by dismal2 on 1/31/18, 9:19 PM with 250 comments
by ComputerGuru on 1/31/18, 11:15 PM
In their zeal to gain IM users, they replaced messages with chat, removing the inhibition that kept people from using messages for one liners. Then they made you always online, supplanting Facebook itself entirely with something that could be replaced by any other real-time communication app. Once phones became nicer to use and there were alternatives to the lag and limitations of SMS, people had no reason to log into Facebook to chat with their friends because Facebook has trained non-IMers to IM and they no longer needed Facebook to do it.
Users would have killed for high-resolution photos (Facebook would make pictures so tiny and so low resolution that they’d become unrecognizable and all talent that went into composing them or editing them would be lost, and they couldn’t contain text or captions because that would be compressed away) or the ability to create albums. A dozen apps existed to shoehorn that functionality in via the Flickr api. Then they had to go buy Instagram to win those users back.
Now people just post major life events to share with people they didn’t bother communicating them to via another, more personal means of communication once a year or so.
by firasd on 1/31/18, 10:10 PM
Thus their Newsfeed changes de-prioritizing articles, and thus (I figure) their experiments such as showing short posts in large font sizes, and enabling MySpace-like gradient backgrounds on text posts...
This dynamic makes me recall something: Anyone remember how back in the day (like 2006) Facebook had a feature called 'Wall-to-Wall' conversations? You would go to a friend's profile and just write a message, they would go to your 'wall' and reply, and mutual friends could see the conversation.
These days between the Newsfeed, comments on posts, and Messenger, the only reason I would post on another friend's profile is to wish them a happy birthday. That whole ethos of just having informal personal conversations with college friends on Facebook is gone.
by redmaverick on 1/31/18, 11:24 PM
I think people login more due to habit than to post personal updates. I doubt the current college going kids even login at all. Today, you update facebook only on special occasions like marriage, birth of a child, graduation or when people go out to visit places etc. Previously, like 7 to 8 years back, people used to post very personal things, knowing that only their friends are on the network. It definitely, felt safe. It Again, maybe my gen aged a bit during the last 8 years, I don't know. If anyone posts anything too personal right now, it feels like a violation of social norms. Like crying in public with everyone watching.
No matter how many tweaks Facebook makes to their Newsfeed, I doubt quality engagement from what I saw 7 to 8 years back will return.
People just shifted to mobile apps like Whatsapp and have different social groups there. This feels very natural and organic. You have a few small groups of maybe 10 to 15 people max per group who all know you intimately and maybe a couple of larger groups with 50 plus members. This usually an alumni group of some kind. Even the larger groups get tiring if there are too updates and many frequently opt out after a tiff.
I just feel the era of publicly sharing personal information on web based social networks is over. If there is somekind of a decentralized privacy oriented mobile app that has the same functionality as whatsapp and it gets widely adopted, then it might be game over for the big companies in the social networking space. Even though Whatsapp is owned by facebook. It feels very safe and personal to share updates.
by chollida1 on 1/31/18, 9:34 PM
Revenues: - 4Q revenue $12.97 billion, estimate $12.55 billion (range $12.15 billion to $12.91 billion) (Bloomberg data)
- 4Q EPS $1.44
- 4Q daily active users 1.40 billion, estimate 1.41 billion (Bloomberg News) (3 estimates)
- 4Q monthly active users 2.13 billion, estimate 2.13 billion (BN) (3 estimates)
- 4Q mobile ad revenue as percentage of ad revenue 89%
- 4Q advertising rev. $12.78 billion
General:
- increased headcount: it was 25,105 as of December 31, 2017, an increase of 47% year-over-year.
- This is the first-ever decline Facebook has had in North American users. Daily active users growth in US & Canada fell to 184 million, compared to 185 million in Q3.
Related to new US Tax Plan
- There's a one-time mandatory transition tax on accumulated foreign earnings and a reduction of the corporate income tax rate to 21 percent, effective Jan. 1, 2018. Facebook's provision for income taxes increased by $2.27 billion and its diluted EPS decreased by $0.77 for both the fourth quarter and full year 2017.
by Puer on 2/1/18, 12:19 AM
facebook.com##div._3ccb:has-text(/ commented on this./)
facebook.com##div._3ccb:has-text(/ replied to a /)
facebook.com##div._3ccb:has-text(/ liked this post from /)
facebook.com##div._3ccb:has-text(/ liked this./)
facebook.com##div._3ccb:has-text(/ commented on a post from /)
facebook.com##div._3ccb:has-text(/ reacted to this./)
facebook.com##div._3ccb:has-text(/'s cover photo./)
facebook.com##div._3ccb:has-text(/ likes /)
facebook.com##div._3ccb:has-text(/ are now friends./)
facebook.com##div._3ccb:has-text(/ is interested in an event./)
facebook.com##div._3ccb:has-text(/Sponsored/)
facebook.com##div._3ccb:has-text(/Suggested Post/)
facebook.com##div._3ccb:has-text(/A video you may like/)
facebook.com##div._3ccb:has-text(/ shared /)
!facebook.com##u_fetchstream
!facebook.com##._4-u2[id*="u_fetchstream"]
I got tired of seeing seemingly hundreds of, "Your friends reacted to this ad page 5 months ago" or "Here's another advertisement disguised as a page you might be interested in." I realized after I implemented these that I see maybe 2 or 3 new posts a day from my 500 friends, and of these posts the majority of them are political in nature and don't interest me. The only reason I still continue to use FB is for the messenger app as I still think it's the most convenient compared to other platforms.
Here's what my feed looks like with the rules implemented (they aren't FULLY currently up to date either because FB continually updates the phrases, but good enough for me). I also hid a lot of the junk on the sidebar with the element picker. I have no interest in using FB as a platform for buying and selling and the "News Ticker" (if you can call it "News") is just tabloid garbage. I have 4 posts in the past day before I get the "There are no more posts to show right now" message.
by jokermatt999 on 2/1/18, 3:02 AM
Still though, Facebook could be so much better. The problem is that a profit-driven social media site is always going to have different goals than its users. Free ones seem to never gain traction. Currently, most of my friend groups are switching to Discord, but that's basically just going back to IRC without having to understand NickServ and such.
As many others have pointed out though, Facebook got bland when everyone's parents joined. Private groups somewhat help, but it really does need to be more directly baked in to the design. It's far too late for that now, but I dream one day someone will finally make the Facebook killer. Until then, I use Facebook, because it benefits me more than not using it. Shallow interaction, peoples kids, etc? That can easily be fixed. For me, the boost in mood I get from reconnecting to old friends makes it worth all the pain. I was a hold out too, and didn't join until ~5 years ago?
I think the problem is it's almost a utility at this point. Most everyone I know (non-techy crowd) is on it. If you aren't, you truly do miss out, which sucks. But do you know anyone who doesn't work, or want to work at Facebook who would say "I love Facebook!" Tweak all you want, but it's too much a behemoth to love.
by Firebrand on 1/31/18, 10:07 PM
People are just spending less time on social media apps for some reasons these days.
by JoshTko on 1/31/18, 10:42 PM
by flunhat on 1/31/18, 9:39 PM
by qwerty456127 on 2/1/18, 4:10 AM
UPDATE: The only thing I used to use Facebook for a couple of years ago when I had more spare time was finding events to attend for fun. Does anybody know a good alternative? There probably is a special app just for this. Another useful feature of Facebook seems to be the groups directory: there are groups in WhatsApp and Telegram but they are harder to find - isn't there a project building a directory of them already?
by alkonaut on 1/31/18, 10:51 PM
So a simple tweak to the news feed would be to just stop showing me what my friends “like” or “re-share”. Just show me what they say, or post or show directly. That’s it.
For a really dramatic change: remove the ability to pass on content alltogether.
by nickysielicki on 1/31/18, 10:39 PM
I was on the platform a few years ago, but deleted my account and didn't miss it at all. Then, a couple months ago, I became interested in a new Chinese amateur radio transceiver, and the best source of English information was through a Facebook group of a couple hundred owners. So naturally, I joined facebook, joined the group, and had several weeks of a really enjoyable experience. I didn't add any friends or pictures or anything like that; I had no interest in really using Facebook with people I knew in real life, and as a result my newsfeed was an endless list of really great discussions about amateur satellites, straight key century club, Xiegu transceivers, etc. I think what set it apart from something like Reddit is the civility that comes when you make hams post with their real name.
Then, all of a sudden, "You Can't Log In Right Now". I was actually forced to upload an image of my face to get back into the site. This was a sort of funny thing to ask, because I didn't have any images of myself on the site up to that point-- so how are they supposed to know what I look like, anyway? (I'm being sarcastic here, I'm sure that Facebook has my face profiled in their databases somewhere.) So I uploaded my photo, a handful of days went by, and then I was allowed back in, and again started using Facebook as an awesome discussion platform full of meaningful interactions with people that shared a common interest with me.
A couple weeks go by, and yet again, "You Can't Log In Right Now". I upload my face again, but this time I've never been unbanned. I think it's been this way for over a month now. I still get email notifications with subject lines like, "See what people are talking about in your group AMSAT North America", but when I click "Read Post", I'm not able to view the content. (I also can't unsubscribe from the emails, as editing email settings is hidden behind a login prompt, which I am obviously not able to get through. I also can't file a bug report about the lack of ability to unsubscribe... because that, too, is hidden behind a login prompt.)
It's just so incredibly ironic that as soon as I started using facebook for content I was interested in, instead of seeing political posts from people I went to middle school with, I get permabanned on suspicion of being a fake account.
by tn_ on 1/31/18, 9:48 PM
1). prevent the spread of fake news.. they need a better solution than the user-tagging bs if an article is valid or not. there was a scientologist that had an account that wasn't active for 5+ years, that started posting how puerto rico wasn't that bad when the storm first hit. why is this account not being banned or suspended when people are reporting it and they're reposting pictures from texas claiming it to be all good.
2). prevent outside interference with elections. the first baby step is if they're accepting rubles for political ads targetted at americans, ban it. simple as that. then it'll get more complex and interesting handling proxies doing the dirty deed. the hearing w/ congress was pathetic and makes fb even more untrustworthy.
3). ban fake accounts / tie in a real human behind the account. 100000 fake users means a lot less to me if i'm an advertiser than 10 real people.
even though pretty much everyone i know is on facebook, i'm itching for another platform with better integrity to jump ship to.
by Spooky23 on 1/31/18, 9:58 PM
People are getting Facebook fatigue. In my social circle, Facebook use seems to have switched to Instagram.
Personally, I check on it once a week now to keep up with a few friends who I don’t see anymore. It’s an effort, because Facebook refuses to show me what I want to see, and I need to specifically search for people.
by aresant on 1/31/18, 10:29 PM
I am going to assume that FB is smart enough to have figured out how to trim the 50m hour engagement # from an ad cohort that is likely not that profitable or important.
Because guess what - the brand advertisers that elevate overall CPM already don't want to be in your shitty viral cat video, or your stupid publishers-gaming-FB with autogenerated content.
I would go a step further and predict that within this quarter we see an internal FB study for advertisers suggesting that their algorithm that trimmed that 50m in hours has actually IMPROVED the value of the advertising by a commiserate level.
by istorical on 1/31/18, 9:52 PM
When we let poor journalism like this headline go uncontested we erode public trust.
by JohnJamesRambo on 1/31/18, 9:54 PM
by ridgeguy on 2/1/18, 2:31 AM
In the long game, quality wins. In the long game, an organization that puts quality of information at top priority persists and becomes a long-lived resource for civilization.
Like Google has become a persistent Web search resource, setting aside its short-lived ancillary forays into more clickable, trivial services.
So long as Facebook prioritizes viral clickbait, so long will it be in danger of collapse, irrelevance, and extinction. That's ok with me.
by dc_gregory on 1/31/18, 9:54 PM
by narrator on 1/31/18, 11:43 PM
by NicoJuicy on 1/31/18, 10:09 PM
Then they went public with it, before releasing the numbers
by perseusprime11 on 1/31/18, 9:53 PM
by pfarnsworth on 1/31/18, 9:39 PM
by indubitable on 2/1/18, 6:25 AM
The issue they have is that there are only 3-4 billion internet users in the entire world. Their growth is predictably going to hit an asymptote at some point in the near future - they are simply running out of people.
That also poses an interesting issue from a company perspective. We still live in a world where endless growth is expected. But with a ad-driven service the only way to make more money is to get users to view/click and otherwise interact with even more ads, or to otherwise increase the efficiency of ads. And that in general achieves little other creating a worse user experience, no matter how clever the packaging and delivery.
by matwood on 1/31/18, 10:13 PM
by jacksmith21006 on 1/31/18, 11:39 PM
"As I mentioned in the last earnings call, YouTube now has over 1.5 billion users. On average, these users spend 60 minutes a day on mobile. "
Which I guess means 1.5 billion hours a day of YT use daily. Be interesting to compare to FB.
by olivermarks on 1/31/18, 9:52 PM
by amasad on 1/31/18, 11:52 PM
by itissid on 2/1/18, 1:15 AM
BUT perhaps what might work, and only hope, is a spectacular fall of this kind of interaction model(and the business) so that no one touches it with a 10 ft pole for some time. Like the terrible Nazi stuff of WWII.
Hopes of healthy competition in the industry and the democratization of quality content in a way that precludes brand loyalty, will probably never happen as long as Facebook lives. It will just acquire and buy its way to monopolize everything.
by MarkMc on 2/1/18, 5:01 AM
Can someone explain why a 'higher quality experience' didn't lead to more active monthly users in North America? I would have thought there were people who hadn't checked out Facebook for a few months, but now start using it more regularly.
by beedogs on 2/1/18, 2:40 AM
The less people use Facebook, the better and healthier society becomes.
by ehnto on 2/1/18, 3:21 AM
Reduced engagement on Facebook is probably a good thing for society, but it could arguably mean it's also achieving it's goals as a social platform more succinctly.
As an advert stream of course, that's bad. But I suspect an amount of truth in Zuckerberg's somewhat altruistic new vision.
by freyir on 2/1/18, 2:16 AM
Weren't the changes to the news feed just announced? This sounds like spin. They planned all along for people to stop using our service. Right.
by tomkinson on 2/1/18, 9:17 AM
2- sink the fb fangs deeper into users by promoting 'engagement' content i.e. stuff with better hooks.
3- market the increase in time spend on site, Q418 to the very advertisers.
Brand cryptonite. He holds the poison and the medicine. Depending on public sentiment they dish out the doses of each accordingly.
by nytesky on 1/31/18, 11:55 PM
by Robotbeat on 2/1/18, 3:34 AM
by jwalton on 1/31/18, 9:58 PM
Or, to put this another way, people have saved 50 million hours that they formerly spent scrolling past stupid videos and memes they'd already seen on Reddit.
by misterbowfinger on 2/1/18, 1:32 AM
by dwighttk on 2/1/18, 1:24 AM
by ccachor on 2/1/18, 7:35 AM
by product50 on 1/31/18, 11:07 PM
by tanilama on 1/31/18, 9:55 PM
by j4ship on 1/31/18, 9:44 PM
They have reached the point where its a lot easier to lose someone then gain someone. I dont think its societal impact ... its people getting older and dropping off while at the same time its really hard to replenish that use base when already have so many of the young people already on your site.
So maybe they need to understand user rentention vs aging , I think that would be a place to look, societal impact ... no one uses or drops a product becuase of societal impact.
How many diamonds and how many electronics or clothes do we use that have a dubious labor practices. Its the product quality that speaks loudest.
by SheinhardtWigCo on 1/31/18, 9:40 PM
