Facebook growth slows in the US and Canada -- potential relevance to persona management?
Subject: Facebook growth slows in the US and Canada -- potential relevance to persona management?
From: Nikki Loehr <evilevilcouch@gmail.com>
Date: 6/13/11, 14:22
To: Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>
I wonder how much of Facebook's intense growth in the past was due to persona management being utilized. It notes that the Facebook growth has slowed down considerably in April and May.
[EDIT: Okay I didn't read the linked things in it, and apparently the decrease in FB growth is in the US and Canada, so, within the bits below on international market expansion, erm, yeah that isn't as relevant]
I saw this posted on FB, and here are the comments which expounds on that thought:
$52B, yo yo yo
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Ever wondered where the Fed's money is ending up?
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Let's assume fb has 700m users, of which 30% are reasonably active and information wealthy. The valuation of the company implies that each one of those valuable users are worth $250 in net present value.
Given that a hacker with a database of peeps' information and credit card details can't even approach that price per unit...
(btw Ed posted it; he works in finance, so he's looking at this through the economic perspective, which is a very relevant and required scope for all of this)
[EDIT2: One of my little 21 year old friends IMed me, asking me what I was up to while writing this, and after going on about it they were all "Oh yeah, I remember back in high school reading about some thing where when Facebook started getting really, really big, some venture capital firm was what gave them their initial funding and it was [linked?] to In-Q-Tel [or however the fuck it's spelled]." Anyway, didn't know if you already knew that, but yeah just felt like telling you that, because it also shows some relevance to how prevalent the knowledge is of this stuff and of the demographic that may know a bit and/or pay attention to it.]
I'm not suggesting persona management being the sole culprit/cause for this slowing down in growth, being that other things within society and the world need to be considered. It would be necessary to look at the data from Facebook to see where the peaks and drops are within all applicable variables that would have an effect on this.
Examples of variables to be considered:
a) Peaks/drops within specific demographics
i. Age [18-25, 35-50, etc...twitter had a boom when Oprah talked about it, and it opened it up to that market/demographic]
ii. Correlation between age/region/gender (Oprah example is demonstrative of this)
iii. Expansion within international markets within the past few years. International expansion may have simply reached a plateau recently. This is dependent on MANY factors, how intensive their business plan was for international expansion/target marketing, and the timeline in which they carried/are carrying it through
b) there was probably a steady increase and/or peaks in user growth following the release of The Social Network
c) Increase (and plateau) in accessibility
i. Technological accessibility: potential high correlation to 2009-2010 steady increase and the prevalence of smart phones, tablets, etc due to decrease in price
ii. Peaks and drops within international markets may be attributable to:
a. Increase in accessibility within the international markets/regions (e.g. facebook expanding language support, UX/UI customization for certain cultures/languages)
b. Increase in accessibility due to external factors (new/cheaper technologies developed or availability within whatever countries/markets, and/or third party support and integration for such things [smart phones etc])
c. Development of new cultural relevance and target marketing to varying demographics within cultures and countries
d) [i] Political or private sector pressure within specific regions for a decrease in Facebook's marketing and/or third-party integration and whatever of social networking stuffs, as some sort of attempt/precaution to regulate control and communication and public opinion, out of apprehension of a "Tunisia" or "Egypt" happening or whatever within their country - OR - [i] Facebook has shied its marketing arm within varying regions for a hot minute due to not wanting to cause problems with whatever governments, corporations or officials
e) General worldwide economic, political and w/e factors that affect everything in general or specific industries anyway
f) Decrease in persona management usage due to attention being paid to it (they've been doing that shit for years anyway so yeah)
Er, on the bit about part (or much) of the decrease being related to persona management, it MAY be due to the fact that attention is now more vigorously paid to it, and the media coverage on all of this will increase significantly over the next 2-3 years. Persona management stuff probably won't become common, public knowledge until another year or two or three (though, who knows), but they could be pulling back in a manner to change up their approach and step up their game in a manner. Because, like...shit would be way to obvious. AND! Also! another point on that -- the people, organizations, corporations, etc that buy the persona management licenses and such may be pulling back because once that shit becomes public knowledge, people will a) bitch about it and the policies for it (obv) and b) a demand will probably develop from people/users requesting new technology to verify a real human being. Our experience at present with verifying you're a human on the internet for the most part is reliant on CAPTCHA stuffs. So, really, within that, there will be pressure/demand for more verification that an internet user is actually human.
Though, on that last note (LOL FUTURE TALK), that brings up the question about anonymity on the internet, net neutrality and the tacit push/pull and implications of all these things, which is an interesting thought. Oh, balance! How hard it is to keep within the ebb and flow of life and fluid change and evolution of technology, society and polity. But, eh, it's aight as long as it's a forward motion - stagnation and regression are always lames.
Oh, also, if me sending relevant crap to you is weird for you, I could make some random alias to email you crap so you won't be reminded of me if you'd like. It's w/e. If this feels awkward/uncomfortable, I could do random email alias things. IT'S W/E. k yeah anyway