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[rcjordan]

* 400 million active users
* 50% check in EVERY DAY
* Average user spends 55 MINUTES PER DAY
* 35 million update status every day
* 3 billion photos uploaded each month
* 5 billion pieces of content shared every day
* 70% of users are outside the United Sates

Check out this site's stats compilation:
http://www.website-monitoring.com/blog/2010/03/17/facebook-facts-and-figures-history-statistics/

About here, I guess I should mention that FB's selling your personal data again.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_may_share_user_data_with_external_sites_a.php


But here's what's wow-ing me the most... As many of you know, I live in a rural area in NC.   I eat lunch at a great little farmboy/country restaurant at least twice a week. And while there, without trying to eavesdrop, on average I hear the waitresses and customers referencing FB info (verbally) at least once each time I go. Now I'd expect this in a Starbucks in SF, but for it to be common, everyday occurrence out here in the hinterlands ...that's a jawdropper.

BTW, I hear Google mentioned at this restaurant about once a month, if that much.

[nutballs]

But here's what's wow-ing me the most... As many of you know, I live in a rural area in NC.   I eat lunch at a great little farmboy/country restaurant at least twice a week. And while there, without trying to eavesdrop, on average I hear the waitresses and customers referencing FB info (verbally) at least once each time I go. Now I'd expect this in a Starbucks in SF, but for it to be common, everyday occurrence out here in the hinterlands ...that's a jawdropper.

Interestingly I would suppose that FB is mentioned more in less congested areas because there is less opportunity for 1:1 social interaction with as large a crowd. In a metro you got all your friends within a 30 minute drive, and your far flung friends dont overlap much with your local friends. I think in bumblefuck you tend to have more things like "wow can you believe Johny when to college 500 miles away!? He's always been 'different'". I only hear it from retarded 13 year old girls at restaurants trying not to die from being with their mom all day...

[rcjordan]

It's the women. Can't say I've ever heard a man bring up FB in conversation. #1 use seems to be a sort of communal baby-pix cloud, mostly among close friends that they see fairly often.  Saves hauling photos of Bubba, Jr. around in the wallet.  #2 use is to guide someone to a mutual acquaintance.

[nop_90]

In PH the biggie was friendster (you guys remember that)  ?
I think at its peak (2 years ago) it had like 50-60M people who logged in min of 2x a week.
There are still some pinoys that use friendster, but most of them have switched over to facebook.

In PH, twitter is not the biggie, but multiply is. Almost everyone who has a FB/Friendster account has a multiply account.

Again a land of huge contrasts. In a family you can have one brother who got a PHD on scholarship from a prominent western university. Meanwhile his other brother is basically an enforcer. So probably the educated brother can tell you about how the internet literally works.

Meanwhile there are 75% of people who i suspect literally do not even know what the internet is. More scarey is they are using FB,Friendster and multiply. They use it mainly to connect with OFW, show them pictures of how life is back home, and to tell them to send more money.

Social networking is huge here. Filipinos are very social people. It is more just an extension of their regular lives. Do they have any idea how it works ? Probably not. But then again everyone knows that drinking and driving does not cause accidents, it is cause by "little people" who push your vehical off the road.

[rcjordan]

But wait! There's more!

According to FB "people click Like almost two times more than they click Become a Fan"

so....

"Facebook’s making a small wording change with some potentially big implications."

and...

"it means that the change could make it easier for brand advertisers to accumulate fans quickly. But it also means that users might not totally understand what they’re opting in to. After all, becoming a fan means that you’ll start receiving updates from the brand in your News Feed."

In order to grease the wheels of commerce....

"According to an email obtained by MediaMemo, Facebook is alerting advertisers to the impending change"

http://mashable.com/2010/03/29/facebook-fan-like/

[kurdt]

Soon FB will be the place where old people hang out. Like your mom, aunt and even grandma.

[Phaëton]

Its so wide open i have a few fake fb accounts and i have scores of 'friends' and an inbox
full of messages: 'do i know you>?' the answer is no  but i have all their phone numbers
and everything hahahaha i just ask to be friends and they accept, exposing all their info
to me

again, supernews dealt with this topic in a very funny and interesting way:

http://4sp.in/36G

http://4sp.in/36H

7 minutes of interesting perspective on social networking and the way the web works now

[Phaëton]

http://4sp.in/36I

The last short segment about social networking.. all three of these are worth a watch...

'i dont know... i have to decide who my funniest friend is and theres this whole pirate / ninja war going on'

[kurdt]

Hehe.. those vids are truly accurate

[isthisthingon]

Soon FB will be the place where old people hang out. Like your mom, aunt and even grandma.

 

Though something is incredibly striking to me about this.  So 70% of the users exist outside of the US.  Hmmm.  But signing 111,212,840 out of roughly 310,000,000 people is insane.  And about a quarter of those Americans don't even have Internet access.

In other words, Facebook is culturally key in America where this is not the case in other countries with less per capita users 

[rcjordan]

>Soon FB will be the place where old people hang out. Like your mom, aunt and even grandma.

What do you mean by soon? From what I can gather it's that way now.  Look at those stats again:

  * 50% check in EVERY DAY
  * Average user spends 55 MINUTES PER DAY
  * 3 BILLION photos uploaded each month

It'd have to be an amateur porn site before men would spend an hour per day looking at 3 billion newly uploaded photos.

[isthisthingon]

It's an interesting yet wholly predictable cycle.  The kids all collect at their cool new virtual hangout, like Friendster.  Touchy the clown and his fiddly friends plague said youngsters with unsolicited photo ops.  Kids run to Myspace where soon they're spotted by "researchers" at the sex offender clown house.  Then it's off to Facebook.  FB is no longer cool but its tentacles are hard to escape.  For one thing, they saw the value of having leveling-based games freely offered to their user base.  When I finally stopped playing Mafia Wars I was somewhere around level 300.  I go back from time to time because they incentivize me to do so.  There are more of these roll playing, leveling type games than you can shake a stick at. 

Now let's look at another hook.  Forget the leveling games and play the Sims-style games where who's kidding who, but it's a massive hookup scene.  Whether you wish to meet others in real life or just IM while virtually dancing with some Wii-like toon (real picture of cute girl floating on top of Lego lover), it's thoroughly addicting and millions are hooked.

But Facebook may still Friendster out on the world.  LinkedIn, on the other hand, has a real value that persists for eternity.  Like hell I'm gonna delete my LinkedIn account when the CEO of Dell gave me such a fantastic personal recommendation

[perkiset]

I think FaceBook has moved beyond the traditional cycles. It's not hip with kids anymore, that much is true: but the stats do point to a kind of ubiquity that is going to be hard to shake. I think it's their game to lose, much like Google may/may not be any good, but they've got the mo and the critical mass to hold position.

I think Facebook *may* have crossed that threshold.

[Phaëton]

LinkedIn, on the other hand, has a real value that persists for eternity.  Like hell I'm gonna delete my LinkedIn account when the CEO of Dell gave me such a fantastic personal recommendation

Linked in... to what?

 

again, supernews covered it:

http://4sp.in/36J

'craig we worked together at the dairy swirl, will you write a recommendation for me?'

'no problemo, so long as you write me one'

Everyone: Ill write you one.

'Then who reads those recommendations?'

Everyone: NOBODY!

[isthisthingon]

 

Thanks for the morning lift Phaëton.  Holy Christ those are funny.

"There goes my hero."