DSA Online | New Media Updates

A rather dubious report has been circling the internet today, and since it’s been picked up by several large news providers, I thought it merited commenting on.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/06/are-people-using-facebook-less-growth-slowing-u-s-canada.html

http://news.yahoo.com/s/digitaltrends/20110613/tc_digitaltrends/facebooktrafficplummetsintheus

Facebook is not failing in Canada, despite what these misleading stats would have you believe.

The articles use stats without enough context and leave out key information to sensationalize a story. Aside from general seasonal fluctuations that have been commented on by others already, the numbers they are using are misleading or flat out wrong.

The numbers being quoted are from Facebook’s self-serve advertising interface, and represent total active users within the last 30 days; it is not a accurate list of membership. These numbers are estimate at best, as when you apply targeting parameters such as geographic areas, the reach in a given area will often exceed the actual population. This number represents all active profiles, included multiple profiles, and doesn’t differentiate between inactive users and deleted profiles.

In Canada, ComScore is the primary measurement tool for measuring online activity and it has reported growth in Facebook’s reach in Canada every single month since May 2009 (as far back as I have info on file). Their numbers actually exceed Facebook’s profile count, as they estimated a reach of 21.1 million users in May (84% of the estimated online population). The extra traffic would be non-registered users that still end up viewing Facebook pages (fan pages, pictures linked from other sites etc.)

The most glaring problem I have with this article is that  they are using a slow down in new user growth as an indicator that the site is losing steam. As mentioned, Facebook already reaches 84% of Canadians, growth has to slow as a market reaches total saturation. Countries with high penetration simply don’t have any population left to add to the numbers. Look at Reddit.com in comparison: in Canada the estimate reach of Reddit increased by over 450% since March 2010 (noting that the traffic does swing wildly month to month), in the same period Facebook grew by only about 4%. Yet Facebook’s actual number increase was 937,000, compared to reddit’s increase of 345,000. Yes, Facebook’s percentage growth is small, but the actual increase in traffic is huge.

There are also glaring omissions from the source article when reported by newspapers:

“Bugs in the Facebook advertising tool that we draw this information from, seasonal changes like college graduations, and other short-term factors, can influence numbers month to month and obscure what’s really happening.”

…and this bit, covered by the LA Times, but ignored by Yahoo:

“Still, by the time Facebook reaches around 50% of the total population in a given country (plus or minus, depending on internet access rates in that country), growth generally slows to a halt, as we’ve noted before.”

That million user drop in Canada?

“Canada also fell significantly, by 1.52 million down to 16.6 million, although it has been fluctuating around that number for the past year.”

Facebook is an easy target and has generated a lot of backlash on privacy and security issues in the past; news sources know it makes a great headline. However, these articles are entirely based on a single report based on numbers generated by a self-serve advertising platform that is known to be a broad estimate at best. The source article admits these numbers are prone to fluctuation and even opens their article with the following quote, omitted by the newspapers:

“As we note below, we’ll need to wait to see what the long-term trends really are before knowing if Facebook is continuing to grow in the US and other countries.”

That omission speaks volumes about the quality of this content.

As a parting item, the poster of the original report has a follow up article today: http://www.insidefacebook.com/2011/06/13/available-data-shows-facebook-user-numbers-growing-quickly-or-slowly-or-falling/ This article indicates that other reporting source cannot corroborate the initial findings, and ComScore number in the US match the trends I’ve mentioned for Canada.

From Jacquie:

Women are more likely to share information on online community sites as opposed to social networking sites.

It’s been awhile since we’ve talked about Netflix and since everyone is all steamed up about the CRTC letting service providers meter usage I thought this article was fairly interesting. Basically, Netflix wants ISP providers to foot some of the bill for video streaming, it’s only fair right? Providers are saying NO WAY so Netflix is getting ready to flex some muscle – releasing a list, in order of “the best, most-consistent high speed Internet for streaming Netflix.” Could be embarrassing for some of the providers at the bottom of the list…

Speaking of streaming video. CLickZ Experts wrote this little diddy about the Highs and Lows of Advertising in Online TV.


From Zac:

It’s been entertaining watching the drama of Google’s very public, $6 billion purchase attempt of Groupon unfold and result in them launching their own competitor in Google Offers. There is talk of a revised revenue sharing schedule, but it will be interesting to see if they maintain the standard 50/50 commission split of most competitors.  

From Alexander:

Hulu may be having some problems with its content partners, as there are disagreements regarding ad revenue among the suppliers. This may become more of an issue as online video competes with traditional TV for content and advertising dollars. Hulu is not available in Canada, and may never be an affordable option, as Canadian ISPs are currently trying to ensure that viewing TV online is not a viable alternative to their archaic  packaged TV subscriptions.

From Shannon:

The IAB puts on some really fantastic courses and seminars.  These are great for a wide variety of people from agency professionals, to client side, and publishers.  I’ve been to a number of them, and have always walked away pumped to be a part of such an amazing industry.

Lately, there has been a counter-buzz about social media suggesting that we are seeing a decline in usage amongst Canadians, so we put our Raving Rabbids research hats on, played some video games, and (after putting our wii-motes down, & doing some real research) came up with some solid information. Essentially what we confirmed was that the face of social media is evolving, not necessarily declining. In January of 2010 almost all Canadian online teens (85%) had a Facebook account, so what we are seeing now is some stabilization and seasonal habit changes. ComScore shows that in January that youth (aged 2-17) logged 49 monthly Facebook visits per user, spending a monthly total of 8:15 hours chatting and updating their status. These numbers in June are lower at 39 monthly visits at 6.5 hours total, though during the same period for the same demographic total internet use has also declined from 80 visits a month to 63, so the Facebook decline mirrors overall internet use. This reduction may be a decay in interest in Facebook, although it also could be a seasonal trend which will change again once the blustery weather of fall and winter hits. I know I’ve been spending more time on the patio than I have playing Farmville lately. That brings me to the next point. Now that the teens have been on Facebook for a few years, the demographic that is seeing the most growth is the females aged 50+. They are finding old classmates and keeping informed of what their kids are up to. More and more studies are starting to pop up showing Moms as key brand influencers via social networks. I know many people who are taking a look at how they use Facebook, and some are deciding that they would prefer it to be used more as a social tool, to coordinate events etc rather than a way to interact with their best buds. Read more

This is a cool map.
You know – except for the part where we spend $6.50 per mbps.