bible verses nonstop. Other than that it's the same 10 people responsible for 90% of the news feed.

You should contribute to /r/facepalm and perhaps /r/atheism, sounds like you have some funny material to work with

 

[AdeFowler]

One can only hope.

 

[Dweez]

I stopped using facebook about a year ago, as there's just too much information being put into a public 'bucket' for anyone & everyone to see. Privacy settings or not, once information is out there it's there permanently.

 

[TheDutchGuy]

Using Facebook a lot less than I used to. Those duck-faces are driving me nuts. Unpucker those lips! So, Twitter is my main social platform...

 

[chrono1081]

I use mine as an easy way to keep track of friends and family. Its nicer than email.

That being said I need to do a lot of friends list cleaning. I'm sick of seeing the "My life sucks no one loves me I'm going to go kill myself now" posts followed up 20 minutes later by the same person saying "I found a pig in Farmville".

 

[416049]

If they were to make the time line go away i and i think a lot of others would return back to it, until they introduced that everything looked fine.

 

[R94N]

I used to use it quite a lot until about a year ago when I just got bored of all the spam pages and game requests and left. I use Twitter instead now and like that a lot more.

 

[roadbloc]

I have noticed myself use Facebook less and less, not because I don't like it, I have some stalker/fan on there who does nothing but try and talk to me and I don't have the heart to tell her to ****.

 

[TheDutchGuy]

Wondering if you can grow marijuana on Farmville then sell it on Mafia Wars?

 

[Reach9]

Just saw this post by the WSJ:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303592404577362162101623488.html

More evidence that Facebook's growth is decreasing. Now with so many ways to connect with people generally (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, iMessage, Texting, email etc.) do you think the big players will be the niche networks, such as LinkedIn?

Personally i'm skeptical about this "historic IPO", I don't believe Facebook is worth the value of 100B, and Instagram isn't worth 1B either.

Do you think that Facebook will be like AOL in the future?

 

[bruinsrme]

All I want is a very Simple interface. The timeline, new classifications for friends and subscriptions and other new "features" have played a big part in my usage decline.

I liked the original Mafia wars. Stopped paying that when they changed it.

In general, I use Facebook about 30% of what I used to.

 

[samiwas]

All I want is a very Simple interface. The timeline, new classifications for friends and subscriptions and other new "features" have played a big part in my usage decline.

In general, I use Facebook about 30% of what I used to.

This. When they were just a simple "post a status" or "post a photo" site, and you got what your friends posted on your page, everything was great. But all this crap with subscriptions has made it really annoying. And the timeline is even more annoying. I have never switched to it.

I have blocked almost every single game and app, so I never see any of that. And I'm not friends with really annoying people, so I don't have duck-face photos or endless drama.

None of my dislike has anything to do with friends and what the do, it has to do with the way Facebook changed itself.

 

[boss.king]

This. When they were just a simple "post a status" or "post a photo" site, and you got what your friends posted on your page, everything was great. But all this crap with subscriptions has made it really annoying. And the timeline is even more annoying. I have never switched to it.

I have blocked almost every single game and app, so I never see any of that. And I'm not friends with really annoying people, so I don't have duck-face photos or endless drama.

None of my dislike has anything to do with friends and what the do, it has to do with the way Facebook changed itself.

I agree. Facebook used to be a lot more simple. Now I block at least 2 games/apps a week and avoid links to articles I don't want people to see me reading. They've made it a chore to talk to my friends.

That said, I still prefer it to any other social network by miles. If FB went away I would be quite annoyed.

 

[smoledman]

Isn't it a joke that in one fell swoop FB will have almost as much cash as Apple?

 

[thejadedmonkey]

All I want is a very Simple interface. The timeline, new classifications for friends and subscriptions and other new "features" have played a big part in my usage decline.

I can't even use Timeline! Say what you will, but my preferred browser of choice is IE9. And Timeline on IE9 pretty much crashes my browser (generally IE9 doesn't handle a lot of javascript so well, but that only happens on really huge reedit posts and timeline). I've definitely stopped using Facebook as much, and I don't miss it.

 

[decafjava]

I must be the only person here that likes timeline. Easy to find past wall posts and embarassing status updates from the past. I really like the cover photo/portrait combination too.

Otherwise the best way to reduce spam is to select who gets put on your friend list.

 

[Reach9]

While Facebook might be a great place for specific advertisers.. it's not the best place for all of them. I know P&G have a good presence on Facebook, but this latest article on the WSJ says that GM has stopped advertising on Facebook due to lack of ROI.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...06394017764460.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories

Do you think that this is just the beginning? It's a clear testament to Facebook's decline in revenue.

Also, according to this article by CNET, http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19512_...about-to-make-icloud-an-instagram-competitor/ Apple is working on it's own Instagram-like app using iCloud. Do you think Apple could inevitably remove Instagram from the App Store?
Either way, this puts a huge stain in the $1B acquisition by Facebook.