generation gap on facebook

I made an observation in my last post - "The 25+ browse more but participate less while 16-25 engage facebook using it as their predominant social communication and entertainment tool." purely based on what I saw around me and on facebook.

Today it was validated by the mighty NY Times. "To some extent, a generation gap is already apparent in the Facebook population, said Mr. Shirky, of N.Y.U. Younger people will use it more naturally and differently than older folks, who for the most part will see a Facebook page as something like the dreaded Christmas letter, with its prosaic updates on one’s life events, and less the sense of “living your social life online, hammer and tongs,” the way younger people tend to.

That is only natural, he said, because “People our age are going to find uses for the tool that have to do with the maintenance of life already in process, rather than making one up out of whole cloth” — in part, he added, because “our social lives are more boring.” And that, he said, is only logical: “We’ve made the mistakes we’re going to make, God willing, and we’ve settled down.”

What driving this.. peer pressure, word of mouth, gossip, curiosity etc. Amazing that the percentage of active members who are over 25 years old and out of school has risen to some 40 percent of the overall population of about 45 million on facebook. And many of them signed up to check it out and willing to hang out.. nice!!

My take on the Facebook Long Tail

Ever since Tim published his analysis on whether facebook apps can be construed as an internet market in itself where long tail exists and it is rather so thin that defies the original long tail theory or the fact that it is a losing proposition for 3rdparty developers.

Chris Anderson follows up arguing if it is even mature market that the long tail theory can be applied to.

Great discussion. But I kind of agree with Chris. Not around technical analysis and its applicability but more so around the fact that the idea is too nascent to do the analysis. Its like trying to analyze internet web 1.0 economy in 1997. Not because critical mass isnt there yet, but its because the engagement is different for different age groups.

Clearly early application developers have had a head start and because network effects is the gas pedal on which this market breathes, they are galloping while the laggards remain envious and wishful. But the success in engagement they have had is with stupid (and funny) apps which teens, students. Clearly the older age groups have started to participate, but is it to observe or is it to participate. Fred makes the point in his musings that participation drops off like a waterfall once the years weather off. Facebook is still predominantly a 15 to 26 year old service. The usage drops off dramatically once people get above 30 years old.

Research from a recent user study (email me the link if someone finds it, I cant find it) shows that more than half of Facebook users are not currently enrolled in a university or college and that the site’s fastest-growing demo is the 25+ age group. So they are enrolling and observing and wondering. But they are not engaging like the younger ones do. I see that in my peer group and thats what I feel.

So what does that mean. The 25+ browse more but participating less while 16-25 engage using it as their predominant social communication and entertainment tool.

So what does that say for 3rdparty applications. They are still stupid because active users are 16-25. They will mature if the 25+ generation starts adopting social networking platforms for their social interaction needs. I bet that 25+ generation will do that, they are getting warmed up.. kind of learning the new ways.. isn't it always like that as we grow older.

What do you all say?

giants playing catchup.. and its not google vs microsoft

Thanks to Lalit who pointed to me late last night that myspace plans to launch their platform to 3rd party application developers.. playing catch up to facebook and curbing the popularity. Boy, did they move fast. No questions, almost all existing facebook developers will port their apps on myspace and google (orkut) for that matter. Some of them which were filling the gap for facebook (vs myspace) might not have much of a choice, but within couple of months, muyspace would have caught up with facebook in terms of developer attention. Then the actual race begins.. who can keep developers tempted to their platform aka who can maximize returns for developers. In any scenario, developers win.

But what about users. Do they win? More coming up on that in later post.

Update:

Now several sources claim the above rumor was in fact just a rumor and that myspace is not yet ready to go public with their API's. Makes sense. Its not easy and it really seemed that was very fact of them to have caught up.

Adsense now streaming videos!!

Just learnt this from Adsense group mails I subscribe to..

...AdSense isn't just for ads anymore; it's also a place to get video
content for your site -- and earn extra revenue at the same time.We're
excited about the launch of video units -- a new way to enrich your
site with quality, relevant video content in an embedded, customizable
player. Simply embed a snippet of code and have relevant YouTube
partner content streamed to your site. You can choose categories of
video to target to your site, select content from individual YouTube
partners, or have video automatically targeted to your site content.
Companion and text overlay ads are relevant and non-intrusive. To
further blend the YouTube player into your site, you can also customize
the color scheme and layout as well as choose from three different
player sizes. If you're looking to build "stickiness" with your
visitors, show quality YouTube partner video on your site, and earn
extra revenue along the way...

what is interesting is that instead of branding this offering differently, they decided to merge the offering within Adsense. That will help them get the initial critical mass pretty quickly. Smart move.

and goes without saying, the move will hurt quite a few startups, including MonetizeMedia, founded by a close friend of mine.

will conferences lose their appeal in valley

Today was the start of yet another conference around facebook applications called Graphing Social Patterns. A must go conference, so everyone says. Many of my friends are going to be visiting, many hope they could have. Dave is a blogger I respect, though I dont agree with him sometimes.

Another must go conference called CommunityNext around the same subject was wrapping up organized by kind of friend (we met) Noah Kagan.

The common theme around both of these conferences remain the same. Speakers from media, VC and top facebook applications gather and preach the best way to develop apps, the value of social graph, how this is the next best thing invented since sliced bread and arguing about the yet but slowly emerging business models around facebook and social networking economy.

All is good but do you really need to be in the conference to get to hear what is going to be said in these times. There are so many bloggers that I am anyways inundated with the feeds, I am almost always behind trying to play catchup all the time. Ditto for business networking. Given the plethora of meetups in the valley around your favorite subjects you dont really need to be in these conferences unless you are either trying to expand your team or meet VC's. I would comment later on futility of meeting a VC during such conferences, but thats for later.

And then I find it funny for small startups having to pay hundred of dollars. Hosting and attending a conference is not inexpensive.

So the question is, will conferences lose their appeal in the years ahead?

using personal data within social networks

As you can guess, this topic has been intriguing me for a while. Well, in a way, it is a no brainer. It had to happen. MySpace announces it will use users persoanl data to target ads. Brad Stone from NYT reports

"The social networking companies see those pages as a lush target for advertisers — if only they could customize the ads.....

But MySpace, the Web’s largest social network and one of the most trafficked sites on the Internet, says that after experimenting with technology over the last six months it can tailor ads to the personal information that its 110 million active users leave on their profile pages....

They say the tailoring technology has improved the likelihood that members will click on an ad by 80 percent on average."

If this is indeed true, thats a big jump. Improving success rate of your impressions a few percentage points can be quite a feat, here they are talking about 80% jump.

I am sure we will soon see news feed from Facebook claiming similar expertise. It had to happen and is happening as the above article claims. From what I hear, many googlers and yahoogans have been recruited by Facebook. More information here in the excerpts from WSJ. I think what they recently released as Flyers pro is an effort in that direction.

Now the question is, will I as a user of myspace or facebook or linkedin mind if they are mining my personal data. Given that google already does that within gmail and iGoogle and still is very popular web email program and home page, people have come to expect this. If they get a service they like and want, they are willing to compromise their privacy..

But what about giving access to that information to thirdparties.. now that is something which is very dangerous. It is already happening.. it happens. The intent is not to compromise on user privacy, but there are so many loose ends when that happens on the internet that accountability disappears.

naked profiles

Read the story about facebook on mercury news today.

" Four out of 10 users of Web site Facebook unwittingly expose themselves to the risk of identify theft and virus attacks, according to a new study that underscores growing concerns among security experts about online social networking."

you know what I fear the most in this web 2.0 craze, a backlash. And we are all too smart to never underestimate the backlash of the masses. If there is one thing that can puncture the bubble (geez, I meant the euphoria), that would be backlash against loss of privacy individuals/families/mom and pop shops might feel against. Even MSNBC is talking about the dangers of online predators.

As web 2.0 penetrates the masses, crime (and spam and ogling) sophistication will increase. When it will start hurting, there is going to be backlash (like against pop up blockers, spam), people will start educating themselves about how to behave on social networks.. but it might be too late for some.