Facebook will LOSE 80% of its users by 2017

snoopy · Jan 23, 2014

I won't be bothered by the loss of Facebook ... I personally think it is popular because of hype .. there are other ways of staying in touch with family & friends that are much safer.

Facebook will LOSE 80% of its users by 2017 – epidemiological study
Just like an outbreak of the Ebola virus, stalkbooking will eventually run its course.

The internet has seized with glee on a Princeton research paper that suggests Facebook will be a virtually abandoned, tumbleweed-riddled corner of the web by 2017, when the social network's "outbreak" will have run its course.

Princeton PhD students Joshua Spechler and Johan Cannarella used epidemiological modelling, traditionally employed to track the growth patterns of infectious diseases, to predict Facebook's imminent demise, citing the way that MySpace peaked in 2008 and then rapidly disappeared in three years.

According to the students' paper, Facebook is "just beginning to show the onset of an abandonment phase", after reaching its popularity peak in 2012, which will lead to it losing 80 per cent of its peak user base between 2015 and 2017.

The paper, which has yet to be peer-reviewed and is available here (PDF), uses Google search query data to determine popularity and shows a downward trend in search frequency from last year.

Whether or not the paper stands up to academic scrutiny remains to be seen, but the study has certainly stirred up some mild controversy and few belly laughs from the gallery.
Click to expand...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/23/facebook_disease_study/

BSchwarz · Jan 24, 2014

I do believe it will run its course. The problem is what will replace it? Just about no one mourned when MySpace went dead and I doubt anyone will mourn Facebook. I just hope something worse doesn't show in its place.

snoopy · Jan 24, 2014

BSchwarz said: ↑

I do believe it will run its course. The problem is what will replace it? Just about no one mourned when MySpace went dead and I doubt anyone will mourn Facebook. I just hope something worse doesn't show in its place.
Click to expand...

Facebook debunks Princeton's STUDY OF DOOM in epic comeback
In a mock study Mike Develin, Lada Adamic, and Sean Taylor, of Facebook's data team, used the same methods as the original paper to show that Princeton was facing a decline in undergraduates of 50 per cent in the next four years and would have none at all by 2021. They also used the same logic to show the world will run out of air by 2060. "We don’t really think Princeton or the world’s air supply is going anywhere soon. We love Princeton (and air). As data scientists, we wanted to give a fun reminder that not all research is created equal – and some methods of analysis lead to pretty crazy conclusions," the Facebook trio said.

The team gently points out that the two PhD students from Princeton's department of mechanical and aerospace engineering had fallen into one of the oldest traps in the book, the assumption that "correlation equals causation." The duo were using [PDF] historical Google search query data as a metric for users, then sought to fit a data curve to the model, working on the assumption that social network membership was spread by friends and would follow a decline as people dropped out, in the same way that flu outbreaks grow and spread. To back this up they used data from MySpace's birth, explosive growth, and then decline to "prove" their point.

By applying the same logic, Facebook's own study now shows Princeton is in a similar pickle, with declining interest among Google users, indicating the institution - established in 1746 – will be student-free by 2021 as fewer people are searching Google for information on the place.

To confirm this finding, the Mark Zuckerberg-led Facebook looked at the mentions of Princeton academic papers that cropped up on Google and found that it has declined sharply since 2009, and is still falling. This correlates the Google Search data and makes Facebook's case that Princeton is doomed.
Click to expand...

Full story here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/24/facebook_princeton_study_debunked/

Log in or Sign up

Facebook will LOSE 80% of its users by 2017

snoopy Registered Members

BSchwarz Guest

snoopy Registered Members

Share This Page

Log in or Sign up

Facebook will LOSE 80% of its users by 2017

snoopy Registered Members

BSchwarz Guest

snoopy Registered Members

Share This Page

Useful Searches